"They are bound to run him down," said Tom. "A man that skips out with nothing, and a man that skips out with a quarter of a million, are in two different classes; and it wouldn't surprise me the least bit if there was six ships aiming for Manihiki simultaneous."
By the time I started back to find Old Dibs I was worked up to quite a fever, and I'd keep looking over my shoulder expecting every minute to see one of them six ships in the pass. He had finished breakfast and had gone, and so I followed him over to the weather side, where, as usual, he was sitting under his tarpaulin in the graveyard, tootling for all he was worth. He looked up, a little surprised to see me, and I guess ships were running through his head also, for that was his first question.
I sat down on a near-by grave.
"The fack is, Mr. Smith," I said, very meaningly, "you paid me a little visit last night and I paid you one."
"Oh, my God!" he said, turning whiter than paper, and the voice coming out of him like an old man's.
"There's no 'my God' about it," I said. "But me and Tom Riley's been talking it over, and we'd like to bear a hand to help you."
"It's mine," he said, very defiant, and trembling. "It's mine, every penny of it, and honest come by."
"No doubt," I said, "but would I be guessing wrong if there were others who didn't think so?"
"There are others," he said at last, seeing, I suppose, that my face looked friendly, and realizing that me and Tom would hardly take this tack if we meant to massacre him in his sleep.
"Mr. Smith," I said, "you never had two better friends than Bill Hargus or Tom Riley."