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“S’y, we never wyted to hear no more, but hyked awye hot foot. S’y, wot all now. Oh, mee Gord! eyen’t it a rum gao for fair? S’y, let’s get aout o’ here, Hardy, dear. ”

“Look there,” said Hardenberg, jerking his head toward the cutter, “how far’d we get before the customs would ‘a’ passed the tip toher and she’d started to overhaul us? That’s what they feed her for—to round up the likes o’ us. ”

“We got to do something rather soon,” put in Strokher. “Here comes the custom house dinghy now. ”

As a matter of fact, a boat was putting off from the dock. At her stern fluttered the custom house flag.

“Bitched—bitched for fair!” cried Ally Bazan.

“Quick, now!” exclaimed Hardenberg. “On the jump! Overboard with that loot!—or no. Steady! That won’t do. There’s that dam’ cutter. They’d see it go. Here!—into the galley. There’s a fire in the stove. Get a move on!”

“Wot!” wailed Ally Bazan. “Burn the little joker. Gord, Ican’t, Hardy, Ican’t. It’s agin human nature. ”

“You can do time in San Quentin, then, for felony,” retorted Strokher as he and Hardenberg dashed by him, their arms full of the skins. “You can do time in San Quentin else. Make your choice. I put it to you as between man and man. ”

With set teeth, and ever and again glancing over the rail at the oncoming boat, the two fed their fortune to the fire. The pelts, partially cured and still fatty, blazed like crude oil, the hair crisping, the hides melting into rivulets of grease. For a minute the schooner reeked of the smell and a stifling smoke poured from the galley stack. Then the embers of the fire guttered and a long whiff of sea wind blew away the reek. A single skin, fallen in the scramble, still remained on the floor of the galley. Hardenberg snatched it up, tossed it into the flames and clapped the door to. “Now, let him squeal,” he declared. “You fellows, when that boat gets here, letme talk; keep your mouths shut or, by God, we’ll all wear stripes. ”

The Three Crows watched the boat’s approach in a silence broken only once by a long whimper from Ally Bazan. “An’ it was a-workin’ out as lovely as Billy-oh,” he said, “till that syme underbred costermonger’s swipe remembered he was Methody—an’ him who, only a few d’ys back, went raound s’yin’ ‘scrag the “Boomskys”!’ A couple o’ thousand pounds gone as quick as look at it. Oh, I eyn’t never goin’ to git over this. ”

The boat came up and the Three Crows were puzzled to note that no brass-buttoned personage sat in the stern-sheets, no harbour police glowered at them from the bow, no officer of the law fixed them with the eye of suspicion. The boat was manned only by a couple of freight-handlers in woolen Jerseys, upon the breasts of which were affixed the two letters “C. H. ”

“Say,” called one of the freight-handlers, “is this theBertha Millner?”

“Yes,” answered Hardenberg, his voice at a growl. “An’ what might you want with her, my friend?”

“Well, look here,” said the other, “one of your hands came ashore mad as a coot and broke into the house of the American Consul, and resisted arrest and raised hell generally. The inspector says you got to send a provost guard or something ashore to take him off. There’s been several mix-ups among ships’ crews lately and the town——”

The tide drifted the boat out of hearing, and Hardenberg sat down on the capstan head, turning his back to his comrades. There was a long silence. Then he said: