OF THE SOUTH SEAS 165 



The men were bearded like the pard, and in tattered 

 garments, their feet bare. The one at the helm was 

 evidently an officer, for neither of the others made a 

 move until he gave the order: 



"Throw that line ashore!" 



Goeltz seized it and made fast to a ring-bolt, and then 

 only at another command did the two stand up. We 

 seized their hands and pulled them up on the wall. 

 They were as rugged as lions in the open, burned as 

 brown as Moros, their hair and beards long and ragged, 

 and their powerful, lean bodies showing through their 

 rags. 



"What ship are you from?" I inquired eagerly. 



The steersman regarded me narrowly, his eyes squint- 

 ing, and then said taciturnly, "Schooner El Dorado/^ 

 He said it almost angrily, as if he were forced to con- 

 fess a crime. Then I saw the name on the boat, ''El 

 Dorado S. F." 



"Didn't I tell you so?" asked Lying Bill, who was 

 in the crowd now gathered. "George, did n't I say the 

 El Dorado would turn up?" 



He glared at Goeltz for a sign of assent, but the re- 

 tired salt sought kudos for himself. 



"I saw her first," he replied. "I was having a Doctor 

 Funk when I looked toward the pass, and saw at once 

 that it was a queer one." 



The shipwrecked trio shook themselves like dogs out 

 of the water. They were stiff in the legs. The two 

 rowers smiled, and when I handed each of them a cigar, 

 they grinned, but one said : 



"After we 've e't. Our holds are empty. We 've 

 come thirty-six hundred miles in that dinghy." 



