Williams news., 1922-06-09
CHAPTER xIII-continued.
Copyright, by Peter B. Kyne

A Jacobs ladder was hanging over the side of the schooner as the canoe shot in under her lee quarter, and half minute later the expectant Neils stepped upon her deck. A tall dark man, wearing an ancient palmleaf hat, sat smoking on the hatch coam- ing, and him Neils Halvorsen ad- dressed.
 "Aye bane want to see Cap'n Scraggs," he said.
 The tall dark man stood erect and east a quick, questioning look at Neils Halyorsen. He hesitated before he made answer.
 "what do you want?' he asked de uberateIy. and there was subtle menace in his tones. As for Neffs HaIvorsen, thinking only of the sur prise he had fin store for his old em- ployer. he replied evasively:
 "Aye bane want job"
 "WeII, I'm Captain Scraggs, and haven't any job for you. Get off my boat and wait until you're invited be fore you come aboard again.
 For nearly a minute Neils Halvor- sen stared open-mouthed at the spurf- ous Captain Scraggs, while slowly there sifted through his brain the no- tioD that he had happened across the
  of the seas There was something rotten in Denmark" Of that Neils HaIvorsen was certain. More he could not be certain of until he had paved the way for a complete investigation. and as preliminary step toward that end he clinched his fist and sprang swiftly toward the bogus skip per.
 Aye tank you bane d-n liar," he muttered, and struck home. straight and true, to the point of the jaw. The man went down. and in an in stant Neils was on top of him. Off came the sailors belt, the hands of the half-stunned man were quickly tied behind him. and before he had time to realize what had happened Neils had cut a length of cord from a trailing flaIyard and tied his feet securely, after which he gagged him securely with his bandana handker- chief.
 A quick circuit of the ship con- vinced Neiis Halvorsen that the re- mainder of the dastard crew were evidently ashore, so he descended to the cabin in search of further evil dence of crime. He was quite pre- pared to find Captain Scraggs' mas ter's certificate in it's familiar oaken frame. hanging on the cabin wall. but he was Himfounded to observe. hang ing on the wall in similar and equally famibar frame, the certificate of Adeibert P. Gibney as first mate of steam or sail, any ocean and any tonnage. But still a third framed certificate hung on the wall, and Neils l again scratched his head when he 1 read the wording that set forth the l l<-~, sG<<,A ~V<~ McGuffey to hold down a job as chief engineer of coastwise vessels | up to 1.200 tons net register.
 It was patent. even to the dull | witted Swede, that there had been l foul play somewhere. and the schoon- | CTS log, lying open the table, | seemed to offer the first means at | hand for solution of the mystery. | Eagerly Neils turned to the last en- try. It was not in Captain Scraggs' handwriting, and contained nothing | more interesting than the stereotyped reports of daily observations, cur rents, weather conditions, etc, in- cluding a notation of arrival that day at Honolulu. Slowly Halvorsan turned the leaves backward, ure1 at last he was rewarded by a glimpse of different handwriting. It was the
 
 writing, and read as follows:
 June N, 19-. Took an observation at l noon, and find that we in 2O@48 S., | 17s-4 W. At this rate should lift Tuvana- tholo early this afternoon. All hands we'll and looking forward to the fun at Tuvana- Bent new flying tib this morn ing and had the king and Tabu-Tabu hoiystone the deck- A. P. CHENEY" Neils Halvorsen sat down to think, l and after several minutes of this un- usual exercise 1t appeared to the Swede that he had stumbled upon a clue to the situation. The last entry in the log kept by MT. Gibney was under; date of June 21st-just eleven days ago. and on that date MT. Gib- ney had been looking forward to some fun at Tuvana-tholo. Now where was that island and what kind of place was it?
 Neils searched through the cabin until he came across the book that is the bible of every South sea trading British admiralty reports Down the index went the old deck hands calloused finger and paused at Friendly islands-page 177;" where upon Nei1s opened the book at page TIT and after a f1ve-mfnute search discovered that Tuvana-tholo was barren, uninhabited island in latitude 21-2 south. longitude 17S-4o west.
 Ten days from the Friendly islands, the paper said. That meant under power and sail with the trades abaft the beam- It would take nearer fif-