She lay practically beside them. She was
the United States revenue cutter _Bear._
"But so long as they can't _smell_ sea-otter skin," remarked Hardenberg,
"I don't know that we're any the worse."
"All the syme," observed Ally Bazan, "I don't want to lose no bloomin'
tyme a-pecking up aour bloomin' A.B.'s."
"I'll stay aboard and tend the baby," said Hardenberg with a wink. "You
two move along ashore and get what you can--Scoovies for choice. Take
Slick Dick with you. I reckon a change o' air might buck him up."
When the three had gone, Hardenberg, after writing up the painfully
doctored log, set to work to finish a task on which the adventurers had
been engaged in their leisure moments since leaving Point Barrow. This
was the counting and sorting of the skins. The packing-case had been
broken open, and the scanty but precious contents littered an improvised
table in the hold. Pen in hand, Hardenberg counted and ciphered and
counted again. He could not forbear a chuckle when the net result was
reached. The lot of the skins--the pelt of the sea-otter is ridiculously
small in proportion to its value--was no heavy load for the average man.
But Hardenberg knew that once the "loot" was safely landed at the
Hongkong pierhead the Three Crows would share between them close upon
ten thousand dollars. Even--if they had luck, and could dispose of the
skins singly or in small lots--that figure might be doubled.
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