Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

28 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY ance of having to acknowledge this man. I'm sorry." "Of course I can't know, Etherington," said the girl slowly, "what kind of man he may be — or anything about him. But — you said just now he might tell from my sending that I was a girl. I wonder if I mightn't tell from his — well, maybe a little bit about the way hd is. Why, I knew, before he told me, that he wasn't a regular operator. So, somehow, I think, you or those people at Guam who warned you of him must have— have made a mistake. I shall go to father now." She moved toward the door. "Thank you, of course, for anything you have tried to save me." The man stood back as the girl passed him. He said nothing more then, and neither spoke of it again that day. But Frances found herself thinking, for the first time in her life, that a friend had lied to her. CHAPTER II. THE FIGHT FOR GOLD. Frances Durant awoke with a start at half past three o'clock the next morning. "Seven !" She counted the clanging strokes of the ship's bell which announced the hour. She arose, and, throwing back the curtain from the porthole of her cabin, stared questioningly into the dull, impenetrable blackness of the tropic night. "Oh — we've stopped !" she exclaimed, as she recognized that the floor and sides and ceiling of the cabin had ceased shaking and vibrating with the turn of the turbines. The ship was sliding easily now over smoother water. "And the engines are reversing !" The cabin shook suddenly again ; but. instead of pushing ahead, seemed to tremble and tug against momentum. "But we've stopped again !" Everything became steady and still. She listened to the rattle and run of chains at the bow. Then followed a heavy, plumping splash. "And now we're anchored — in Bagol Bay." "Anchored, sir, on a fair bottom in four fathoms !" She heard the quartermaster's hail as she climbed into her bunk again. "Very good! The light anchor will do. Let her swing with the tide !" The answer came back guardedly in Pinckney's voice. "Etherington ! Why, he's stayed up till now — half past three — to see the anchoring ! Something strange surely about these Bagol gold claims which that Filipino tried to sell him at Guam ! Why " She lay back in the dark, to puzzle out with herself the quick succession of questions which her alert young mind presented. But they were hard to answer. From the time she was a very little girl— and particularly in these years following her mother's death — Frances had been, even in many business associations, the constant companion of her lonely father. In such an association, his opinions and estimates of men were sure to influence and form, to a very great degree, his daughter's mind. But Frances was just beginning to realize how very great a part her comradeship with her father had in her choice of friends. This tall, handsome, and capable Etherington Pinckney, for instance. From the first she had naturally, unquestioningly, almost unconsciously followed her father's habit of never doubting, or even inquiring; but always approving and admiring this clever and trusted young man. As Frances watched his career and saw him successively supplanting and distancing all other competitors for her father's confidence, it was almost inevitable that he should have gained, at the same time, a prior claim to her consideration. For not only did Etherington himself believe this, but even her father clearly counted it as the natural and right thing. So Frances had allowed herself to fall in with this point of view quite unconsciously ; at least, she had not consciously avoided it. But now she had been having a most exceptional opportunity to observe this young man away from the big offices, where he was the admired master, and. stripped of the glamour of his intricate business operations, which she could not understand, she was able to estimate the man as he was. And, as she saw him now, what was he really to her? She could not tell as yet, she must admit to herself. Many things puzzled her ; but little had happened as yet. He had made her angry when, to insure his chance of getting at those Bagol gold claims, he had persuaded her father to let him land and keep her still shut up on the yacht. But that pejty annoyance had passe at once into the bigger puzzle of — what She did not know. Eight bells struck — four o'clock in th< morning. The hail and answer of Cap tain Adrian and the soft shuffling of thi| changing watch aroused her momentar ily. The next thing she rememberer was the sharp clangor of four bells, twe hours later. The rattle of boat blocks and davits i the jingling and ring of metal, startler the girl's strained ears. Then followerstrange thuds upon the decks ; the tumble of men into a boat, the fumble 01 oars alongside, and the muttering of the hands as they pushed from the yacht's side. Frances sprang up, as in the night, and threw back the curtains from her port; but a smothering, damp, and smoky grayness clouded the glass. Ten minutes later, as she came out on deck, the day — bright, glaring day. with its burning sun already overhead — lay spread all about. Beneath the glistening bows of the anchored yacht the Sulu Sea, limpid and lukewarm, lay like a lagoon ; and beyond, the white beaches of the bay bounded thickets of tall trees, which reached almost to the water front. Skirting that shining shore for a convenient sand spit to land upon, the boat which had left the yacht's side a few moments before was now turned broadside to the girl's gaze. She could count the men in it. Six sailors pulled at the oars, and three others, besides the man steering, sat in the stern. From among these the tall, khaki-clad figure of Etherington Pinckney stood out clearly. Frances stepped swiftly back to her cabin for her binoculars. When she returned to the rail and focused the glasses, she saw that the men were already landing and mooring the boat against the slow slip of the tide. Each man carried a rifle slung over his shoulder. Pinckney had the brown holster of a service revolver strapped to his waist. After a short parley and apparent reconnoitering of a rude path, which Frances now perceived through the tangle of vegetation, the ten started inland and vanished silently into the jungle. Frances turned to find her father and demand an explanation of this strange behavior ; but she recollected that it must be quite two hours before he would