"He's been at our grog-bottles; that's
what's opened his lips. He never has any of
his own, and you saw him come up from the
saloon," said Captain Graham shaking himself
out of a doze.

But his sister was all astonishment. " Who
is she, and what is she bound to do? It
can't be this ship, for he pointed out to
sea."

"Never mind miss," said Mr. Minchin—
a lean yellow-faced man, who looked like an
American, though he called himself English.
"Perhaps he's got somebody after him;
who knows? " and he winked mysteriously
not so much at any one person as at the
whole ship's crew. " Though when I'm after a
man myself I take good care he shan't know
much about it."

"You after a man, Mr. Minchin ? why,
what do you go after him for ? "

"Well ma'am, for various reasons;
sometimes for one thing and sometimes for
another. Now, there was the captain of the
Golden Fleece. I followed that man four
years, and I'll tell you how it happened.

"The Golden Fleece was bound from California
to Liverpool, and, besides a very
valuable cargo of furs and such like, she had
on board a quarter of a million in gold-dust
and nuggets. Pretty pickings among that,
I can tell you,—and so thought the Captain—
Jones, his name was. Now, I dare
say, Captain Jones didn't like the risks of a
voyage home; so after he had been at sea
ten days, he ran the Golden Fleece on a rock
about a mile from the shore, and then he and
the crew took to the boats. Well, of course
he wrote home to the owners how the Golden
Fleece was wrecked off the coast of California,
and how he and the crew only just
escaped with their lives. And of course,
the owners didn't like it; nor the
underwriters didn't like it; for they were let
in for a quarter of a million besides the
worth of the vessel, and the fifty thousand
pound sterling that the cargo was valued at;
and that's no joke.

"So after a few months they sends for me.
'Mr. Minchin,' says they, 'this is a very
lame story! '

"' It is,' says I, ' very lame.'

"'Captain Jones don't come home,' says
they.

" ' No,' says I, ' nor I don't suppose he's
very likely to come home.'

" 'Mr. Minchin. will you go out and see after
the Golden Fleece? '

" ' I will,' says I.

"'And will you says they, 'learn something
about Captain Jones ? Never mind
the time, and never mind the expense, but
don't come back to England without Captain
Jones.'

" ' If Captain Jones is to be found,' says I;
' I'll find him, dead or alive.'

"Well, ma'am, of course this was not the first
time by many that I'd been on some such
errand ; and for one cause or another I've
been sent out from Lloyd's, to places all over
the world almost, where vessels have been
wrecked.

"But not to weary you, ma'am, and the
company, with an account of the voyage and
adventures, — and indeed we had none of the
latter, except that in crossing the isthmus of
Panama, which was not so quiet then as
it is now, we wiped out a small party of
Indians— "

" Wiped them out, Mr. Minchin?"

" Well, miss, if we hadn't wiped them out.,
they'd have wiped us out: I'll tell you the
whole story some day. But to go back to the
Golden Fleece. I went along the coast — and
I found her. There she was, just in as good
condition as on the day when the crew
deserted her. I went on board at low water,
and found that Captain Jones had run her
on a sharp-pointed rock, which fitted into
her just like a wedge; the water couldn't
get in, and she couldn't get off or be got off
without considerable trouble. I went over
her and found the cargo all right enough;
nothing touched there, and very little
damaged. But all the gold was gone, ma'am,
which I had expected from the first. Well.
I first of all got out the cargo, and sent that
home, and then, did the best I could about
the ship.

"After that, thinks I to myself, 'Now,
Captain Jones, it's your turn; and a pretty
stiff turn it'll be for you, or my name ain't
Minchin.' I wasn't in no manner of hurry
you must remember for I knew he couldn't
spend the money, and I knew he daren't
invest it, or make much stir about it in any
way. So my object was to find him, and to
find him quietly, and make him give it
up.

"Well! You'll, may be , hardly believe it , but
it was three years before I could come upon
that man's track. I did come upon it at
last, though, and I was pretty sure I had
found him in a Mr. Weeks, settled in Canada.
Naturally, business took me to the place
where Mr. Weeks lived, and I soon picked
up acquaintance with him.

"He was Captain Jones. I found out that;
and before long I was more sure than ever
that he had neither spent the money nor
invested it; but where he'd got it I couldn't
tell.

"After a time Mr. Weeks and I got to be
very great friends, and at the end of six
months Mr. Weeks began to talk of how he
should like to go into business—something in
the commercial line—as he had a small,
capital to invest. 'Very small!' thinks I
to myself. ' Only a quarter of a million! '
However, I said that was just what I was
looking out for, too, and so to make a long
story short, we agreed to enter into partnership,
and by my advice we were to go first to
Liverpool, and make arrangements with
different firms there.