"But it will be worth a hundred thousand in ten years," Frederick had
objected.

"Call it so. Say I quitclaim everything for a hundred thousand. Sell it
for ten and let me have it. It's all I want, and I want it now. You can
have the rest."

And Tom had had his will as usual (the block had been mortgaged instead
of sold), and sailed away in the old schooner, the benediction of the
town upon his head, for he had carried away in his crew half the
riff-raff of the beach.

The bones of the schooner had been left on the coast of Java. That had
been when Eliza Travers was being operated on for her eyes, and
Frederick had kept it from her until indubitable proof came that Tom was
still alive.

Frederick went over to his files and drew out a drawer labelled "Thomas
Travers." In it were packets, methodically arranged. He went over the
letters. They were from everywhere--China, Rangoon, Australia, South
Africa, the Gold Coast, Patagonia, Armenia, Alaska. Briefly and
infrequently written, they epitomised the wanderer's life. Frederick ran
over in his mind a few of the glimpsed highlights of Tom's career. He
had fought in some sort of foreign troubles in Armenia. He had been an
officer in the Chinese army, and it was a certainty that the trade he
later drove in the China Seas was illicit. He had been caught running
arms into Cuba. It seemed he had always been running something somewhere
that it ought not to have been run. And he had never outgrown it. One
letter, on crinkly tissue paper, showed that as late as the
Japanese-Russian War he had been caught running coal into Port Arthur