time. He had his choice, based on bitter experience, between
three days' debauch among the sharks and harpies of the Barbary
Coast and a whole winter of wholesome enjoyment and sociability,
and there wasn't any doubt of the way he was going to choose.

Said Axel Gunderson, who didn't care for dancing and social
functions: "I've got a good pay-day. Now I can go home. It is
fifteen years since I've seen my mother and all the family. When
I pay off, I shall send my money home to wait for me. Then I'll
pick a good ship bound for Europe, and arrive there with another
pay-day. Put them together, and I'll have more money than ever in
my life before. I'll be a prince at home. You haven't any idea
how cheap everything is in Norway. I can make presents to
everybody, and spend my money like what would seem to them a
millionaire, and live a whole year there before I'd have to go
back to sea."

"The very thing I'm going to do," declared Red John. "It's three
years since I've received a line from home and ten years since I
was there. Things are just as cheap in Sweden, Axel, as in
Norway, and my folks are real country folk and farmers. I'll send
my pay-day home and ship on the same ship with you for around the
Horn. We'll pick a good one."

And as Axel Gunderson and Red John painted the pastoral delights
and festive customs of their respective countries, each fell in
love with the other's home place, and they solemnly pledged to
make the journey together, and to spend, together, six months in
the one's Swedish home and six months in the other's Norwegian
home. And for the rest of the voyage they could hardly be pried