jaw grew salient, prognathous.

"Son," he exclaimed, gimleting Wilbur with his contracted eves; "I
have reemarked as how you had brains. I kin fool the coolies, but
I can't fool you. It looks to me as if that bark yonder was a
derelict; an' do you know what that means to us? Chaw on it a
turn."

"A derelict?"

"If there's a crew on board they're concealed from the public
gaze--an' where are the boats then? I figger she's an abandoned
derelict. Do you know what that means for us--for you and I? It
means," and gripping Wilbur by the shoulders, he spoke the word
into his face with a savage intensity. "It means salvage, do you
savvy?--salvage, salvage. Do you figger what salvage on a seven-
hundred-tonner would come to? Well, just lemmee drop it into your
think tank, an' lay to what I say. It's all the ways from fifty
to seventy thousand dollars, whatever her cargo is; call it sixty
thousand--thirty thou' apiece. Oh, I don't know!" he exclaimed,
lapsing to landman's slang. "Wha'd I say about a million to one
on the unexpected at sea?"

"Thirty thousand!" exclaimed Wilbur, without thought as yet.

"Now y'r singin' songs," cried the Captain. "Listen to me, son,"
he went on, rapidly shutting up the glass and thrusting it back in
the case; "my name's Kitchell, and I'm hog right through." He
emphasized the words with a leveled forefinger, his eyes flashing.
H--O--G spells very truly yours, Alvinza Kitchell--ninety-nine