but there was an unpleasant shiftiness to his brown
eyes; and then, entirely outside of his former reasons for
hating him, Billy came to loathe him intuitively, as one who
was not to be trusted. Finally his dislike for the man became
an obsession. He haunted, when discipline permitted,
that part of the vessel where he would be most likely to
encounter the object of his wrath, hoping, always hoping, that
the "dude" would give him some slight pretext for "pushing
in his mush," as Billy would so picturesquely have worded it.

He was loitering about the deck for this purpose one
evening when he overheard part of a low-voiced conversation
between the object of his wrath and Skipper Simms--just
enough to set him to wondering what was doing, and to show
him that whatever it might be it was crooked and that the
immaculate passenger and Skipper Simms were both "in on
it."

He questioned "Bony" Sawyer and "Red" Sanders, but
neither had nearly as much information as Billy himself, and
so the Halfmoon came to Honolulu and lay at anchor some
hundred yards from a stanch, trim, white yacht, and none
knew, other than the Halfmoon's officers and her single
passenger, the real mission of the harmless-looking little brigantine.



CHAPTER III

THE CONSPIRACY