“And I told him once I thought the Company unscrupulous in its dealings with smaller holders,” he thought to himself. “I may have been wrong. I only hope he has forgotten.”
Kirk had forgotten or forgiven, for he treated the boy from Central America like a long lost brother. Hurrying him out of the noisy office, he led the way to a quiet little eating place. There, after ordering a savory lunch, he invited Pant to unburden his soul.
“Time to tell the whole story,” Pant thought to himself.
“Kirk,” he said suddenly, leaning far over the table, “you remember the story of the first Don’s silver box of pearls?”
“Yes.”
“I found it.”
“You didn’t!” The other boy stared, unbelieving.
“I did. Pearls and all.”
“Wha—where it is?” stammered Kirk.
“In a chicle sack somewhere in the storeroom of your uncle’s company.”
“It is? How did it come there?”
The meal was eaten in haste while Pant told his story.
Leaving the dessert for some future time, the rich boy seized Pant by the arm and dragged him out of the place.
“Come on!” he exclaimed. “We haven’t a moment to lose. Chicle is scarce. Your shipment will be sent at once to the factory. There it will be unsacked and broken up. Here! Jump in!” He dragged his friend into a taxi.
“To the Trans-Atlantic Dock,” he commanded the driver.
What of Johnny and his precious cargo?
As the days passed and land, the shore of his native land, was sighted, the face of the Unwilling Guest once more took on a shrewd, calculating expression of a business man whose financial interests are vast. Already, in his mind, he was entering his office, was sitting at his desk, dictating letters, pushing buttons, issuing orders, calculating profits; he was sitting in financial conferences with other rich and successful men. Little wonder that his chest began to bulge as he strolled the deck.
They were not a day out from New York when Johnny Thompson decided to find out a few things. In spite of himself he had been worried beyond endurance with the thought that after all they had gone through they might be defeated in the end, that the powerful organization which was the Fruit Company would make it impossible to sell their fruit, perhaps even to land it.
“It is all right about the bananas,” he said to Madge. “I can sell them direct to the pushcart men. Like to do it, too,” he chuckled. “Be great to go down in the Ghetto and see the grinning faces of dirty little urchins as they devour cheap bananas.”
“Grapefruit is different.” His brow wrinkled. “Grapefruit must be sold to commission men. That’s where they may have us. Commission men may fear the Fruit Company too much to buy from us.”
“I’ll get off a wireless or two,” he told himself.
As he emerged from the wireless room a deep frown was on his brow. His worst fears had been confirmed. Barney Tower, an old trusted friend, had wired him that without the permission of the Fruit Company’s President the Commission men would not dare purchase his cargo.
Johnny smiled a little grimly at thought of that very man, the President, who held all the power, being his Unwilling Guest.
“It’s a queer situation,” he told himself. “By the aid of Providence we saved his life. And yet, I would not dare ask him to lift the ban on our cargo. I don’t believe it would be any use. The interests of his precious Fruit Company must be preserved at all costs. That’s how he thinks of it, at any rate.”
He sat down to think. Two minutes later he sprang to his feet.
“We might do it!” He raced away in search of Kennedy.
“Kennedy,” he said, “you are a Britisher. Do you know anyone in Canada?”
“Why yes, I ought to. Yes, yes, I do. The harbor master in Toronto is an old war pal of mine.”
“The harbor master. What luck! Kennedy, will the fruit keep an extra day?”
“Yes, Johnny, easily. Been cool air all the way. Storm brought it.”
“Then we’re safe. We’re headed for Canada right now. Nothing can stop us. We’ll sell our cargo there, and no one to bother us.”
“But how about him, your Unwilling Guest?”
“We won’t charge him anything extra,” Johnny chuckled. “He’ll get a lot of good out of the trip, find the sea breeze up there quite bracing.” He was away on the double quick to notify the captain on the bridge.
Johnny was not the only one to note the sudden swing of the ship as she entered on her new course. The Unwilling Guest saw it and came storming down the deck.
“What does this mean?” he demanded angrily. “Changing course again? Another storm coming. Running again!” His tone was deeply scornful. “A day late, and running from a cloudless sky!”
“Not running. Just going somewhere,” said Johnny quietly. “Just going on our way. Going to Canada.”
“Canada! You said New York.”
“Changed our plans.”
“And how about my plans? Your plans!” The man’s face was red. He stuttered in his rage. “Your plans! Your business! Floating a walnut shell in a teapot!”
“Pretty good old shell,” said Johnny, glancing up and down the deck.
“This ship!” said the magnate. “Slow and clumsy. A very derelict! TheArionnow, she’s docked long since. If I had made Belize in time—”
“Wait,” said Johnny. A new, compelling light was in his eye. “You wait. Come this way. I’ll show you where you would have been.”
Scarcely knowing why he did it, the rich man followed the boy to the captain’s cabin where the ship’s log was kept.
Turning back the pages, Johnny found the record of that terrible night of storm. There, pasted in, was the wireless man’s record.
“Read that,” Johnny’s voice was solemn.
As the man read, his face took on a deadly pallor.
“My God!” he murmured. “Can that be true?”
“All quite true,” said Johnny huskily. “Had you not been becalmed out there in the Caribbean Sea, had you made Belize on time to catch theArion, your Executive Council would now be in session. They would be electing a man to fill your place.”
“They may be doing that now. Who knows that I am safe?”
“We do. No one else.”
The rich man shot out of the cabin and away to the wireless cabin.
“Don’t know that I should have kept it from him so long,” Johnny thought. “But a shock now and then does us all good. It takes considerable of a shock to register with such a man.”
That the shock had indeed registered, he guessed rightly enough as he saw the short, stout man, a half hour later, pacing the deck. With hands behind his back and head bent far forward, he appeared deep in thought.
Suddenly something seemed to come over him. His head snapped up. He spun around, then walked straight to the side of Johnny Thompson.
“Why did you change your plans? Why are you headed for Canada?” he asked.
“You should know the reason.”
“Afraid of the Fruit Company’s embargo? You need not be. I am the Fruit Company. I—why, I’ll buy the cargo, buy it just as it stands right here in the Atlantic.”
“You mean it?” Johnny’s face was a study.
“Bring your papers to my cabin, and I’ll show you, young man—”
A strange thing happened. The voice of the master business man, the head of a great corporation, broke and for a moment he could not speak.
“Young man,” he began again, “I’ve been a fool.”
“I’ll go tell the captain to alter his course,” said Johnny.
“There’s one other favor I wish to ask.”
Johnny was seated in the Unwilling Guest’s cabin. Perhaps by this time he might have been called a “willing guest.”
“What is that, Johnny?”
“It’s like this,” said Johnny. “I hope I can make you understand. It must be wonderful to develop a business on a large scale, to see it grow and grow and grow, as you have been able to do. To add one ship after another, one plantation, one narrow-gauge railroad after another until the ships are a fleet, railroads a system and the plantations a little world all their own. I’ve dreamed of living such a life myself. It’s a grand and glorious dream.
“But sometimes,” his tone was slow and thoughtful, “it’s hard on the little fellow. Sometimes the great promoter, dreaming his great dream, forgets the little fellow, the man with a few acres of bananas, a few cocoanuts or grapefruit trees.
“The elephant enjoys himself as he goes thrashing his way through the jungle. But what of the small creatures he tramples beneath his feet? What about the butterflies he crushes with his swinging trunk? The butterflies appear to enjoy life as they flit in the sunshine. What of them?”
“Young man,” said the magnate rather sharply, “come down to brass tacks. What is it you are talking about?”
“Well then, specifically,” Johnny smiled broadly, “there is a fine old man named Kennedy who has a niece quite as fine. They live in a Central American jungle. Every Carib loves them because they love the Caribs.
“Until you signed this agreement they were very poor. The grapefruit aboard this ship is theirs.”
“Not our Kennedy.”
“Our Kennedy.”
“Kennedy,” the rich man mused. “That name sounds familiar. Can it be that a Spaniard name Diaz tried to purchase his grapefruit orchard for me?”
“Could be, and is true!” exclaimed Johnny, “That was the wily Spaniard’s game, preying upon Kennedy’s poverty. Planning to make a large profit off land he hoped to buy from a needy man for a song.”
“Why did Kennedy not tell me?” the rich man demanded.
“Too modest, perhaps. And perhaps—you will pardon me—perhaps he thought it would do no good.
“Now,” Johnny continued, “you are the Fruit Company. You said that yourself. And the Fruit Company refused to market Kennedy’s grapefruit because one year he sold to an independent market. That’s why they are poor.”
“And now?” There was a strange look on the man’s face.
“Now I want you to sign a contract to handle their fruit, a five year contract.”
“Make it ten!” exclaimed the rich man, springing to his feet. “Have the purser write it up and bring it to me at once. I’ll sign it.”
“And by the way,” he said as Johnny prepared to go, “have Captain Jorgensen come down when he finds time. This is a pretty good old ship, a mighty good one. I want her in my service. Give his owners a two years’ contract. Or, I’ll buy her straight out. She’s the ship that saved my life. Along with two stubborn old men and a boy, she did it. You don’t meet a combination like that every day.”
The Unwilling Guest put out a hand to grip the boy’s own.
With the aid of a flashlight Pant and Kirk were exploring a vast warehouse filled with sacks of chicle. They arrived in their taxi and having been admitted, had been told in a general way where they would find the last cargo that had arrived.
“Here! Here it is!” exclaimed Pant at last. “I can recognize the weave of my grandfather’s sacks.”
“Perhaps,” he said after a considerable search for his particular sack, “the thread has been accidentally drawn out and lost.”
“If it has,” panted Kirk, “we’ll open up every one. We—”
“There! There it is!” Pant pounced upon a sack. The green thread shone along its side.
With trembling fingers he cut the cord that bound it. A moment later, carrying a mysterious package wrapped in palm leaves, the two boys passed out of the door.
A second taxi was hailed. “We’d better go back to Uncle’s office,” said Kirk. “He—he’s awfully square, and knows a lot. He’ll tell us what to do.”
Pant scarcely heard him as he was crowded once more into a taxi. His mind was in wild commotion. At last he was in New York, in possession of a vast treasure. Whose treasure was it, the old Don’s or his own? He had read George Elliott’s Romola, remembered Tito, the traitor to an old man, and recalled his terrible end.
“I will not be a traitor,” he told himself. “If the treasure appears to belong to the old Don he shall have it, every penny!” At that his troubled mind found rest.
“I suppose,” said Kirk, “that you have wondered how I came to be at the old Don’s.”
“Often,” said Pant.
“Well, you see, my Uncle is my guardian. He holds nearly half the stock of his Company in my name. When I am of age it will be mine to manage. My Uncle believes I should know all there is to be known about the business, from the jungle to the wrapper,” he laughed.
“So he sent me down there. He got the Carib giant for my bodyguard, and told me to go where I chose, only to keep my eyes open. I came at last to the old Don’s. I liked it so much up there that I stayed a long time.”
“Glorious, wasn’t it!” said Pant. “I’d like to live there with the old Don for a whole year.
“This,” he said, patting the package beside him, “will make the old Don rich.”
“The old Don! It’s yours!” Kirk stared.
“It’s his by direct inheritance.”
“How do you know that? Is there a monogram or a coat of arms on the box?”
“No.”
“Then you will never be sure.” The younger boy’s tone was earnest, entreating. “Don’t spoil the old Don by making him rich.”
“It’s not for us to decide what a man’s rightful possessions will do for him,” said Pant thoughtfully. “The only question for us to ask is, ‘Are they his?’”
“Perhaps,” he said after a moment’s silence, “your Uncle can help us out.”
“I am sure he can,” said Kirk.
Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the chicle magnate when, having lifted the lid of the ancient silver box, his eyes fell upon the treasure of pearls within. Instinctively, he stepped back and locked the door to his office.
“That’s the greatest treasure that ever rested on my desk,” he whispered. “We must get them to the vault for the night. And you say they belong to Kirk’s friend, the old Don?”
“I will tell you,” said Pant. Sitting on the edge of a chair, leaning far forward, muscles tense, eyes aglow, he told the story of the beaten silver box from beginning to end.
“Well,” sighed the magnate when the tale was told. “That’s quite a yarn. Wouldn’t believe a word of it if it weren’t for this.” He touched the silver box.
“Legally, in a court of law,” he said, rubbing his forehead thoughtfully, “your old Don wouldn’t have much chance. You could hold the pearls. Anyway, in this case possession is nine points of the law. You have only to pay the duty on them, then sell them.”
“But I don’t want—”
“You want to do the square thing,” the magnate interrupted. “Then why not call it a case of salvage, and split the proceeds fifty-fifty. That will give each of you more money than you are likely to have any use for, and certainly more than you need.
“If your grandfather is interested in chicle,” he added, “tell him I’ll sell you an interest in our Company. Then in years to come you and Kirk will be partners. Pant and Kirk, Chicle Exporters. How does that sound?” He threw back his head and laughed.
“Great! Wonderful!” they exclaimed together.
The beaten silver box took one more ride that day—to the Custom’s offices. There it was placed in a vault until the value of the pearls could be settled upon.
A few days later the pearls were parcelled out in groups and sold to several dealers for a considerable fortune.
A few days after the docking of theNorth Star, a happy group sat about a table in a small dining room of the most sumptuous of New York hotels. They had met there, Johnny, Pant, Kennedy and Madge, for a farewell feast. Business had been disposed of, and the Kennedys were going home.
“Johnny,” said Kennedy as he rose to stand before a pretty open fireplace, “it would be nice if we might have a bit of a wood fire. Makes a fellow feel sort of cheerful.”
“Not there. You couldn’t,” said Johnny. “That’s not a real fireplace. It has no flue.”
“Then what is it for?”
“To add a suggestion of comfort.”
Only half satisfied, the old jungle man sat down.
“Seems a bit stuffy,” he said a moment later. “Let’s open a window.”
“Those are not windows,” said Johnny. “They are looking-glasses that seem windows. We are probably a half block from any outer wall. This hotel covers an entire block.”
“A sham!” said Kennedy, rising. “This whole thing’s sham. This is my party. I’m paying the bill. There’s a real ship with a real cabin down in the harbor. There are real windows in her that look out on a real harbor. I propose that we eat there.”
So aboard the ship they dined and talked. The food was good. The talk was better. Old days and new were discussed. Pant was to sail with the Kennedys. He was going back to Central America to make his grandfather and the old Don comfortable for life. The Kennedys were going home. That was quite enough for them.
Johnny, who alone was to remain, felt a little lonesome.
“Some day,” Johnny said to Madge as they parted, “when I am tired, when the rush and push that is our America gets too much for me, I am coming back to Stann Creek, to listen to the thrum of the banjo and the Caribs’ song, to watch the moon rise over the jungle and to smell the forbidden fruit ripening on the trees.”
“Please do,” said Madge Kennedy, brushing at her eyes.
“The latchstring’s out and the door swings in,” said Kennedy, gripping his hand, “and may God bless you for all you have done.” So they parted.
Pant returned to the jungle. There he was destined to remain for many a day to come; for was not his Grandfather there and the old Don, and last but not least, the beautiful Senorita Ramoncita Salazar? What better company could he ask and what more thrilling adventures could be found than awaits one at every turn of jungle trail?
As for Johnny, the city with its imitation fireplaces, its mirror windows and much more that is artificial and unreal, could not hold him long. One day he met a curious sort of chap with a strange hobby. Fascinated by this man’s tale of adventure, he joined company with him. The story of these fresh adventures in a land far from tropical wilds will be found in our next book, “Johnny Long-Bow.”
Mr. Snell is a versatile writer who knows how to write stories that will please boys and girls. He has traveled widely, visited many out-of-the-way corners of the earth, and being a keen observer has found material for many thrilling stories. His stories are full of adventure and mystery, yet in the weaving of the story there are little threads upon which are hung lessons in loyalty, honesty, patriotism and right living.
Mr. Snell has created a wide audience among the younger readers of America. Boy or girl, you are sure to find a Snell book to your liking. His works cover a wide and interesting scope.
Here are the titles of the Snell Books: