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"But I've another prize, and a good one."

Wing sucked his old stumps of teeth noisily, glad to renew the suspense again.

"You've doubtless heard of my plans to build a bigger vessel for the flagship of my fleet? I planned her for Cap'n John Avery, but he died before I got the keel laid. John, as you know, was the line's most successful whalin' master."

Eager breathing could be heard in the sudden quiet as he paused.

"The first of you two home with full casks gets that ship and the command of the fleet."

Too overcome with the prospect for flippancy, the two youthful skippers sat staring at him until the girl's voice broke upon them.

"May the better man win," she toasted, lifting her Canary high and looking deep into Chase's eyes before bestowing a glance tinged with disdain on the scowling Kenyon.

"He will," roared Kenyon, lifting his glass high, "and he'll hold you to that promise. Here's to a quick run and a good race."

"Now," grinned their host, as the glasses were returned to the table, "Priscy will excuse us and we'll go to my library. I've somethin' to show you there."

Both captains were instantly on their feet, bowing awkwardly as the girl curtsied to them in turn and swished away, casting a dazzling smile back over her shoulder at Chase as she swept up the winding stairway that led from the broad hall outside the dining room door.

"This is the how of it," explained Wing, all business as he seized a pointer that fairly trembled with his excitement. He turned to face a huge map of the Pacific that was spread across one wall of the room. "Cap'n Lemuel was right about sperm whales migratin'. I've proof they did!"

Then, as Kenyon sniffed audibly, being a staunch believer that whales were merely notional in their travels, the old man fixed him with a glittering eye. "Study them pins. Each marks where a sperm whale was killed by a Wing ship. The flags on 'em carry the dates, as well as the ships that killed 'em."

The two stared at the evidence. Making a great sweep around almost the entire ocean, those pins formed a mighty capital C of irregular outline. At a group of islands south of the equator the pins ceased, leaving an expanse unmarked until they again renewed, thick near New Zealand and sweeping southeastward into the Antarctic.

Burden Chase nodded, while Amos Kenyon stared.

"One thing's left to find out," explained the old man sadly. "That's where the whales go from them islands south."

"Didn't John Avery know?" asked Chase at last. "My father always thought he did."

Wing nodded, his thin nose stabbing the air. "Exactly," he agreed. "That's why Cap'n Avery beat every other skipper in the Pacific and filled months afore 'em. He killed sperm whales all the year 'round, instead o' losin' track of ’em for two or three months below them islands."

"But you've got his log books. Find out from them," suggested Kenyon inanely.

Wing scorched him with a glance of contempt. "I've brains enough to do that—if it could be done," he snapped. "But he never entered his position from the time he left them