Part 4

Mr. Forrester nodded gravely.

"I remember," he said. "That was the time we made the mistake of sending cement through the Canal instead of around the Cape, and the tolls cost us five thousand dollars."

It was not that Mr. Forrester weighed the loss of the five thousand dollars against a credit of lives saved. It was rather that he was not in the life-saving business. Like all his brother captains, he was, in a magnificent way, mechanically charitable. For institutions that did make it a business to save life he wrote large checks. But he never mixed charity and business. In what he was doing in the world he either was unable to see, or was not interested in seeing, what was human, dramatic, picturesque. When he forced himself to rest from his labor, his relaxation was the reading of novels of romance, of adventure--novels that told of strange places and strange peoples. Between the after-dinner hour and bedtime, or while his yacht picked her way up the Sound, these tales filled him with surprise. Often he would exclaim admiringly: "I don't see how these fellows think up such things."

He did not know that, in his own business, there were melodramas, romances which made those of the fiction-writers ridiculous.

And so, when young Sam Caldwell, the third vice-president, told Mr. Forrester that if the company hoped to obtain the money it had sunk in Venezuela it must finance a revolution, Mr. Forrester, without question, consented to the expense, and put it down under "Political." Had Sam Caldwell shown him that what was needed was a construction-raft or a half-dozen giant steam-shovels, he would have furnished the money as readily and with as little curiosity.

Sam Caldwell, the third vice-president, was a very smart young man. Every one, even men much older than he, said as much, and no one was more sure of it than was Sam Caldwell himself. His vanity on that point was, indeed, his most prepossessing human quality.

He was very proud of his freedom from those weak scruples that prevented rival business men from underbidding the F. C. C. He congratulated himself on the fact that at thirty-four he was much more of a cynic than men of sixty. He held no illusions, and he rejoiced in a sense of superiority over those of his own class in college, who, in matters of business, were still hampered by old-time traditions.

If in any foreign country the work of the F. C. C. was halted by politicians, it was always Sam Caldwell who was sent across the sea to confer with them. He could quote you the market-price on a Russian grand-duke, or a Portuguese colonial governor, as accurately as he could that of a Tammany sachem. His was the non-publicity department. People who did not like him called him Mr. Forrester's jackal. When the lawyers of the company had studied how they could evade the law on corporations, and had shown how the officers of the F. C. C. could do a certain thing and still keep out of jail, Sam Caldwell was the man who did that thing.

He had been to Venezuela "to look over the ground," and he had reported that President Alvarez must go, and that some one who would be friendly to the F. C. C. must be put in his place. That was all Mr. Forrester knew, or cared to know. With the delay in Venezuela he was impatient. He wanted to close up that business and move his fleet of tenders, dredges and rafts to another coast. So, as was the official routine, he turned over the matter to Sam Caldwell, to settle it in Sam Caldwell's own way.

Two weeks after his talk with his father, Roddy, ignorant of Mr. Caldwell's intentions, was in Venezuela, sitting on the edge of a construction-raft, dangling his rubber boots in the ocean, and watching a steel skeleton creep up from a coral reef into a blazing, burning sky. At intervals he would wake to remove his cigarette, and shout fiercely: "O-i-i-ga, you Moso! Get a move on! Pronto! If you don't I'll do that myself."

Every ten minutes El Señor Roddy had made the same threat, and the workmen, once hopeful that he would carry it into effect, had grown despondent.

* * * * *

In the mind of Peter de Peyster there was no doubt that, unless something was done, and at once, the Order of the White Mice would cease to exist. The call of Gain, of Duty, of Pleasure had scattered the charter members to distant corners of the world. Their dues were unpaid, the pages of the Golden Book of Record were blank. Without the necessary quorum of two there could be no meetings, without meetings there could be no dinners, and, incidentally, over all the world people continued to die, and the White Mice were doing nothing to prevent it. Peter de Peyster, mindful of his oath, of his duty as the Most Secret Secretary and High Historian of the Order, shot arrows in the air in the form of irate postal-cards. He charged all White Mice to instantly report to the Historian the names of those persons whom, up to date, they had saved from death.

From the battle-ship Louisiana, Perry wrote briefly:

"Beg to report during gale off Finisterre, went to rescue of man overboard. Man overboard proved to be Reagan, gunner's mate, first class, holding long-distance championship for swimming and two medals for saving life. After I sank the third time, Reagan got me by the hair and towed me to the ship. Who gets the assist?"

From Raffles' Hotel, Singapore, the Orchid Hunter cabled:

"Have saved own valuable life by refusing any longer to drink Father's beer. Give everybody medal."

From Porto Cabello, Venezuela, Roddy wrote:

"I have saved lives of fifty Jamaica coolies daily by not carrying an axe. If you want to save my life from suicide, sunstroke and sleeping-sickness--which attacks me with special virulence immediately after lunch--come by next steamer."

A week later, Peter de Peyster took the Red D boat south, and after touching at Porto Rico and at the Island of Curaçao, swept into Porto Cabello and into the arms of his friend.

On the wharf, after the shouts of welcome had died away, Roddy inquired anxiously: "As you made the harbor, Peter, did you notice any red and black buoys? Those are my buoys. I put them there--myself. And I laid out that entire channel you came in by, all by myself, too!"

Much time had passed since the two friends had been able to insult each other face to face.

"Roddy," coldly declared Peter, "if I thought you had charted that channel I'd go home on foot, by land."

"Do you mean you think I can't plant deep-sea buoys?" demanded Roddy.

"You can't plant potatoes!" said Peter. "If you had to set up lamp-posts, with the street names on them, along Broadway, you would put the ones marked Union Square in Columbus Circle."

"I want you to know," shouted Roddy, "that my buoys are the talk of this port. These people are just crazy about my buoys--especially the red buoys. If you didn't come to Venezuela to see my buoys, why did you come? I will plant a buoy for you to-morrow!" challenged Roddy. "I will show you!"

"You will have to show me," said Peter.

* * * * *