The younger man crushed his cigarette slowly into the tray. "How much of a bet?" he asked. "What will you bet that I don't sail alone from here to--where are you stationed?--San Diego?--from here to San Diego?"
"Humph!" was the snorted reply. "I would bet a thousand dollars on that and take your money for Miss Allaire's pet charity."
"Now that's an idea," said Thorpe. He reached for a check book in his inner pocket and began to write.
"In case I lose," he explained, "I might be hard to find, so I will just ask Miss Allaire to hold this check for me. You can do the same." He handed the check to the girl.
"Winner gets his thousand back, Ruth; loser's money goes to any little orphans you happen to fancy."
"You're not serious," protested the Admiral.
"Sure! The bank will take that check seriously, I promise you. And I saw just the sloop I want for the trip ... had my eye on her for the past month."
"But, Robert," began Ruth Allaire, "you don't mean to risk your life on a foolish bet?"
Thorpe reached over to pat tenderly the hand that held his check. "I'm glad if you care," he said, and there was an undertone of seriousness beneath his raillery, "but save your sympathy for the Admiral. The U. S. Navy can't bluff me." He rose more briskly from his chair.
"Thorpe...." said Admiral Struthers. He was thinking deeply, trying to recollect. "Robert Thorpe.... I have a book by someone of that name--travel and adventure and knocking about the world. Young man, are you _the_ Robert Thorpe?"
"Why, yes, if you wish to put it that way," agreed the other. He waved lightly to the girl as he moved away.
"I must be running along," he said, "and get that boat. See you all in San Diego!"
The first rays of the sun touched with golden fingers the tops of the lazy swells of the Pacific. Here and there a wave broke to spray under the steady wind and became a shower of molten metal. And in the boat, whose sails caught now and then the touch of morning, Robert Thorpe stirred himself and rose sleepily to his feet.
Out of the snug cabin at this first hint of day, he looked first at the compass and checked his course, then made sure of the lashing about the helm. The steady trade-winds had borne him on through the night, and he nodded with satisfaction as he prepared to lower his lights. He was reaching for a line as the little craft hung for an instant on the top of a wave. And in that instant his eyes caught a marking of white on the dim waters ahead.