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CHAPTER III


A FRUITLESS CHASE


While the party of three ate the meal prepared for them, Larry worked at the rear of the wayside resort, chopping the wood Harmon had pointed out.

With five dollars in his pocket the youth felt easy again. In Honolulu, where accommodations were cheap, five dollars would last a long while, and he felt that his luck was bound to change before the money was entirely gone.

Close to where he worked was an open window, and from the conversation of the three he learned that Captain Nat Ponsberry was the commander and part owner of the Columbia, a three-masted schooner, which had just come into Honolulu from Panama, and was to leave the following week for Hong Kong, China. Tom Grandon was first mate of the schooner, and evidently he and the captain were old friends, both hailing from Gloucester, the