CHAPTER IX

A GROUND SWELL Under instructions from Ruth, Mr. Mole had chartered a schooner then lying at a dock at Miami and, all things considered, the _Marybell_ was not a bad bargain. She had been originally built as a sailing yacht, but was perhaps twenty years old and somewhat battered as to paint and patched as to canvas. Captain Bontelle was a blowsy southern fisherman in a shabby blue suit and a yachting cap as shore-going outfit, and he was waiting at the hotel when the party from New York arrived. He seemed a little …