All hands--and there were twenty-eight--were
shareholders, in varying proportions, in the adventure. Several were
sailors, but the large majority were miners, culled from all the camps
from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. It was the old and ever-untiring
pursuit of gold, and they had come to the Solomons to get it. Part of
them, under the leadership of Tudor, were to go up the Balesuna and
penetrate the mountainous heart of Guadalcanar, while the _Martha_, under
Von Blix, sailed away for Malaita to put through similar exploration.
"And so," said Von Blix, "for Mr. Tudor's expedition we must have some
black-boys. Can we get them from you?"
"Of course we will pay," Tudor broke in. "You have only to charge what
you consider them worth. You pay them six pounds a year, don't you?"
"In the first place we can't spare them," Sheldon answered. "We are
short of them on the plantation as it is."
"_We_?" Tudor asked quickly. "Then you are a firm or a partnership? I
understood at Guvutu that you were alone, that you had lost your
partner."
Sheldon inclined his head toward Joan, and as he spoke she felt that he
had become a trifle stiff.
"Miss Lackland has become interested in the plantation since then. But
to return to the boys.
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