itporo it is! But here Wait a minute, min-ute, Mr. Wallen." Ho hurried to ;1 small iron sate that was Imill in nndi'f Ins hunk, opened it, and returned with a luilk.v niauila envelope, winch lie handed to Wallen. "These are your father's papers," lie explained. "I collected them to-gcthor to-gcthor and put them away for safekeeping." safe-keeping." "Thank yen," said Wallen mavely. lie stepped out onto the deck. "Oh, hy the way. captain," he observed casually, cas-ually, "I notice you carry wireless." The captain's whistle, pulled from his pocket, chirped shrilly. "You there, for'ard !" he bawled In a sea voice that was like the bellow of a bull. "Stand by to weigh anchor, Mr. Mutt ! llcy, Mr. Molt !" And as (lie second ollioer emerged from the cltartroom, just abaft the bridge and directly over the captain's cabin: "We'll get under way at once. .et me know when she's up and down." lie turned to Wallen. "Wireless, . you said? Oh, yes; it's that blasted new American law can't trade in American ports without it now, yoti know." Helen Mackay tells about herself to the hero. tTO BK CONTINUE!.'. i An accident never! There was no room lor doubt "never go to the East" it was not an accident ids father fa-ther had been murdered on this ship. And then suddenly lie swallowed hard. It was to save him that his father had 'chartered the Mmiloigh and come Fast ; for, according to that list of polls, his father somehow had been in touch with ids movements, somehow some-how had known the danger be was in, and. trying to avert it. had been murdered mur-dered himself. A cold, merciless passion sw ept upon him. Someone on this ship was the murderer. Was it this man here? What was at the bottom of It all? It was a long arm of vengeance that readied to that gray stone house In California, that reached to Singapore, to this ship, to that swelierlng, plague-stricken plague-stricken bark where. strangely enough, he alone had lived! And now t lie score was a very heavy one to pay his father's life! Well his eyes narrowed he would pay it! "Did my father bring a native servant serv-ant with Mm a man named Gunga?" he asked dispassionately. "No." the other replied, "lie was alone." Wallen nodded. "What else is there to tell me?" "Not much but what you can guess," Lnynton said. "I ran down through, t lie Makassar strait nnd made for the nearest port on that list I'obi here. Your father had paid me for the three months, and if I say it myself, my-self, when I make :l bargain I stick to it. If I could find you inside the three months I was going to do it. "I don't know what your father was so anxious about, though I understood, under-stood, of course, that he chartered me because out here, with you touching "YOUR FATHER'S DEAD." Synopsis Stacey Wallen, first mate of the bark Upolo, In the Java sea, is the sole survivor ot tile crew, all victims- of yellow fever. Ting Wan, Chinese sailor, last man to die, tells Wallen he and five other chinamen were sent aboard by "Drink-House Sam," notorious no-torious character of Singapore, to kill him. This recalls to Wallen an Incident of his childhood which seems connected with the confession. confes-sion. While delirious. Wallen enters en-ters in the ship's log the fact of Ills death and abandons the vessel in a small boat. Wallen's boat drifts to the island of Arru and a Scottish trader there, MaeKnight, cares for him. Learning that a ship is in port on the other side of the Island, twenty miles away, Wallen, though unfit for the task, starts to reach it, but falls exhausted on the trail. There he is found by a man and woman who are from the ship he was trying to reach. Mott. first mate, and Helen MacKay, a passenger. They convey him to the vessel. The ship proves to be a small tramp steamer, the Monlelgh, Capt. Laynton. CHAPTER III Continued. 4 It was a little strange. Ships like the Monlelgh weren't in the habit of indulging In expensive luxuries of that description ! His brows gathered for a moment ; and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he walked forward to the captain's cablu under the bridge and knocked. "Come in !" bawled a voice gruffly. Wallen entered to face the little man with the thin face and queer eyes he promptly modified "queer" by "evasive" now that he recognized as the captain. "Hello!" exclaimed the caplain In suddenly altered tones. "If It ain't Mr. Wallen ! And on your pins already al-ready ! Well. I'll be 1 But sit down ! Sit down !" He waved Wallen to a seat on the locker and pushed forward the bottle and glass that were on the table. "Sit down, Mr. Wallen, and help yourself !" Wallen shook his head as he seated himself. "Thanks just the same," he said ; "but I'm still sticking to quinine." "Quinine, eh?" repeated the other. "Yes, of course ! Yes right you are ! Well" he poured a glass for himself him-self "here's to you, and just as hearty if I drink alone. And I'll add, Mr. Wallen, that . it's to the rummest meeting that ever I've known in my life!" Wallen watched the man's neat disposal dis-posal of four fingers, leaned back on the locker, swept his eyes around the cabin, and, suddenly looking up at the captain again, intercepted a furtive glance that the other was stealing at him over the rim of his glass. "That ever I've known," said the captain cap-tain hastily as his eyes dropped. len, "your reference to our meeting being a rum one only leaves me a liltle more up in the air. I can understand, un-derstand, of course, that you might have heard of the Upolo being missing miss-ing or reported lost; but I can't understand un-derstand how you knew I was on her or, knowing that, what interest you could have in me." Captain Laynton laughed a little in a constrained way. "I didn't know anything about the bark's loss until I put in here yesterday yester-day and beard there was a survivor from her on the other side of the island but I knew about you fast enough." He paused, shot a swift, restless glance at Wallen, then began to pace, three steps one way, three steps the other, up and down the narrow cabin. "D n it. man!" he said abruptly. "I've got bad news for you Your 'father's dead!" For a moment ' Wallen neither moved nor spoke. It was difficult to grasp the full significance of the words. His father dead ! What did this thin-faced man, witii the little black eyes that always refused re-fused to meet one's own, who was tramping nervously now. up and down a little cabin on a rusty tramp steamer here In the Java sea, at the other end of the world, know- of his father, who never left the four walls of that lonely gray stone house in California? Cal-ifornia? "What do you know about my father?" fa-ther?" he found himself speaking in a quiet voice. Captain Laynton stopped Impulsively Impul-sively in front of his table, pulled the drawer open, took out a sheet of paper pa-per and handed It to Wallen. "You'll get the drift of this yourself, your-self, I guess," he ventured. Wallen stared at ihe paper, at first with curious bewilderment and then, with the sudden flash of comprehension, comprehen-sion, he was on his feet. It was a list of the ports of call scheduled for the ill-fated Upolo on her last voyage ports of call that she had never made. "What does this mean?" he demanded de-manded in a iow voice. "How did you come by this?" "Your father gave it to me," the captain answered. "And now, if you'll just listen for a minute, Til give you the whole story, and you'll see for yourself. First I might as well tell you, though, that I own this ship. Well, I was In Honolulu light, you understand when your father came aboard one evening and offered to charter me for a three months' cruise down here. He made the price right, paid the money down in advance, aud I closed with him. "He gave me the list of ports, and said his son was on a trading bark called the Upolo, and that he wanted to get track of him as soon as possible, pos-sible, and offered an extra bonus for all hands If we made a. quick job of it. That's all I know about the reason rea-son for the cruise. Well, to cut a long story short, we started away, and were down just south of the line when the accident happened. "Your father was alone down in his cabin. We heard a shot, rushed below, be-low, and, thinking it strange that he didn't show tip in the excitement, called to him but got no answer. Well, we burst In his cabin door and found him dead across the bunk." "Y'ou mean," said Wallen through tlglit lips, "thai he committed suicide?" sui-cide?" "No. Wait I" Captain Laynton shook his head. "It wasn't that. God knows how it happened! The thing went off that's all. He was cleaning one of those patent automatic pistols. "There was a bottle of oil, a cleaning clean-ing rag, and a wire swabbing brush on the floor. And" Laynton poured himself another glass from the bottle, gulped it down, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand "well, I'm trying to give It to you in a few words we buried him at sea of course." Wallen turned bis back and stared out of one of the forward portholes down onto the dirty foredeck. Was the man lying? Was be telling the truth? That his father had chartered the Monleigh nnd sailed with her yes. But that his death was accidental the background of his father's life the recent attempt upon his own life! Ills brain was working In (lashes. Tills man Laynton repelled him. "These Are Your Father's Papers." at those trading stations, he couldn't reach you by mail or cable; but I made sure It was something mighty important and I thought you'd know what it was." It was almost an Interrogation, put naturally, nonchalantly enough save for a trace of eagerness in the man's tones that was not entirely disguised. "I haven't the slightest idea," said Wallen smoothly. "You haven't?" Laynton's eyes for once . fixed steadfastly. "Well, that's queer! A man don't go to the expense ex-pense of chartering a ship like this without a pretty good reason, and " "I dare say my father knew," suggested sug-gested Wallen quietly. Then briskly: "The question now is: What are you going to do, captain?" "Why?" said Captain Laynton, "1 thought I'd made that plain enough. When I make a contract I keep it. It's up to you, Mr. Wallen. There's still say, a matter of two months before that charter expires, and the Men-leigh's Men-leigh's yours until it does in your father's place. That's square, isn't it?" Wallen hesitated thoughtfully. On the face of it it was both square nnd honorable. He began to wonder If ho had misjudged the man. And yet, Instinctively, in spite of that, there seemed something specious even in the honesty that appeared to underlie the other's motives. lie had reason enough to distrust every soul on board a ship where he was morally certain his father had been murdered! Two months If he accepted the captain's cap-tain's offer. If he had only something to w ork on ! Something I Yes, he had something. Drink-House Sam of Singapore! Captain Laynton spoke again: "Look here!" he said in almost hurt tones. "I can't make you any fairer proposition than that. Can 1?" "No," said Wallen instantly, his mind made up. "And I'll accept your offer, captain, and thank you heartily for It." "Good !" returned Laynton promptly. prompt-ly. "Well, with that settled, what's the sailing orders? We've got steam up and can get away uny minute you say the word." "Then by all means get away at once!" he laughed easily. "And" he hesitated "let's see! I guess you'd better shape up for Singapore. Yes, call it Singapore for a starter." "Bight !" auswtred Laynton. "Sing- "Captain Laynton Mark Laynton." "There'll be a lot to say to each other, Mr. Wallen." "Y'es," Wallen agreed. "I'll confess I'm puzzled on several points, Captain Cap-tain Laynton, Isn't It? I'm not sure I caught the name correctly when Miss MacKay Introduced us. "That's right," said the other. "Laynton. Captain Laynton Murk t.nynton." "Well. Captain Laynton," said Wal-