Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/231

Rh "I feel I'm in a regular hole, sis," he declared, "and there's no way out of it as far as I can see. To go on with the work on Tao Tao is almost like flogging a dead horse, but not quite, and that's the worst of it. If I had enough capital I'd sell this concern outright for whatever it would fetch and start all over again somewhere else, with a different kind of land."

"Well, well," said Joan, "we've made our bed and I suppose we shall have to lie in it. Don't you think, Chester, we could manage to scrape through for another year or so until the money begins to come in?"

"I've been wondering lately," the planter replied, "whether it would be possible for me to get some sort of an advance, to carry me over, from one of the big copra buyers in Manila, if I guaranteed to let them market my stuff. I know such things are done, and I could make Manila safely enough in the Kestrel, but even if I found a firm who would be willing to do business they wouldn't take my word about what we had on Tao Tao."

"Couldn't they send a representative down?"

"I expect they'd probably laugh at me if I suggested it," Chester said. "You see, it's such a deuce of a distance. I must churn that idea over, though. Something's got to be done, anyhow. We can't stay here and starve."

That night Chester Trent lay awake for hours