Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/300

288 ticularly beautiful specimen, which would, alone, have repaid them for weeks of toil.

When Chester landed he was met at the water's edge by his sister.

"Come, come," she said, grasping his hand and tugging him up the beach.

"Well, what is it?" Chester asked, laughing and running with Joan.

"Pearls!" the girl said excitedly, and then, remembering that she had the larger one stowed away in her handkerchief, stopped and displayed it to her brother.

Chester Trent's lips took on the shape of a figure "o," but he was too impressed to whistle.

"Two of them, there are," said Joan. "The other isn't quite as—"

She was interrupted by an excited cry from Keith, toward whom his companions raced.

"Darn me if there wasn't still another in the very last shell!" he said.

The latest "find" was fully equal to the one before.

"Now what d'you think of that for a day's haul?" asked the sailor with a broad smile.

"Why, Keith, old son, it's—it's wonderful." Chester was still in a daze as he looked at the gleaming pellets in his hand.

"Not a bit. It's just the luck of pearling. Shift