Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/73

Rh you would have been as firm as a rock a couple of years ago."

Her brother looked up at her reproachfully.

"I know this is hitting you right between the eyes, and you don't like it," she went on. "But the time has just about come when something had to break, Chester."

"I know, Joan. And God knows you're a brick—you're white, clean through. But you don't understand. Making money doesn't just consist of doing the obvious thing under one's nose always. You never had a thing to do with grubbing for cold cash before father died and we had to come to this place. Men have to take risks sometimes—big risks at that, if the reward is promising enough. Only a fool goes on plodding in a rut when he sees a chance to jump out and make very good another way."

"A chance, yes," the girl agreed. "But do you regard this as a reasonable chance?" Chester frowned. He was willing to humour his sister up to a point, and listen to her arguments, but he was determined, with all the obstinacy in his composition, to have his own way as to the pearl fishing.

"I do regard it as just that—a reasonable chance," Chester replied.

"Exactly why do you think so?" Keith asked.