Page:Barbour--Lost island.djvu/88

 In consternation he sought the cook. Barnes grew red with indignation.

"It's dollars to doughnuts one of them engine-room scum has done it," he declared. "I 'll see into this." The second engineer was on friendly terms with the cook, and Barnes readily enlisted his sympathy.

"I 'll speak to the chief," he said, "and we 'll make a search."

Making a search, however, was not as easy as it sounded. The only hope was that the thief had not had time to secrete the glasses in one of the many inaccessible nooks with which every ship abounds. Barnes and the second engineer together went through the men's quarters, but without success. Those deck-hands who were off duty—as a class, deck-hands hate a thief on board like poison—offered to join in the search, and soon half a dozen men were rummaging in every hole and corner. Dave's hopes were sinking lower and lower. He was beginning to regard the glasses