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194 avail. The laborers were not in the habit of exerting themselves, and they took the usual time. Captain Barton did manage to get the stores and provisions aboard sooner than he expected, but taking on coal was a slow and unpleasant task.

At length, however, it was finished, and Dick, having left word with the Santiago lawyer that he might be gone on the search for several days, prepared to sail. Captain Barton had taken counsel with some local pilots as to the best plan for their cruise, and had secured considerable information about a number of islands, and dangerous reefs in the neighborhood of the coast off Santiago.

Senor Alantrez readily obtained leave from the government office, where he was employed, to be away for as long as was necessary, and, on the second morning after the kidnapping, Dick, with his friends, and the father of the missing lad, stood on deck, and gave the order to cast off.

"And when we come back, I hope we'll have your son, and also those scoundrels who took him away," said our hero to the grief-stricken father.

As the yacht was slowly moving away from the dock, a boy was seen running down the pier, waving something over his head. It looked like a letter, and he was shouting at the top of his voice.

"There's some one for you, Mr. Dick," said Widdy, who was smoking his pipe near the after companionway.