"Well--ah--y'see, there's the risk, and--ah--" Suddenly Ryder leaned forward, his watery blue eyes glinting: "Boys, it's a _jewel_. It's just your kind. I'd a-sent for you, to try on this very scheme, if you hadn't shown up. You kin have the _Bertha Millner_--I've a year's charter o' her from Wilbur--and I'll only ask you fifteen per cent. of the _net_ profits--_net_, mind you." "I ain't buyin' no dead horse, Cap'n," returned Hardenberg, "but I'll say this: we pay no fifteen per cent." "Banks and the Ruggles were daft to try it and give me twenty-five." "An' where would Banks land the scheme? I know him. You put him on that German cipher-code job down Honolulu way, an' it cost you about a thousand before you could pull out. We'll give you seven an' a half." "Ten," declared Ryder, "ten, Joe, at the very least. Why, how much do you suppose just the stores would cost me? And Point Barrow--why, Joe, that's right up in the Arctic. I got to run the risk o' you getting the _Bertha_ smashed in the ice." "What do _we_ risk?" retorted Hardenberg; and it was the monosyllabic Strokher who gave the answer: "Chokee, by Jove!" "Ten is fair. It's ten or nothing," answered Hardenberg. "Gross, then, Joe. Ten on the gross--or I give the job to the Ruggles and Banks." "Who's your bloomin' agent?" put in Ally Bazan. "Nickerson. I sent him with Peterson on that _Mary Archer_ wreck scheme. An' you know what Peterson says of him--didn't give him no trouble at all. One o' my best men, boys." "There have been," observed Strokher stolidly, "certain stories told about Nickerson. Not that _I_ wish to seem suspicious, but I put it to you as man to man." "Ay," exclaimed Ally Bazan. "He was fair nutty once, they tell me. Threw some kind o' bally fit an' come aout all skew-jee'd in his mind. Forgot his nyme an' all. I s'y, how abaout him, anyw'y?"