Chapter 16

"A million dollars!" echoed the Colonel.

"Northin' less! History says it. There was a lot of money flyin' around the world in them days, and Cap Kidd knew how to get holt of it. The trouble is with people, Colonel, they forget that there was a lot of gold in the world before the 'Forty-niners' got busy."

"But Bodge," snorted the Colonel. "He--"

"Certain men for certain things," declared Hiram, firmly. "Most every genius is more or less a lunatic. It needed capital to develop Bodge. It's takin' capital to make Bodge and his idea worth anything. This is straight business run on business principles! Bodge is like one of them dirt buckets, like a piece of tackle, like Imogene there. He's capitalized."

"Well, he gets his share, don't he?" asked Colonel Ward, his business instinct at the fore.

"Not by a blame sight," declared Hiram, to the Cap'n's astonished alarm. "It would be like givin' a dirt bucket or that elephant a share."

When the Cap'n was about to expostulate, Hiram kicked him unobserved and went on: "I'm bein' confidential with you, Colonel, because you're one of the family, and of course are interested in seein' your brother-in-law make good. Who is takin' all the resks? The Cap'n. Bodge is only a hired man. The Cap'n takes all profits. That's business. But of course it's between us."

When Colonel Ward strolled away in meditative mood the Cap'n made indignant remonstrance.

"Ain't I got trouble enough on my hands with them six Durham steers forrads to manage without gettin' into a free fight with old Bodge?" he demanded. "There ain't any treasure, anyway. You don't believe it any more'n I do."

"You're right!" assented Hiram.

"But Bodge believes it, and when it gets to him that' we're goin' to do him, you can't handle him any more'n you could a wild hyeny!"

"When you hollered for my help in this thing," said the old showman, boring the Cap'n with inexorable eye, "you admitted that you were no good on complicated plots, and put everything into my hands. It will stay in my hands, and I don't want any advice. Any time you want to operate by yourself put me and Imogene ashore and operate."

For the next twenty-four hours the affairs of the _Aurilla P. Dobson_ were administered without unnecessary conversations between the principals.

On the afternoon of the second day Mr. Bodge, whom no solicitation could coax from his vigil on the capstan, broke his trance.

"That's the island," he shouted, flapping both hands to mark his choice. It wasn't an impressive islet. There were a few acres of sand, some scraggy spruces, and a thrusting of ledge.

Mr. Bodge was the first man into the yawl, sat in its bow, his head projected forward like a whiskered figurehead, and was the first on the beach.

"He's certainly the spryest peg-legger I ever saw," commented Hiram, admiringly, as the treasure-hunter started away, his cow's-horn divining-rod in position. The members of Hecla fire department, glad to feel land under their country feet once more, capered about on the beach, surveying the limited attractions with curious eyes. Zeburee Nute, gathering seaweed to carry home to his wife, stripped the surface of a bowlder, and called excited attention to an anchor and a cross rudely hacked into the stone.

"It's old Cap Kidd's mark," whispered Hiram to Colonel Ward. And with keen gaze he noted the Colonel's tongue lick his blue lips, and saw the gold lust beginning to gleam in his eyes.

Hiram was the only one who noted this fact: that, concealed under more seaweed, there was a date whose modernity hinted that the inscription was the work of some loafing yachtsman.

As he rose from his knees he saw Mr. Bodge pause on a hillock, arms rigidly akimbo, the point of the cow's horn directed straight down.

"I've found it!" he squealed. "It's here! Come on, come one, come all and dig, for God sakes!"

The excitement of those first few hours was too much for the self-control of Colonel Gideon Ward's avaricious nature. He hesitated a long time, blinking hard as each shovelful of dirt sprayed against the breeze. Then he grasped an opportunity when he could talk with Cap'n Sproul apart, and said, huskily:

"It's still all guesswork and uncertain, and you stand to lose a lot of expense. I know I promised not to talk business with you, but couldn't you consider a proposition to stand in even?"

The Cap'n glared on him severely.

"Do you think it's a decent proposition to step up to me and ask me to sell you gold dollars for a cent apiece? When you came on this trip you understood that Bodge was mine, and that he and this scheme wa'n't for sale. Don't ever mention it again or you and me'll have trouble."

And Colonel Ward went back to watch the digging, angry, lusting, and disheartened.

The next day the hole was far enough advanced to require the services of Imogene as bucket-lifter. That docile animal obligingly swam ashore, to the great admiration of all spectators.

On that day it was noted first that gloom was settling on the spirits of Mr. Bodge. The gloom dated from a conversation held very privately the evening before between Mr. Bodge and Colonel Ward.

Mr. Bodge, pivoting on his peg-leg, stood at the edge of the deepening hole with a doleful air that did not accord with his enthusiastic claims as a treasure-hunter. That night he had another conference with Colonel Ward, and the next day he stood beside the hole and muttered constantly in the confidential retirement of his whiskers. On the third day he had a murderous look in his eyes every time he turned them in the direction of Cap'n Sproul. On the night of the fourth day Hiram detected him hopping softly on bare foot across the cabin of the _Dobson_ toward the stateroom of Cap'n Sproul. He carried his unstrapped peg-leg in his hand, holding it as he would a weapon. Detected, he explained to Hiram with guilty confusion that he was walking in his sleep. The next night, at his own request, he was left alone on the island, where he might indulge in the frailty of somnambulism without danger to any one.

Colonel Ward, having missed his usual private conference with Mr. Bodge that night, and betraying a certain uneasiness on that account, gobbled a hurried breakfast, took the dingy, and went ashore alone.

Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look, stepping from the yawl upon the beach a half-hour later, saw the Colonel's gaunt frame outlined against the morning sun. He was leaning over the hole, hands on his knees, and appeared to be very intently engaged.

"There's something underhanded going on here, and I propose to find out what it is," growled the Cap'n.

"Noticed it, have you?" inquired Hiram, cheerfully.

"I notice some things that I don't talk a whole lot about."

"I'm glad you have," went on Hiram, serenely overlooking a possible taunt regarding his own reticence. "It's a part of the plot, and plot aforesaid is now ripe enough to be picked. Or, to put it another way, I figger that the esteemed relative has bit and has swallered the hook."

"Ain't it about time I got let in on this?" demanded the Cap'n, with heat.

With an air as though about to impart a vital secret, Hiram grasped the Cap'n's arm and whispered: "I'll tell you just what you've got to do to make the thing go. You say 'Yes' when I tell you to."

Then he hurried up the hill, Cap'n Sproul puffing at his heels and revolving venomous thoughts.

It was a deep hole and a gloomy hole, but when the two arrived at the edge they could see Mr. Bodge at the bottom. His peg-leg was unstrapped, and he held it clutched in both hands and brandished it at them the moment their heads appeared over the edge.

"And there you be, you robber!" he squalled. "You would pick cents off'm, a dead man's eyes, and bread out of the mouths of infants." He stopped his tirade long enough to suck at the neck of a black bottle.

"Come on! Come one, come all!" he screamed. "I'll split every head open. I'll stay here till I starve. Ye'll have to walk over my dead body to get it."

"Well, he's good and drunk, and gone crazy into the bargain," snorted the Cap'n, disgustedly.

"It's a sad thing," remarked Colonel Ward, his little, hard eyes gleaming with singular fires, and trying to compose his features. "I'm afraid of what may happen if any one tries to go down there."

"I'll come pretty near to goin' down into my own hole if I want to," blurted the Cap'n.

"I'll kill ye jest so sure's hell's a good place to thaw plumbin'," cried Mr. Bodge. "I've got ye placed. You was goin' to steal my brains. You was goin' to suck Bodge dry and laugh behind his back. You're an old thief and liar."

"There's no bald-headed old sosh that can call me names--not when I can stop it by droppin' a rock on his head," stated the Cap'n with vigor.

"You don't mean to say you'd hurt that unfortunate man?" inquired Colonel Ward. "He has gone insane, I think. He ought to be treated gently. I probably feel different about it than either of you, who are comparative strangers in Smyrna. But I've always known Eleazar Bodge, and I should hate to see any harm come to him. As it is, his brain has been turned by this folly over buried treasure." The Colonel tried to speak with calmness and dignity, but his tones were husky and his voice trembled. "Perhaps I can handle him better than any of the rest of you. I was talkin' with him when you came up."

"You all go away and leave me with Colonel Gid Ward," bawled Bodge. "He's the only friend I've got in the world. He'll be good to me."

"It's pretty bad business," commented Hiram, peering down into the pit with much apprehension.

"It's apt to be worse before it's over with," returned the Colonel.

And, catching a look in Hiram's eyes that seemed to hint at something, he called the showman aside.

"I can't talk with my brother-in-law," he began. "He seems to get very impatient with me when we try to talk business. But I've got a proposition to make, and perhaps I can make it through you."

Then, seeing that the Cap'n was bending malevolent gaze on them, he drew Hiram farther away, and they entered into spirited colloquy.

"It's this way," reported the showman, returning at last to the Cap'n, and holding him firmly by the coat lapel. "As you and I have talked it, you've sort of got cold feet on this treasure proposition." This was news to the Cap'n, but his eyelids did not so much as quiver. "Here you are now up against a man that's gone crazy and that's threatenin' to kill you, and may do so if you try to do more business with him. Colonel Ward says he's known him a good many years, and pities him in his present state, and, more than that, has got sort of interested in this Cap Kidd treasure business himself, and has a little money he'd like to spend on it--and to help Mr. Bodge. Proposition by Colonel Ward is that if you'll step out and turn over Mr. Bodge and this hole to him just as it stands he'll hand you his check now for fifteen thousand dollars, and"--the showman hastened to stop the Cap'n's amazed gasping by adding decisively--"as your friend and general manager of this expedition, and knowin' your feelin's pretty well, I've accepted and herewith hand you check. Members of Hecla fire company will please take notice of trade. Do I state it right, Colonel Ward?"

The Colonel, with high color mantling his thin cheeks, affirmed hoarsely.

"And, bein' induced to do this mostly out of regard for Mr. Bodge, he thinks it's best for us to sail away so that Mr. Bodge can calm himself. We'll send a packet from Portland to take 'em off. They would like to stay here and prospect for a few days. Right, Colonel Ward?"

The Colonel affirmed once more.

Casting one more look into the hole, another at his inexplicable brother-in-law, and almost incredulous gaze at the check in his hand, Cap'n Sproul turned and marched off down the hill. He promptly went on board, eager to get that check as far away from its maker as possible.

It was an hour later before he had opportunity of a word with Hiram, who had just finished the embarkation of Imogene.

"My Gawd, Hiram!" he gasped, "how did you skin this out of him?"

"I could have got twenty-five thousand just as quick," replied the showman. "You take a complicated plot like that, and when it does get ripe it's easy pickin'. When old Dot-and-carry got to pokin' around in that hole this mornin' and come upon the chist bound with iron, after scrapin' away about a foot of dirt, he jest naturally concluded he'd rather be equal partners with Colonel Gid Ward than be with you what I explained he was to the Colonel."

"Chist bound with iron?" demanded the Cap'n.

"Cover of old planks that Ludelphus and I patched up with strap iron down in the hold and planted after dark last night. Yes, sir, with old Bodge standin' there as he was to-day, and reportin' to Ward what he had under foot, I could have got ten thousand more out of esteemed relative. But I reckoned that fifteen thousand stood for quite a lot of profit on timber lands."

The Cap'n gazed aloft to see that the dingy canvas of the _Dobson_ was drawing, and again surveyed the check.

"I reckon I'll cash it in before makin' any arrangements to send a packet out after 'em," he remarked.

After a few moments of blissful contemplation he said, with a little note of regret in his voice: "I wish you had let me know about that plankin'. I'd have liked to put a little writin' under it--something sarcastic, that they could sort of meditate on when they sit there in that hole and look at each other.

"It was certainly a complicated plot," he went on. "And it had to be. When you sell a bunch of whiskers and a hole in the ground for fifteen thousand dollars, it means more brain-work than would be needed in selling enough gold bricks to build a meetin'-house."

And with such and similar gratulatory communings they found their setting forth across the sunlit sea that day an adventuring full of rich contentment.

XXI

"She sails about like a clam-shell in a puddle of Porty Reek m'lasses," remarked Cap'n Aaron Sproul, casting contemptuous eye into the swell of the dingy mainsail, and noting the crawl of the foam-wash under the counter of the _Aurilla P. Dobson_.

But he could not infect Hiram Look with his dissatisfaction. The ex-circus man sat on the deck with his back against the port bulwark, his knees doubled high before his face as a support for a blank-book in which he was writing industriously. He stopped to lick the end of his pencil, and gazed at the Cap'n.

"I was just thinkin' we was havin' about as pleasant a sail as I ever took," he said. "Warm and sunny, our own fellers on board havin' a good time, and a complicated plot worked out to the queen's taste."

The Cap'n, glancing behind, noted that a certain scraggly island had once more slid into view from behind a wooded head. With his knee propped against the wheel, he surveyed the island's ridged backbone.

"Plot seems to be still workin'," he remarked, grimly. "If it was all worked they'd be out there on them ledges jumpin' about twenty feet into the air, and hollerin' after us."

"Let's whoa here and wait for 'em to show in sight," advised Hiram, eagerly. "It will be worth lookin' at."

"Hain't no need of slackin' sail," snorted the skipper. "It's about like bein' anchored, tryin' to ratch this old tin skimmer away from anywhere. You needn't worry any about our droppin' that island out of sight right away."

"For a man that's just got even with Colonel Gideon Ward to the tune of fifteen thousand dollars, and with the check in your pocket, you don't seem to be enjoyin' the comforts of religion quite as much as a man ought to," remonstrated Hiram.

"It's wadin' a puddle navigatin' this way," complained the Cap'n, his eyes on the penning shores of the reach; "and it makes me homesick when I think of my old four-sticker pilin' white water to her bowsprit's scroll and chewin' foam with her jumper-guys. Deep water, Hiram! Deep water, with a wind and four sticks, and I'd show ye!"

"There's something the matter with a man that can't get fun out of anything except a three-ring circus," said his friend, severely. "I'm contented with one elephant these days. It's all the responsibility I want." His eyes dwelt fondly on the placid Imogene, couchant amidships. Then he lighted a cigar, using his plug hat for a wind-break, and resumed his labors with the pencil.

"What be ye writin'--a novel or only a pome?" inquired Cap'n Sproul at last.

"Log," replied the unruffled Hiram. "This is the first sea trip I ever made, and whilst I don't know how to reeve the bowsprit or clew up the for'rad hatch, I know that a cruise without a log is like circus-lemonade without a hunk of glass to clink in the mix bowl. Got it up to date! Listen!"

He began to read, displaying much pride in his composition:

"September the fifteen. Got word that Cap'n Aaron Sproul had been cheated out of wife's interest in timber lands by his brother-in-law, Colonel Gideon Ward."

"What in Josephus's name has that got to do with this trip?" demanded the Cap'n, with rising fire, at this blunt reference to his humiliation.

"If it wa'n't for that we wouldn't be on this trip," replied Hiram, with serene confidence in his own judgment.

"Well, I don't want that set down."

"You can keep a log of your own, and needn't set it down." Hiram's tone was final, and he went on reading:

"Same date. Discovered Eleazar Bodge and his divinin'-rod. Bought option on Bodge and his secret of Cap'n Kidd's buried treasure on Cod Lead Nubble. September the fifteen to seventeen. Thought up plot to use Bodge to get even with Ward. September the twenty-three. Raised crew in Smyrna for cruise to Cod Lead, crew consistin' of men to be depended on for what was wanted--"

"Not includin' sailin' a vessel," sneered the Cap'n, squinting forward with deep disfavor to where the members of the Smyrna Ancient and Honorable Firemen's Association were contentedly fishing over the side of the sluggish _Dobson_. "Here, leave hands off'm that tops'l downhaul!" he yelled, detecting Ludelphus Murray slashing at it with his jack-knife. "My Gawd, if he ain't cut it off!" he groaned.

Murray, the Smyrna blacksmith, growled back something about not seeing what good the rope did, anyway.

Cap'n Sproul turned his back on the dim gleam of open sea framed by distant headlands.

"I'm ashamed to look the Atlantic Ocean in the face, with that bunch of barn-yarders aboard," he complained.

"Shipped crew," went on Hiram, who had not paused in his reading. "Took along my elephant to h'ist dirt. Found Cod Lead Nubble. Began h'istin' dirt. Dug hole twenty feet deep. Me and L. Murray made fake treasure-chist cover out of rotten planks. Planted treasure-chist cover. Let E. Bodge and G. Ward discover same, and made believe we didn't know of it. Sold out E. Bodge and all chances to G. Ward for fifteen thousand and left them to dig, promisin' to send off packet for them. Sailed with crew and elephant to cash check before G. Ward can get ashore to stop payment. Plot complicated, but it worked, and has helped to pass away time."

"That ain't no kind of a ship's log," objected the Cap'n, who had listened to the reading with an air too sullen for a man who had profited as much by the plot. "There ain't no mention of wind nor weather nor compass nor--"

"You can put 'em all in if you want to," broke in Hiram. "I don't bother with things I don't know anything about. What I claim is, here's a log, brief and to the point, and covers all details of plot. And I'm proud of it. That's because it's my own plot."

The Cap'n, propping the wheel with his knee, pulled out his wallet, and again took a long survey of Colonel Ward's check. "For myself, I ain't so proud of it," he said, despondently. "It seems sort of like stealin' money."

"It's a good deal like it," assented Hiram, readily. "But he stole from you first." He took up the old spy-glass and levelled it across the rail.

"That's all of log to date," he mumbled in soliloquy. "Now if I could see--"

He uttered an exclamation and peered into the tube with anxiety.

"Here!" he cried. "You take it, Cap'n. I ain't used to it, and it wobbles. But it's either them or gulls a-flappin'."

Cap'n Sproul's brown hands clasped the rope-wound telescope, and he trained its lens with seaman's steadiness.

"It's them," he said, with a chuckle of immense satisfaction. They're hoppin' up and down on the high ridge, and slattin' their arms in the air. It ain't no joy-dance, that ain't. I've seen Patagonian Injuns a war-dancin'. It's like that. They've got that plank cover pried up. I wisht I could hear what they are sayin'."

"I can imagine," returned Hiram, grimly. "Hold it stiddy, so's I can look. Them old arms of Colonel Gid is goin' some," he observed, after a pause. "It will be a wonder if he don't shake his fists off."

"There certainly is something cheerful about it--lookin' back and knowin' what they must be sayin'," observed the Cap'n, losing his temporary gloom. "I reckon I come by this check honest, after all, considerin' what he done to me on them timber lands."

"Well, it beats goin' to law," grinned Hiram. "Here you be, so afraid of lawyers--and with good reason--that you'd have let him get away with his plunder before you'd have gone to law--and he knew it when he done you. You've taken back what's your own, in your own way, without havin' to give law-shysters the biggest part for gettin' it. Shake!" And chief plotter and the benefited clasped fists with radiant good-nature. The Cap'n broke his grip in order to twirl the wheel, it being necessary to take a red buoy to port.

"We're goin' to slide out of sight of 'em in a few minutes," he said, looking back over his shoulder regretfully. "I wisht I had a crew! I could stand straight out through that passage on a long tack to port, fetch Half-way Rock, and slide into Portland on the starboard tack, and stay in sight of 'em pretty nigh all day. It would keep 'em busy thinkin' if we stayed in sight."

"Stand out," advised Hiram, eagerly. "We ain't in any hurry. Let's rub it into 'em. Stand out."

"With them pea-bean pullers to work ship?" He pointed to the devoted band of Smyrna fire-fighters, who were joyously gathering in with varying luck a supply of tomcod and haddock to furnish the larder inshore. "When I go huntin' for trouble it won't be with a gang of hoss-marines like that."

Hiram, as foreman of the Ancients, felt piqued at this slighting reference to his men, and showed it.

"They can pull ropes when you tell 'em to," he said. "Leastways, when it comes to brains, I reckon they'll stack up better'n them Portygees you used to have."

"I never pretended that them Portygees had any brains at all," said the Cap'n, grimly. "They come aboard without brains, and I took a belayin'-pin and batted brains into 'em. I can't do that to these critters here. It would be just like 'em to misunderstand the whole thing and go home and get me mixed into a lot of law for assaultin' 'em."

"Oh, if you're afraid to go outside, say so!" sneered Hiram. "But you've talked so much of deep water, and weatherin' Cape Horn, and--"

"Afraid? Me afraid?" roared the Cap'n, spatting his broad hand on his breast. "Me, that kicked my dunnage-bag down the fo'c's'le-hatch at fifteen years old? I'll show you whether I'm afraid or not."

He knotted a hitch around the spokes of the wheel and scuffed hastily forward.

"Here!" he bawled, cuffing the taut sheets to point his meaning, "when I get back to the wheel and holler 'Ease away!' you fellers get hold of these ropes, untie 'em, and let out slow till I tell you stop. And then tie 'em just as you find 'em."

They did so clumsily, Cap'n Sproul swearing under his breath, and at last the _Dobson_ got away on the port tack.

"Just think of me--master of a four-sticker at twenty-seven--havin' to stand here in the face and eyes of the old Atlantic Ocean and yell about untyin' ropes and tyin' 'em up like I was givin' off orders in a cow-barn!"