fortune--"just now you mentioned the name of the
gentleman who collected all this stuff--Jenkins Can, I think you said he
was called. Who was he, and how did he come to pouch such a pile of
loot? Was he one of those old buccaneers, like Morgan and Kidd, that we
read about?"

"Well," replied Frobisher, "he was not exactly a buccaneer, for he was
not a sailor, but a landsman; and he operated in a much larger way than
either Morgan or Kidd. As a matter of fact he was a Tartar chief in his
young days, many centuries ago, who gradually drilled and armed his own
tribe, then other tribes, and still others, until he came, in course of
time, to have an enormous army under him. The idea then occurred to him
to make use of this vast army; and he determined upon no less a task
than that of conquering Asia. He did it, too; there's hardly a square
mile of this continent that has not echoed to the tread of his troops.
Everywhere he went he was victorious. He took and sacked cities,
destroyed them, and sowed the ruins with salt; and it is said that, to
this day, no grass will grow where Genghiz Khan's armies trod.
Naturally, in the course of time, he accumulated a vast booty from the
cities he captured, and it finally became too large and cumbersome for
him to carry about with him, so he determined to alter his tactics for
once, and, instead of destroying, to build a city for himself where he
could bury his hoard, and which he could make his head-quarters.

"It is well known that he actually did this--various records state it,
but those records do not say exactly where. The city, it is said, was
founded somewhere in northern China--on the banks of a mighty river, is
the wording, I believe; but there are several rivers in China answering
that description, so the place might be almost anywhere. Then, years
afterward, this man determined to conquer Japan. He fitted out a great
armada and sailed for Nippon; but, as in the case of the famous Spanish
Armada, a storm arose, and the entire fleet was wrecked. Hundreds of
thousands of Chinese lost their lives, and Japan was saved. From that
time onward, Genghiz Khan and the records relating to his treasure
disappeared; and the city he founded, as well as the treasure, gradually
passed into legend, the story being handed down from father to son by
word of mouth. The man himself is supposed to have been cast ashore in
Japan, where he adopted the dress and customs of the Japanese, in co