from Ruth to Alice.

"Why of course we'll call you Jack," assented the latter. "It will sound
nicer anyhow, I think," she added. "Now go on with your story. You said
there was a mystery in it. Has it anything to do with--buried treasure?"
and Alice leaned forward eagerly.

"Buried treasure? No, Miss. What made you ask that?"

"The idea!" exclaimed Ruth with a laugh. "I'm afraid you'll think my
sister very romantic, Mr.--er--Jack."

"That's better!" he laughed. "Well, I don't know much about romance. My
life's been mostly hard work."

"I just mentioned treasure," Alice said with a little laugh, and a
glance toward where Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, having a rest from
their moving picture work, were curiously eyeing the old sailor and the
two girls.

"Well, my mystery hasn't anything t' do with buried treasure," resumed
Jack Jepson. "It's about a mutiny that took place off th' Hole in th'
Wall, about five years ago, an'----"

"Hole in the Wall!" interrupted Ruth. "I thought mutinies always took
place on the high seas."

"Well, this _was_ the high seas," Jack answered.

"But the Hole--?"

"That's the name of a passage between Great Abaco Island and Eleuthera,
in the West Indies," the sailor replied. "I don't know why it's called
that, but it is."

"A queer name," murmured Ruth.

"Go on, please," urged Alice.

"Well, I was second mate aboard a five masted schooner engaged in the
lumber business," went on Jack Jepson. "We were going down to South
America, in ballast t' bring back a cargo of hard woods, an' off the
Hole in the Wall th' trouble started.

"Some of the crew kicked on account of the grub--that's the stuff we
eat on a ship," he explained.

"Oh, we know _something_ of such talk," said Alice with a laugh. "We
haven't been out West among the cowboys for nothing!"

"Well, some of th' hands laid it to the grub, an' others t' th' hard
work of sailing th' craft," went on Jack. "She was a mighty poor
schooner in ballast, an' owing t' storms an' rough weather we had t' be
takin' in or lettin' out reefs all th' while. It wasn't so bad up t' th'
time we got off th' Hole in th' Wall, but from then on it was fierce!

"I'd heard rumors that th' crew was goin' t' mutiny an' demand that we
put in at some port, an' get better grub, an' more hands, for we was
short of sailors. But I didn't pay much attention to th' underhand talk
until it was too late. Then, all at once, when we had got away down
about of