th' mystery.
Whether they had a fight, an' jumped overboard together in th' darkness,
no one ever knowed, for them mutineers didn't keep extra good watch.

"But anyhow they was gone--mysteriously missin' as they say in the
paper. That sort of took the heart out of some of th' mutineers and they
got careless. First we knew a British vessel overhauled us, and, not
likin' th' looks of things, began to ask questions. Of course there
wasn't any captain, such as there should be on a ship, an' that made it
look suspicious. Th' worst of it was that nobody could say where the
captain was. None of us knew.

"Then th' story of th' mutiny came out, of course, an' it was all up.
The Britisher took charge of us. I was arrested as the ringleader of the
mutiny, an' put in chains! An' I had no more to do with it than a baby,
Miss. No more than a baby!" and Jack Jepson looked from Ruth to Alice,
his blue eyes expressing the indignation he had felt at the time.

"An' that's th' story of th' mystery, as I said I'd tell your sister,"
he added turning to Ruth.

CHAPTER V

THE MARY ELLEN

During the silence that followed the rather sudden ending of the old
salt's story, Ruth and Alice looked at each other with wonder in their
eyes. On all sides of them could be heard the clicking of the moving
picture cameras, the loud directions issued by the men who were managing
the different little dramas, and occasionally the sound of shots from
the cowboy play that was going on in front of where our friends were
seated on the bench, though at some distance away, for the studio was
large.

"But that can't be all of it," said Alice, at length.

"All of what, Miss?" Jack Jepson asked.

"The mystery."

"That's all there is to any mystery, Miss," he said. "A mystery is a
mystery, an' if it isn't solved, it's a mystery still, an' nobody can
make any more of it. Th' captain and Mike Tullane completely
disappeared, an' were never heard of afterward. That's th' mystery, an'
all there is to it, jest as I told you."

"But about yourself?" asked Ruth. "You said you were put in chains,
under arrest, as the ringleader of the mutiny."

"So I was."

"But what became of you?"

"Well, I escaped, Miss. It may not be a very nice thing to confess, but
I escaped. Th' British ship took us to a jail on some island--I forget
th' name of it. Anyhow I was locked up, an' so were a lot of th' others.
We were tried, an' I was accused of startin' th' mutiny