ap'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 int