affected Ruth. That mystery was likely to erect a barrier between the
girl and himself. Indeed, it had done so already. Drew felt it--he
knew it!

There was in her father's attitude something intangible, yet certain
enough, which spelled the captain's doubt of him. As long as
Parmalee's disappearance remained unexplained, as long as Ditty's story
could not be disproved, Drew felt that Captain Hamilton would nurse in
his mind a doubt of his innocence.

And that doubt, if it remained, whether Drew was ever tried for the
crime of Parmalee's murder or not, just as surely put Ruth out of his
grasp as though his hands actually dripped of the dead man's blood.

Captain Hamilton would never see his daughter marry a man under such a
cloud. Drew appreciated the character of the schooner's commander too
thoroughly to base any illusions upon the fact that Hamilton treated
him kindly. They were partners in this treasure hunt. The doubloons
once secured, the _Bertha Hamilton_ once in port, Drew well knew that
Ruth's father would do what he felt to be his duty. He would be Drew's
accuser at the bar of public justice. That, undoubtedly, was a
foregone conclusion.

Plunged in the depth of these despairing thoughts, Drew was startled by
the light fall of a soft hand upon his arm, and he descried the slight
figure of Ruth beside him.

"Walking the deck alone, Allen?" she said softly. "I wondered where
you were."

"Just doing my usual forty laps after supper," he responded, trying to
speak lightly.

"I should think your work to-day in the digging, to say nothing of our
experience in the cave, would have been as much exercise as you really
needed," she said, laughing. "And all for nothing!"

"We could scarcely expect success so soon," he replied.

"No? Perhaps success is not to be our portion, Allen. What then?"

"Well," and he tried to say it cheerfully, "we've had a run for our
money."

"A run for the pirate's money, you mean. Let's see," she added slyly,
"that confession did not state just how many doubloons were buried, did
it?"

"The amount specified I failed to make out," he told her. "Time had
erased it."

"Then we are after an unknown amount--an unknown quantity of doubloons.
And perhaps we are fated never to know the amount of the pirate's
hoard," and she laughed again. Then, suddenly, she clutched his arm
more tightly as they paced the deck together, crying under her breath:
"Oh! look yonder Alle