' was their motto."

"That's true enough of the majority of them, no doubt," conceded Drew.
"The common sailors got only a small portion of the loot anyway. But
some of the leaders were shrewd and far-sighted men. They didn't look
forward to dying as pirates. They wanted to save enough to buy their
pardons later on and live the rest of their lives ashore in peace and
luxury. What was more natural than that they should hide their shares
of the plunder on some of the little islands they were familiar with?
They wouldn't dare to keep it on their ships, where their throats might
be cut at any moment if their crews knew there was treasure aboard."

"That's true enough," admitted his employer.

"And if they did bury it," pursued the young man, encouraged by this
concession, "why shouldn't a good deal of it be there yet? Gold and
silver and jewels don't perish from being kept underground. And as
most of the pirates died in battle, they had no chance to go back and
dig the plunder up from where they had buried it."

"But some of the crews must have been in the secret," objected Tyke,
"an' after the death of their captains what was to hinder them from
going after the doubloons an' getting 'em."

"There might have been a good many reasons," answered Drew. "In the
first place, the captains seem to have had a cheerful little habit of
killing the men who did the digging and leaving their skeletons to
guard the treasure-chests. And even when that didn't happen, what
chance would the common sailor have had of going after the loot? He
couldn't have got a ship without giving away his secret, and the minute
he'd given it away his own life wouldn't have been worth a copper cent.

"And then, too," went on Drew, warming to his subject, "look at all the
traditions there are on the subject. Where there is so much smoke
there must be some fire. A single rumor wouldn't amount to much, but
when that rumor persists and is multiplied by a thousand others until
it becomes a settled belief, there must be something in it. The rumors
are like so many spokes of a wheel all pointing to a single hub, and
that hub is--treasure!"

"I declare! you're getting all het up about it," grinned Tyke, as Drew
paused for breath. "But all the same, my boy, you want to get back to
earth. You've got as good a chance of finding hidden treasure as I
have of taking first prize in a beauty show."

"What's the matter with taking a look in Manuel's box