e men prepared to leave the private office. Captain Hamilton
was first at the door, and he unlocked it. The instant he pulled the
door open, Drew heard him ejaculate:

"Thunderation! Mr. Ditty! What are you doing here?"

"You told me to follow you here, Captain Hamilton," said a respectful
voice. "They told me you were inside, and so I waited for you."

"Humph! quite right, Mr. Ditty," Captain Hamilton said hastily. Then
he thrust his, head back into the office. "My mate's come for me,
Tyke. We've got an errand on Whitehall Street. See you to-morrow.
Good night, Mr. Drew."

Both the captain and the other man had gone when Drew went out into the
larger room. The remainder of that afternoon he spent in a dream.

When the day's work was over, Drew dined hastily and then shut himself
in his room where he worked busily until midnight, filling in the
vacant spaces in the rough draft of the confession. He was critical of
his efforts, recasting and revising again and again until he was
satisfied that he had caught the full meaning of the old document as
far as it was humanly possible. Only then did he lay it aside--to
dream of Ruth.

Drew was at the shop before his usual time the next morning, and Tyke
and Captain Hamilton came in soon afterward. The three went at once
into secret session, leaving the entire conduct of the chandlery
business to Winters, much to the mystification of that youth.

All three were fresh and cool this morning as they buckled down to the
problem they had to solve, and the wisdom of the previous night's
adjournment was clearly evident.

"I got to talking this thing over with my daughter last night," said
Captain Hamilton. "You'd forgotten I had a daughter, Tyke? Wait till
you see her! Well, she was aboard the schooner for dinner with me, and
she said: 'Daddy, if there is a real pirate's treasure, please go after
it. Then you can stay ashore and not go sailing away from me any
more.' So, I've a double incentive for pursuing this thing," and the
captain laughed.

"Yes, that's like the women-folk," observed Grimshaw. "They're always
for a man's leaving the sea."

"That isn't what made you leave it, Tyke," Captain Hamilton said slyly.

"An' it won't be women-folk that sends me back to it, neither," growled
the older man. "An' now, Allen," he added, as they settled comfortably
into their chairs, "how did you git along with the paper? Have you got
it so that it makes sense?"