ached the
old bed of the lake, he found there was not a drop of water in it.

"The thing doesn't work!" he cried joyfully. "Fool that I am, I might
have known that although a man might open a valve two or three
centuries old, he should not expect to shut it up again. I suppose I
smashed it utterly."

His revulsion of feeling was so great that he began to laugh at his own
absurdity, and then he laughed at his merriment.

"If any one should see me now," he thought, "they would surely think I
had gone crazy over my wealth. Well, there is no danger from a flood,
but, to make all things more than safe, I will pull down this handle, if
it will come. Anyway, I do not want it seen."

The great bar came down much easier than it had gone up, moving, in fact,
the captain thought, as if some of its detachments were broken, and when
it was down as far as it would go, he came away.

"Now," said he, "I have done with this cave for this trip. If possible, I
shall think of it no more."

When he was getting some water from the stream to make some coffee for
his breakfast, he stopped and clenched his fist. "I am more of a fool
than I thought I was," he said. "This solitary business is not good for
me. If I had thought last night of coming here to see if this little
stream were still running, and kept its height, I need not have troubled
myself about the lake in the cave. Of course, if the water were running
into the caves, it would not be running here until the lake had filled.
And, besides, it would take days for that great lake to fill. Well, I am
glad that nobody but myself knows what an idiot I have been."

When he had finished his breakfast, Captain Horn went to work. There was
to be no more thinking, no more plans, no more fanciful anxieties, no
more hopes of doing something better than he had done. Work he would, and
when one thing was done, he would find another. The first thing he set
about was the improvement of the pier which had been built for the
landing of the guano. There was a good deal of timber left unused, and he
drove down new piles, nailed on new planking, and extended the little
pier considerably farther into the waters of the cove. When this was
done, he went to work on the lighter, which was leaky, and bailed it out,
and calked the seams, taking plenty of time, and doing his work in the
most thorough manner. He determined that after this was done, and he
could find nothing better to do, he would split up the