sy to say. I am a mineralogist--a mining
engineer. I got the title of professor from a college back East where I
lecture occasionally on mineralogy and petrology. People haven't time to
write my name though it's not so difficult to pronounce."

"Sure enough," said Jim. "I do not know your name yet."

"Let me write it for you," said the professor. And taking a sheet of
paper this is what he penned.

Featheringstonehaughleigh.

"You will always be just plain professor to me," determined Jim, and
there was a general laugh.

"To resume," went on the professor, "for the past three or four years I
have been down in the South Sea Islands prospecting. Acting for an
English syndicate which had an idea that there were some gold or silver
mines that could be developed."

"Did you find any?" questioned Jim.

"None that were worth while, but while I was there I came across an old
sailor who had a story of a fabulously rich mine that was located on
one of the islands. He didn't know just where, and had been hunting for
it for a good many years, traveling from island to island in his quest."

"Couldn't he find it?"

"All he had to guide him was a rudely drawn map of the island that was
located somewhere in the Southern seas. He worked all alone, for he was
afraid to share his secret with any for fear that they would kill him to
get it all."

"Are they as bad as that down there?" asked Tom.

"About as bad as they are made, a good many of them are," replied the
professor. "But, to get on with my story, it happened that I was enabled
to do him a good turn on one occasion, and he confided his secret to me.
I tried to help him to find the island, but, as the longitude and
latitude were rather vague, we couldn't locate it. I helped him all I
could, and when he was taken down with the fever, just before he died he
gave me the map on the condition that if I found the mine I would share
with his family, which I agreed to do."

"Do you think there was any foundation for his story?" asked Jim.

"I think there is. At least I thought there was enough in it to give up
my work for the syndicate and organize an expedition to hunt for it. It
seems, according to Brook's story, John Brook was his name, that his
father when a young man was a sailor on an English vessel. On one of his
voyages, his ship was captured by pirates and the crew were made
prisoners. They were carried to the pirates' lair on an island away from
the usual track.