rew
set adrift in the longboat, and the bark herself and all her cargo
burned to the water's edge.

[Illustration: SO THE TREASURE WAS DIVIDED]

Five hundred of the seven hundred pounds invested in the unfortunate
"venture" was money bequeathed by Hiram's father, seven years before,
to Levi West.

Eleazer White had been twice married, the second time to the widow
West. She had brought with her to her new home a good-looking,
long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne'er-do-well of a son, a year
or so younger than Hiram. He was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle,
shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a
pin. He was the very opposite to poor, dull Hiram. Eleazer White had
never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf.
Upon the other hand, he was very fond of Levi West, whom he always
called "our Levi," and whom he treated in every way as though he were
his own son. He tried to train the lad to work in the mill, and was
patient beyond what the patience of most fathers would have been with
his stepson's idleness and shiftlessness. "Never mind," he was used to
say. "Levi 'll come all right. Levi's as bright as a button."

It was one of the greatest blows of the old miller's life when Levi
ran away to sea. In his last sickness the old man's mind constantly
turned to his lost stepson. "Mebby he'll come back again," said he,
"and if he does I want you to be good to him, Hiram. I've done my duty
by you and have left you the house and mill, but I want you to promise
that if Levi comes back again you'll give him a home and a shelter
under this roof if he wants one." And Hiram had promised to do as his
father asked.

After Eleazer died it was found that he had bequeathed five hundred
pounds to his "beloved stepson, Levi West," and had left Squire Hall
as trustee.

Levi West had been gone nearly nine years and not a word had been
heard from him; there could be little or no doubt that he was dead.

One day Hiram came into Squire Hall's office with a letter in his
hand. It was the time of the old French war, and flour and corn meal
were fetching fabulous prices in the British West Indies. The letter
Hiram brought with him was from a Philadelphia merchant, Josiah
Shippin, with whom he had had some dealings. Mr. Shippin proposed that
Hiram should join him in sending a "venture" of flour and corn meal to
Kingston, Jamaica. Hiram had slept upon the letter overnight and now
he brought i