od of golden coins.

His histrionic instinct equal to the high demands of the moment,
Captain Tony stood with folded arms and gazed upon us with a
haughty and exultant smile.

Slinker and the cross-eyed man shouted aloud. They ran and
clutched at the coins with a savage greed.

"Gold, gold--the real stuff! It's the doubloons all right--where's
the rest of 'em?" These cries broke from Slinker and Horny
confusedly as the gold slid jingling between their eager fingers.

"The rest of 'em is--where they is," pronounced Tony oracularly.
"Somewheres in the sand of the cave, of course. We'll dig 'em up
to-morrow morning.

"What was the point in not digging 'em all up while you was about
it?" demanded Slinker, lowering. "What was the good o' digging up
jest these here couple o' bag's and quitting?"

"Because we didn't dig 'em up," responded Tony darkly. "Because
these was all ready and waiting. Because all we had to do was to
say 'Thankee,' to the feller that handed 'em out."

"I say," interposed one of the party nervously, "what's the good of
that kind of talk? They ain't any sense in hunting trouble, that
ever I heard of!" He glanced over his shoulder uneasily.

The rest burst out in a guffaw.

"Chris is scared. He's been a-going along looking behind him ever
since. Chris will have bad dreams to-night--he'll yell if a owl
hoots." But I thought there was a false note in the laughter of
more than one.

"Oh, of course," remarked Slinker with indignant irony, "me and
Horny ain't interested in this at all. We jest stayed bumming
round camp here 'cause we was tired. When you're through with this
sort of bunk and feel like getting down to business, why jest
mention it, and maybe if we ain't got nothing better to do we'll
listen to you."

"I was jest telling you, wasn't I?" demanded Tony. "Only that fool
Chris had to butt in. We got these here bags of doubloons, as I
says, without havin' to dig for 'em--oncet we had found the cave,
which it's no thanks to old Washtubs we ain't looking for it yet.
We got these here bags right out of the fists of a skeleton. Most
of him was under a rock, which had fell from the roof and pinned
him down amidships. Must of squashed him like a beetle, I guess.
But he'd still kep' his hold on the bags." I turned aside, for
fear that any one should see how white I was. Much too white to be
accounted for even by this grisly story. To the rest, these poor
bones might indeed