Ralph D. Paine

“ Bodge,” sighed Eudora. “And it was all up with father.”
“My deluded husband came home with a chart, but he refused to tell me where and how he had discovered it,” vehemently confided his wife. “And it was all up with James. He teaches mathematics, but he has rested his mind for years by reading about gory pirates and bags of doubloons. Your chart is the only genuine article, I presume. So is ours.”
“I don’t know. It make no difference. Is there anything we can do to cure them?”
“Nothing short of an earthquake or finding the wretched treasure will pry James off this island.” ”

“ It was inevitable that, in a short time, the rivals would have shoveled themselves into such close proximity to each other that there must be a clash. The well-known law that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time was bound to apply to treasure seekers. Eminently respectable men at home, Captain Joseph Kempton and Professor James Hyssop Bodge had suffered a sea change. ”

“ A growl from the group behind Professor Bodge implied that this was open to argument. He pacified his followers, and was about to address the captain when Mrs. Bodge stepped between them and laid down the law:
“You are to postpone all this until morning. We two women have received no consideration whatever. My patience is exhausted. If you wish to put these ridiculous sentries on guard, it will do no more harm, so long as you give them no guns. They can stand and makes faces at each other. James, go to bed! Captain Kempton, put your pistol away and march yourself into camp!” ”

“ I am very anxious to meet the owner of this island. It is our only hope of escape.”
Unhesitatingly, the robust woman preceded Eudora, and marched down to the weather-beaten dwelling which had been built of wreckage stranded from lost ships. Smartly she rapped on the door, and shuffling feet moved within. Timidity took hold of Eudora, but the professor’s wife grasped her hand, and a moment later they faced an elderly man, who threw up his hands in astonishment and burst into a fit of coughing so violent that Mrs. Bodge pounded him between the shoulders. ”

“ Spanish oak, you know, is what they built their treasure chests of. It lasts for hundreds of years under sand and water. Captain Kempton be hanged! What if we do get in his way? We have the chart. We are the heirs of Peleg Peterson, by Jove, and this brass buckle proves it.”
After supper, the obstinate shipmaster mustered his men for a conference. It was time to act. This unscrupulous fool of a Professor Bodge had gone too far. ”

“ There’s no telling what they will do to each other. Gracious! I wish that wretched old pirate of a Peleg Peterson could be hanged over again. How in the world did the red-faced young man get you people into it? ”

“ A display of firmness will be plenty.”
The moon serenely silvered the strip of beach when the willing sailors, refreshed by food and smoke, began to throw up the breastworks at the very brink of the professor’s excavation. They made a speedy job of it and were unmolested, the Bodge forces withdrawing for a conference. Captain Kempton gave the shotgun to his cook, and told him to hold the fort until midnight, when Mr. ”