Ralph D. Paine

“ Mr. Mannice drank another cocktail, and carefully counted his cash reserve. He was near the end of his rope, but there was enough for another trip to Falmouth. He moved promptly, taking a train which landed him in that sea port shortly after nightfall of this same day. Cautiously, he made his way on foot to the corner of the harbor where the forsaken vessels lay in a row, and passed wide of the captain’s cottage. The place was unwatched at night, and, unobserved, he stumbled out upon the dilapidated wharf at which the Wanderer was moored. ”

“ Those old shellbacks are hard to kill. It’s not impossible that the ship is still knocking about; there are a few of them left—my old Endymion and——”
“And the Wanderer!” exclaimed Mannice, choosing the right moment to drive the suggestion home. “I thought of her at once. That’s why I came to tell you about it. The odds are all against it, of course.”
Their eyes sought the wharf and the graceful hull of what had once been a queen of all the oceans. Captain Kempton’s hobby made him credulous, ready to expect a coincidence. And every man bred to the sea has beheld impossible things come true. ”

“ But you have to find the treasure first, don’t you?”
“Unless somebody else has beat us to it, we are apt to turn up something with the pick and shovel,” declaimed Mannice. “But it’s mightly unlikely that more than one chart was left be hind by this Peleg Peterson.”
“Oh, you are already planning to look for it?” asked Eudora, a reflective finger on her chin. “You take my breath away. May I see the wonderful chart?”
“Not now. It must not be exposed to the strong light,” testily explained her father. “The ink may fade, or the parchment crumble, and then where are we?” ”

“ CHAPTER II. It was in a Boston lodging house by no means luxurious that the accomplished journalist sat down at once to arrange his notes and write three columns of swinging prose in praise of Yankee ships and sailors that sail the seas no more. ”