“’I forgot to say that as soon as Shirley began to talk about the dead man and his gold, I left the warehouse in charge of Maka, and took him to my hotel, where he told me the rest of his story in a room with the door locked.  I must try to take as many reefs in what followed as I can.  I don’t believe that the finding of the gold made any difference in their plans, for, of course, it would have been foolish for them to try to get to us by themselves.  They cut the blanket in half and made up the gold into two packages, and then they started back for the mountains, taking with them all the provisions they could carry in addition to the gold, and leaving their guns behind them.  Shirley said their loads got heavier and heavier as they ploughed through the sand, and it took them three days to cover the ground they had gone over before in two.  When they got to the village, they found scarcely a man in the place, for the fellows who had deserted them were frightened, and kept out of sight.  They stayed there all night, and then they went on with their bundles to the next village, where they succeeded in getting a couple of travelling-bags, into which they put their gold, so that they might appear to be carrying their clothes.

“’After a good deal of travel they reached Callao, and there they made inquiries for A. McLeish, but nobody knew of him.  Of course, he was a sailor who had had a letter sent there.  They went up to Lima and sold a few pieces of the gold, but, before they did it, they got a heavy hammer and pounded them up, so that no one would know what their original shape was.  Shirley said he could not say exactly why they did this, but that they thought, on the whole, it would be safer.  Then they went to San Francisco on the first vessel that sailed.  They must have had a good deal of talk on the voyage in regard to the gold, and it was in consequence of their discussions that Shirley wanted so much to find me.  They had calculated, judging by the pieces they had sold, that the gold they had with them was worth about twelve thousand dollars, and they both thought they ought to do the right thing about it.  In the first place, they tried in San Francisco to find out something about McLeish, but no one knew of such a man.  They then began to consider some persons they did know about.  They had heard in Lima that some of the people of the Castor had been rescued, and if any of them were hard up, as most likely they were, Shirley and Burke thought that by rights they ought to have some of the treasure that they had found.  Shirley said at first they had gone on the idea that each of them would have six thousand dollars and could go into business for himself, but after a while they thought this would be a mean thing to do.  They had all been shipwrecked together, and two of them had had a rare piece of good luck, and they thought it no more than honorable to share this good luck with the others, so they concluded the best thing to do was to see me about it.  Burke left this business to Shirley, because he wanted to go to see his sister who lives in St. Louis.