“But Bodge,” snorted the Colonel.  “He—­”

“Certain men for certain things,” declared Hiram, firmly.  “Most every genius is more or less a lunatic.  It needed capital to develop Bodge.  It’s takin’ capital to make Bodge and his idea worth anything.  This is straight business run on business principles!  Bodge is like one of them dirt buckets, like a piece of tackle, like Imogene there.  He’s capitalized.”

“Well, he gets his share, don’t he?” asked Colonel Ward, his business instinct at the fore.

“Not by a blame sight,” declared Hiram, to the Cap’n’s astonished alarm.  “It would be like givin’ a dirt bucket or that elephant a share.”

When the Cap’n was about to expostulate, Hiram kicked him unobserved and went on:  “I’m bein’ confidential with you, Colonel, because you’re one of the family, and of course are interested in seein’ your brother-in-law make good.  Who is takin’ all the resks?  The Cap’n.  Bodge is only a hired man.  The Cap’n takes all profits.  That’s business.  But of course it’s between us.”

When Colonel Ward strolled away in meditative mood the Cap’n made indignant remonstrance.

“Ain’t I got trouble enough on my hands with them six Durham steers forrads to manage without gettin’ into a free fight with old Bodge?” he demanded.  “There ain’t any treasure, anyway.  You don’t believe it any more’n I do.”

“You’re right!” assented Hiram.

“But Bodge believes it, and when it gets to him that’ we’re goin’ to do him, you can’t handle him any more’n you could a wild hyeny!”

“When you hollered for my help in this thing,” said the old showman, boring the Cap’n with inexorable eye, “you admitted that you were no good on complicated plots, and put everything into my hands.  It will stay in my hands, and I don’t want any advice.  Any time you want to operate by yourself put me and Imogene ashore and operate.”

For the next twenty-four hours the affairs of the Aurilla P. Dobson were administered without unnecessary conversations between the principals.

On the afternoon of the second day Mr. Bodge, whom no solicitation could coax from his vigil on the capstan, broke his trance.

“That’s the island,” he shouted, flapping both hands to mark his choice.  It wasn’t an impressive islet.  There were a few acres of sand, some scraggy spruces, and a thrusting of ledge.

Mr. Bodge was the first man into the yawl, sat in its bow, his head projected forward like a whiskered figurehead, and was the first on the beach.

“He’s certainly the spryest peg-legger I ever saw,” commented Hiram, admiringly, as the treasure-hunter started away, his cow’s-horn divining-rod in position.  The members of Hecla fire department, glad to feel land under their country feet once more, capered about on the beach, surveying the limited attractions with curious eyes.  Zeburee Nute, gathering seaweed to carry home to his wife, stripped the surface of a bowlder, and called excited attention to an anchor and a cross rudely hacked into the stone.