“It’s old Cap Kidd’s mark,” whispered Hiram to Colonel Ward.  And with keen gaze he noted the Colonel’s tongue lick his blue lips, and saw the gold lust beginning to gleam in his eyes.

Hiram was the only one who noted this fact:  that, concealed under more seaweed, there was a date whose modernity hinted that the inscription was the work of some loafing yachtsman.

As he rose from his knees he saw Mr. Bodge pause on a hillock, arms rigidly akimbo, the point of the cow’s horn directed straight down.

“I’ve found it!” he squealed.  “It’s here!  Come on, come one, come all and dig, for God sakes!”

The excitement of those first few hours was too much for the self-control of Colonel Gideon Ward’s avaricious nature.  He hesitated a long time, blinking hard as each shovelful of dirt sprayed against the breeze.  Then he grasped an opportunity when he could talk with Cap’n Sproul apart, and said, huskily: 

“It’s still all guesswork and uncertain, and you stand to lose a lot of expense.  I know I promised not to talk business with you, but couldn’t you consider a proposition to stand in even?”

The Cap’n glared on him severely.

“Do you think it’s a decent proposition to step up to me and ask me to sell you gold dollars for a cent apiece?  When you came on this trip you understood that Bodge was mine, and that he and this scheme wa’n’t for sale.  Don’t ever mention it again or you and me’ll have trouble.”

And Colonel Ward went back to watch the digging, angry, lusting, and disheartened.

The next day the hole was far enough advanced to require the services of Imogene as bucket-lifter.  That docile animal obligingly swam ashore, to the great admiration of all spectators.

On that day it was noted first that gloom was settling on the spirits of Mr. Bodge.  The gloom dated from a conversation held very privately the evening before between Mr. Bodge and Colonel Ward.

Mr. Bodge, pivoting on his peg-leg, stood at the edge of the deepening hole with a doleful air that did not accord with his enthusiastic claims as a treasure-hunter.  That night he had another conference with Colonel Ward, and the next day he stood beside the hole and muttered constantly in the confidential retirement of his whiskers.  On the third day he had a murderous look in his eyes every time he turned them in the direction of Cap’n Sproul.  On the night of the fourth day Hiram detected him hopping softly on bare foot across the cabin of the Dobson toward the stateroom of Cap’n Sproul.  He carried his unstrapped peg-leg in his hand, holding it as he would a weapon.  Detected, he explained to Hiram with guilty confusion that he was walking in his sleep.  The next night, at his own request, he was left alone on the island, where he might indulge in the frailty of somnambulism without danger to any one.

Colonel Ward, having missed his usual private conference with Mr. Bodge that night, and betraying a certain uneasiness on that account, gobbled a hurried breakfast, took the dingy, and went ashore alone.