“Chist bound with iron?” demanded the Cap’n.

“Cover of old planks that Ludelphus and I patched up with strap iron down in the hold and planted after dark last night.  Yes, sir, with old Bodge standin’ there as he was to-day, and reportin’ to Ward what he had under foot, I could have got ten thousand more out of esteemed relative.  But I reckoned that fifteen thousand stood for quite a lot of profit on timber lands.”

The Cap’n gazed aloft to see that the dingy canvas of the Dobson was drawing, and again surveyed the check.

“I reckon I’ll cash it in before makin’ any arrangements to send a packet out after ’em,” he remarked.

After a few moments of blissful contemplation he said, with a little note of regret in his voice:  “I wish you had let me know about that plankin’.  I’d have liked to put a little writin’ under it—­something sarcastic, that they could sort of meditate on when they sit there in that hole and look at each other.

“It was certainly a complicated plot,” he went on.  “And it had to be.  When you sell a bunch of whiskers and a hole in the ground for fifteen thousand dollars, it means more brain-work than would be needed in selling enough gold bricks to build a meetin’-house.”

And with such and similar gratulatory communings they found their setting forth across the sunlit sea that day an adventuring full of rich contentment.

XXI

“She sails about like a clam-shell in a puddle of Porty Reek m’lasses,” remarked Cap’n Aaron Sproul, casting contemptuous eye into the swell of the dingy mainsail, and noting the crawl of the foam-wash under the counter of the Aurilla P. Dobson.

But he could not infect Hiram Look with his dissatisfaction.  The ex-circus man sat on the deck with his back against the port bulwark, his knees doubled high before his face as a support for a blank-book in which he was writing industriously.  He stopped to lick the end of his pencil, and gazed at the Cap’n.

“I was just thinkin’ we was havin’ about as pleasant a sail as I ever took,” he said.  “Warm and sunny, our own fellers on board havin’ a good time, and a complicated plot worked out to the queen’s taste.”

The Cap’n, glancing behind, noted that a certain scraggly island had once more slid into view from behind a wooded head.  With his knee propped against the wheel, he surveyed the island’s ridged backbone.

“Plot seems to be still workin’,” he remarked, grimly.  “If it was all worked they’d be out there on them ledges jumpin’ about twenty feet into the air, and hollerin’ after us.”

“Let’s whoa here and wait for ’em to show in sight,” advised Hiram, eagerly.  “It will be worth lookin’ at.”

“Hain’t no need of slackin’ sail,” snorted the skipper.  “It’s about like bein’ anchored, tryin’ to ratch this old tin skimmer away from anywhere.  You needn’t worry any about our droppin’ that island out of sight right away.”