"She's three stick, schooner rigged," replied the captain. "A hundred and fifty feet over all and carries a crew of about thirty. Oh! she's a sailing craft, Tyke. She's not afoul with steam winches and the like. And she's a beauty," he added, his eyes kindling with pride. "There are mighty few ships on this coast that she can't show a pair of heels to, and she's a sweet sailer in any weather. She stands right up into the wind's eye as steady as a church and when it comes to reaching or running free, I'd back her against anything that carries sails." "But how about your other engagements?" suggested Grimshaw. "Is she chartered for a voyage anywhere soon?" "That's another rare bit of luck," returned the captain. "I had an engagement to-day with Hollings & Company, who were thinking of having me take a cargo for Galveston. If I hadn't run plump into this treasure business as I did, there isn't any doubt but I would have closed with them to-day. But now it's all off. I'll see them this afternoon and tell them they'll have to get somebody else." Tyke sat down heavily in his chair and wagged his grizzled head solemnly. "It's beyond me," he said. "It must be meant. Here we might be weeks or months before we could git a ship that suited us, if we got it at all; but along comes Cap'n Rufe here with the very thing we want. If I was superstitious,"--before his stony stare they sat unwinking--"I'd think for sure there was something in this more'n natural. It can't be, after all this, that we're going on a wild goose chase." "Well," replied Captain Hamilton cautiously, "it may be that after all. Things certainly have worked to a charm so far, but that doesn't prove anything. 'There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,' and this may be one of them. When all is said and done, it's a gamble. For all we know, the doubloons may have been taken away a hundred years ago, and all we'll find after we get there may be an empty hole in the ground. But 'nothing venture, nothing have'; and with all the evidence we have, I'm willing to take a chance." "So am I!" cried Tyke heartily. "Of course, we stand to lose a tidy little sum if it should turn out to be a fluke. There's the outfitting to be done, the crew's wages to be paid, an' a lot of other expenses that'll mount up into money. But it's worth a chance, and if we lose I'm willing to stand the gaff without whining." It goes without saying that Drew heartily echoed these sentiments in his mind, but he felt some delicacy about expressing them. After all, it was Captain Hamilton and his employer who would have to provide the funds for the expedition and stand the loss if there were any. He himself would be called on to risk nothing.