“Far more money has been spent in searching for treasure than ever was lost,” declared Mr. Bickford. “There was the Peruvian treasure supposed to have been hidden on Cocos Island—a vast fortune in church plate, holy vessels and coin which was taken away to prevent it falling into the hands of the enemy. Innumerable expeditions have set out to find it but none have succeeded, although many have claimed to possess maps of the spot. But during the years that have passed, the island has altered, there have been landslides, and, if we are to believe the most reliable reports, the treasure lies buried under thousands of tons of rock and earth that has fallen from the mountainside. And as far as known the treasures that were lost when the Dons hurriedly sent it away from Old Panama to prevent it falling into Morgan’s hands has never been found. Some day some one may stumble upon it, but the chances are that it will remain lost to the world forever.” “Then all these stories about Captain Kidd’s treasure are just yarns,” said Fred regretfully. “And you said he wasn’t even a pirate.” “If Captain Kidd had possessed one-hundredth of the treasure he is supposed to have buried he would have been the most successful pirate who ever lived,” declared Mr. Bickford. “There is nothing to prove that Captain Kidd ever had any considerable treasure and the little he had was secreted on Gardiner’s Island and recovered by the men who employed Kidd and for whom it was intended. No, your old hero Kidd was not a pirate nor a buccaneer. On the contrary, he was a much maligned man, a weak, rather cowardly chap, who was the tool of unscrupulous adventurers and paid the penalty for crimes that never were proved against him. And yet, strangely enough, he became noted as the most famous of all pirates and his name is a household word and the epitome of piracy. It is one of the most astounding examples of unwarranted fame and misconception on record, and so firmly fixed in the mind of the public is the erroneous idea that Kidd was the most notorious of pirates that not one person in a thousand will listen to reason or pay the least heed to documentary evidence or historical records proving he was no pirate at all. “It is the hardest thing in the world to down tradition and oddly enough the more false tradition is the harder it seems to be to correct it. Despite everything, Kidd will, no doubt, continue to remain the favorite pirate of romance and story, and to the end of time Kidd’s treasure will still, in imagination, be buried here, there and everywhere along the coasts. “We scarcely ever hear of ‘Blackbeard’s treasure,’ of ‘Morgan’s treasure’ or of ‘Bonnet’s treasure,’ although each and every one of those rascals was a pirate and took vast sums and may have buried their loot for all we know. But always it is Kidd’s treasure, although the poor fellow never had any to bury.