"I just mentioned treasure," Alice said with a little laugh, and a glance toward where Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, having a rest from their moving picture work, were curiously eyeing the old sailor and the two girls. "Well, my mystery hasn't anything t' do with buried treasure," resumed Jack Jepson. "It's about a mutiny that took place off th' Hole in th' Wall, about five years ago, an'----" "Hole in the Wall!" interrupted Ruth. "I thought mutinies always took place on the high seas." "Well, this _was_ the high seas," Jack answered. "But the Hole--?" "That's the name of a passage between Great Abaco Island and Eleuthera, in the West Indies," the sailor replied. "I don't know why it's called that, but it is." "A queer name," murmured Ruth. "Go on, please," urged Alice. "Well, I was second mate aboard a five masted schooner engaged in the lumber business," went on Jack Jepson. "We were going down to South America, in ballast t' bring back a cargo of hard woods, an' off the Hole in the Wall th' trouble started. "Some of the crew kicked on account of the grub--that's the stuff we eat on a ship," he explained. "Oh, we know _something_ of such talk," said Alice with a laugh. "We haven't been out West among the cowboys for nothing!" "Well, some of th' hands laid it to the grub, an' others t' th' hard work of sailing th' craft," went on Jack. "She was a mighty poor schooner in ballast, an' owing t' storms an' rough weather we had t' be takin' in or lettin' out reefs all th' while. It wasn't so bad up t' th' time we got off th' Hole in th' Wall, but from then on it was fierce! "I'd heard rumors that th' crew was goin' t' mutiny an' demand that we put in at some port, an' get better grub, an' more hands, for we was short of sailors. But I didn't pay much attention to th' underhand talk until it was too late. Then, all at once, when we had got away down about off Anegada, th' mutiny broke in full force. The men riz up, an' overpowered th' officers--th' captain was made a prisoner in his cabin, an' I was given my choice of joinin' th' mutineers or walkin' th' plank." "What's that?" asked Ruth, a bit startled. "That's when they blindfold a man, and make him walk a plank that is put out over the bulwarks, or side of the ship," said Alice. "Why, if he were blindfolded I should think he'd fall off, not knowing when he came to the end," Ruth remarked, with a little shudder. "He doesn't know," Alice said. "That's an easy way of sending a man to his doom." "That's it, Miss!" chimed in Jack. "You got th' idea!" "But Alice, how did _you_ know that dreadful thing?" her sister wonderingly demanded. "Read it in a book. Go on please, Mr.--er--Jack."