Casting one more look into the hole, another at his inexplicable brother-in-law, and almost incredulous gaze at the check in his hand, Cap'n Sproul turned and marched off down the hill. He promptly went on board, eager to get that check as far away from its maker as possible. It was an hour later before he had opportunity of a word with Hiram, who had just finished the embarkation of Imogene. "My Gawd, Hiram!" he gasped, "how did you skin this out of him?" "I could have got twenty-five thousand just as quick," replied the showman. "You take a complicated plot like that, and when it does get ripe it's easy pickin'. When old Dot-and-carry got to pokin' around in that hole this mornin' and come upon the chist bound with iron, after scrapin' away about a foot of dirt, he jest naturally concluded he'd rather be equal partners with Colonel Gid Ward than be with you what I explained he was to the Colonel." "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.