ch almost
worth its weight in silver or maybe the skipper would carry a small
packet in his pocket that might contain a duke's ransom in diamonds that
would never pay custom duties to the Government.

No wonder then Perk was thrilled to the core with the sense of mystery
that brooded over this most peculiar locality--to him it already assumed
a condition bordering on some of those miraculous things he could
remember once reading in his boyhood's favorite book "The Arabian
Night's Entertainment," the glamour of which had never entirely left
him.

But already Jack was casting about, as though eager to find some place
of concealment where they could stow the ship away and so prevent prying
eyes from making a disastrous discovery--disastrous at least to those
plans upon which Jack was depending for the successful outcome of his
dangerous mission.

"We've got to taxi up the shore a mile or so," he was telling Perk in
the softest manner possible, although the noise made by the rolling
waves and the clashing dead palmetto leaves dangling from the lofty
crowns of the numerous trees would have deadened voices raised even to
their natural pitch.

"So," was all Perk allowed himself to say, but it testified to his
understanding of the policy involved in Jack's general scheme of things.

This was done as quietly as the conditions allowed, and how fortunate it
was they had held off from crossing over from the gulf until the middle
of the night--but then it might be expected that Jack would consider all
such things in laying out his movements.

In the end they managed to get the amphibian between two jutting banks
where the vegetation was so dense that there was no chance of a trail or
road passing that way. In the early morning Jack planned to once again
conceal his ship, even as the captured sloop had been camouflaged by
Perk's clever use of green stuff.

"That part of the job's done and without any slip-up," Jack was saying,
vastly relieved, "and now we can take things easy for a spell, during
which time I'll try and post you as far as I can about this queer fish,
Oswald Kearns, and what they've begun to suspect he's been doing all
this while."

"In the first place he's about as wealthy as any one would want to be,
so the reason for his playing this game doesn't lie back of a desire to
accumulate money. Some say he must have run afoul of the customs service
in the days when he hadn't fallen heir to his fortune and all thi