cond mate, staring with some concern at the group
about him and at the Cap'n, who still held his fragment of rock.

"Mr. Butts, you and your men come with me and I'll tell you a story
that will--"

Hiram Look thrust forward at this moment. The ex-showman was not a
reassuring personality to meet shipwrecked mariners. His big
handkerchief was knotted about his head in true buccaneer style. The
horns of his huge mustache stuck out fiercely. Mr. Butts and his timid
Portuguese shrank.

"He's a whack-fired, jog-jiggered old sanup of a liar," bellowed this
startling apparition, who might have been Blackbeard himself. "We
only have got back the fifteen thousand that he stole from us."

These amazing figures dizzied Mr. Butts, and his face revealed his
feelings. He blinked from one party to the other with swiftly
calculating gaze. Looking at the angry Hiram, he backed away two
steps. After staring at the unkempt members of the Smyrna fire
department, ranged behind their foreman, he backed three steps more.
And then reflecting that the man of the piratical countenance had
unblushingly confessed to the present possession of the disputed
fortune, he clasped his hands to his own money-belt and hurried over
to Colonel Ward's rock, his men scuttling behind him.

"Don't you believe their lies," bellowed the Colonel, breaking in
on Hiram's eager explanations of the timber-land deal and the quest
of the treasure they had come to Cod Lead to unearth. "I'll take you
right to the hole they sold to me, I'll show you the plank cover they
made believe was the lid of a treasure-chest, I'll prove to you they
are pirates. We've got to stand together." He hastened to Mr. Butts
and linked his arm in the seaman's, drawing him away. "There's only
two of us. We can't hurt you. We don't want to hurt you. But if you
stay among that bunch they'll have your liver, lights, and your
heart's blood."

Five minutes later the Ward camp was posted on a distant pinnacle
of the island. Cap'n Sproul had watched their retreat without a word,
his brows knitted, his fists clutched at his side, and his whole
attitude representing earnest consideration of a problem. He shook
his head at Hiram's advice to pursue Mr. Butts and drag him and his
men away from the enemy. It occurred to him that the friendliest chase
would look like an attack. He reflected that he had not adopted
exactly the tactics that were likely to warm over the buried embers
of friendship in Mr.