ad been torn away, leaving perhaps
seven-eighths of the original manuscript. Yet in spite of its imperfect
state of preservation I found this relic of a dead and forgotten past
pulse-stirring.

Before me lay the map of a peninsula, the upper part sketched in vaguely
but the toe marked apparently with the greatest care. The first detail
that caught my eye was a sketch of a brig in the bay, beneath which was
written:

"Here _Santa Theresa_ went to Hell."

It was plain that the coast line was charted accurately so as to show
the precise location of the inlets. It was a contour map, giving the
hills, sand reaches, and groves. At the nearest one of these last was
jotted down the words: "Umbrela Tree."

A little cross had been drawn near the foot of a hill. From this a long
line ran into the bay with a loop at the end in which had been printed
neatly: "Where Lobardi croked. Good riddance."

Not far from this were three little circles, beneath which was one word
in capitals, "ITTE."

My heart leaped like an unleashed foxhound taking the trail. What could
it mean but treasure? What had happened to the _Santa Theresa_? Had some
one helped Lobardi to "croke" by cracking his skull? Could that dim, red
ink once have been, the life blood in a man's veins?

Here was food enough to fire the blood of a cool-headed Yankee, let
alone that of a mad Irishman. I caught a vision of a boatload of
red-turbaned buccaneers swarming up the side of a brig; saw the swish of
cutlases and the bellying smoke of pistols; beheld the strangely garbed
seadogs gathered around an open chest of yellow gold bars shining in the
sun.

For an eyebeat it was all clear to me as day. Then I laughed aloud at
myself in returning sanity. I was in the twentieth century, not the
eighteenth. An imagination so vivid that it read all this from a scrap
of paper picked from the gutter needed curbing. I repocketed the chart
and went to lunch.

But I found I could not laugh myself out of my interest. The mystery of
it drew me, despite myself. While I waited for my chop I had the map out
again, studying it as a schoolboy does a paper-backed novel behind his
geography.

Beneath the map were some closely written lines of directions for
finding "itte," whatever that might be. As to that my guess never
wavered.

Whoever had drawn the map had called the peninsula "Doubloon Spit." Why?
Clearly because he and his fellow buccaneers had buried there the
ill-gotten treasu