m the harbor and followed the shore line
toward the southwest, bound for that neck of the Isthmus which is known
loosely as The Darien.

Before night had fallen we were rounding Brava Point into the Gulf of
San Miguel, so named by Balboa because it was upon St. Michael's Day,
1513, that his eyes here first fell upon the blue waters of the Pacific.

We followed the north shore, along precipitous banks that grew higher
the farther inland we went. The dense jungle came down to the water's
edge and was unbroken by any sign of human habitation.

In the brilliant moonlight we passed the South and the North bays,
pushing straight into the Darien Harbor by way of the Boco Chico. The
tides here have a rise and fall of nearly twenty feet, but we found a
little inlet close to a mangrove swamp that offered a good harborage for
the night.

The warm sun was pouring over the hill when I reached the deck next
morning. We were steaming slowly past the village of La Palma along a
precipitous shore heavily timbered. One could not have asked a
pleasanter trip than that to the head of the harbor, at which point the
Rio Tuyra pours its waters into the bay. Between La Palma and the river
mouth we did not see a sign of human life.

At the distance of a rifle shot from the head of the harbor we rounded a
point and saw before us a long tongue of sand running into the water.

Blythe and I spoke almost together:

"Doubloon Spit."

There could be no mistake about it. We had reached the place where Bully
Evans and Nat Quinn had buried the gold ingots they had sold their souls
to get. We came to anchor a couple of hundred yards from the end of the
sand spit.

Neither Blythe nor I had said a word to any of the crew to indicate that
we were near our journey's end, but all morning there had been an
unusual excitement aboard. Now we could almost see the word run from man
to man that the spot where the treasure was buried lay before us.

"You'll command the shore party to-day, Jack," Blythe announced.

"Do I draw shore duty?" Yeager asked eagerly.

"You do. I'll stay with the ship. Jack, you'll have with you, too,
Alderson, Smith, Gallagher, and one of the stokers."

"Also James A. Garfield Welch," I added.

"Also Jimmie," he nodded.

We had no reason to expect any trouble, but we went ashore armed, with
the exception of Gallagher and Barbados, as we called our white-toothed,
black-faced fireman.

I had our boat beached at the neck of