ting to Boston in a
week or ten days.

"But the second day out, a tackle block fell from the foremast and laid
Captain Ramsay dead on the deck. He was buried at sea and the first mate
took command of the schooner. And it was right here that the trouble
began.

"This first mate was a Portuguese, a good sailor, but aside from that I
guess he was as big a villain as ever went unhung. There were five
others in the crew, and they didn't seem to be much better than the
mate. Captain Ramsay had been a rough captain and had been able to hold
the men down, but as soon as he had gone things began to happen."

There was a pause for a moment while the boys held their breath waiting
for the story to go on.

"And," resumed Ross, impressively, "I'd give my right hand to know just
what those things were."

His hearers sat for a moment stunned and bewildered by this sudden
ending.

"What!" gasped Teddy. "Do you mean that you don't know what happened?"

"No," was the reply. "I don't _know_. From what I've been able to
learn I can make a pretty good guess. All I _know_ is that my
father was picked up a week later in an open boat, wounded and starving
and delirious."

A gasp of wonder and pity ran around the little circle.

"From a letter found in his pocket they learned who he was, and after he
had partially recovered they sent him home to us," Ross went on. "But
from then to the day of his death, which took place a year later, he was
insane."

"The scoundrels!" muttered Fred, clenching his fists in indignation.

"We tried to get at the facts by piecing together what he said when he
was quieter than usual," Ross continued. "Again and again, he would
speak of 'the lighthouse' and 'Bartanet Shoals.' Then he would imagine
himself in a fight with the mate. Many times he spoke of 'burying the
box.'

"All these of course were slight things to go on, but by putting them
all together and looking at them from every side, we figured out
something like this:

"The mate probably had his suspicions aroused by the weight of the box
that held the gold. Father must have come upon him when he was trying to
open it, and there was a fight in which the rest of the crew joined.
They were probably somewhere near Bartanet Shoals when this happened,
and they put in at some quiet place along here to think over what they'd
better do. They finally decided to bury the box and leave it there until
the matter should have blown over and been forgotten