converse and think of such expeditions, it is not surprising
that a few of the most enterprising of those who first heard the reports
should unite and plan the adventure they now actually had in hand. When
the intelligence of what was going on on Oyster Pond reached them,
everything like hesitation or doubt disappeared; and from the moment of
the nephew's return in quest of his uncle's assets, the equipment of the
"Humses' Hull" craft had been pressed in a way that would have done credit
to that of a government cruiser. Even Henry Eckford, so well known for
having undertaken to cut the trees and put upon the waters of Ontario two
double-bank frigates, if frigates they could be termed, each of which was
to mount its hundred guns, in the short space of sixty days, scarce
manifested greater energy in carrying out his contract, than did these
rustic islanders in preparing their craft to compete with that which they
were now certain was about to sail from the place where their kinsman had
breathed his last.

These keen and spirited islanders, however, did not work quite as much in
the dark as our accounts, unexplained, might give the reader reason to
suppose. It will be remembered that there was a till to the chest which
had not been examined by the deacon. This till contained an old mutilated
journal, not of the last, but of one or two of the earlier voyages of the
deceased; though it had detached entries that evidently referred to
different and distant periods of time. By dint of study, and by putting
together sundry entries that at first sight might not be supposed to have
any connection with each other, the present possessor of that chest had
obtained what he deemed to be very sufficient clues to his uncle's two
great secrets. There were also in the chest several loose pieces of paper,
on which there were rude attempts to make charts of all the islands and
keys in question, giving their relative positions as it respected their
immediate neighbours, but in no instance giving the latitudes and
longitudes. In addition to these significant proofs that the reports
brought through the two masters were not without a foundation, there was
an unfinished letter, written by the deceased, and addressed as a sort of
legacy, "to any, or all of Martha's Vineyard, of the name of Daggett."
This address was sufficiently wide, including, probably, some hundreds of
persons: a clan in fact; but it was also sufficiently significant. The
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