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Show jgk TREASURE f OP THE SEA 4TS 4c&-1 wfapZTliM muL&bae y&&k4. THE STORY THUS FAR: Adrift on a raft for four days, Dick Jordan U almost nnconscloui from hunger and thirst when ha icoopi a few shrimps from the water and retains re-tains his Interest In living. He bad been on a steamer bound from a South American port to the United States, In custody of Hen Pcttlgrew, who was returning him to prison. They became separated when the steamer sank. Dick's lifeboat went down and only he survived. sur-vived. Dick sights a sail on the horizon. The ship comes up and takes him aboard. Captain of the dirty little ship Is Tucu, an evil-looking halfbreed. The others of the crew are Caribs. Dick fears they are Little better than pirates. ly greedy and eager. "What's that?" he demanded, stepping nearer. near-er. "Smuggling, you know," Dick went on, feeling his way carefully, "isn't a lost art It's still practiced." prac-ticed." He winked and grinned, with the Intent of simulating special knowledge. knowl-edge. Tucu stepped closer and scowled, but behind the scowl was an eager expectancy. "Y'was smugglin'?" he demanded, demand-ed, thrusting his face close to Dick's. "That isn't a fair question, is it, captain?" laughed Jordan. "If I confessed to it you could could oh, well," he added, shrugging his shoulders, "I guess you wouldn't arrest ar-rest me not if we divided the stuff!" he winked again, anxious at heart but on the surface smiling and complacent. . Would the man fall for the bait? ; The skipper was eyeing him, half in doubt, half in eager expectancy. All the avarice of his nature was in mm The skipper was eyeing him, half in doubt, half in eager expectancy. his eyes. But he was slow and crafty not child-like as his half Oarib brothers. "What is it?" he grumbled, checking check-ing his impatience. "Why specify?" retorted Dick, half rising. "It's enough that it's valuable a rich haul." A gleam of anger shot from the other's eyes. To pacify him, Dick added: , t. "I picked them up in South America Amer-ica at a big bargain. If I get them in the United States, they'll be worth -rworth well, I can't ' get them through. The City of Bahia's gone to the bottom. So, of course, the jewels were lost, too.',' Captain Tucu interrupted with arl oath. 1 "Y'left 'em aboard!" : he growled. "Y' didn't have sense enough to save 'em?" r Dick's Proposition . Interests Tucu "Hold on,' captainl If you're going go-ing to cuss me for a fool, I'll shut' up, and you'll never get a sight of the jewels. I said they'd gone down with the steamer. Wouldn't that be the natural conclusion of their owners own-ers when they heard of the foundering founder-ing of the City of Bahia? For all I know every mother's son aboard, except ex-cept me, was lost. You couldn't expect me to save smuggled goods under such circumstances, could you? That lets me out as an agent for for " , He smiled craftily, watching the expression of the half-breed's face and eyes. He was fojlowing him nibbling at the bait. Dick drew an unconscious sigh of relief. "They "'didn't go down then?" mapped Tucu. "Ye-r-ye got "em?" Dick chuckled at his eagerness. "If I had them," he said easily, "you could take ,them. There's all I brought away with me.'' He pointed to the collection of the things from his pockets he had spread out in the sun to dry. The skipper scowled in perplexity. His face assumed ' crafty suspicion, as he turned upon Dick with an ugly leer. ' i ' "If y'know where they are," he said slowly, "ye'd keep a whole skin by tellin' me. I ain't Wastin' time talkin'. Y'know where they are?" "Sure, captain or pretty near tt," smiled Dick impudently. "I put them overboard with a string attached at-tached to 'em-rand a float to the . end. Reckon I could pick "up that float." , ' , He grinned, allowing time for the information to sink in the other's brain, andf'then continued' glib-, ly: It's an old trick, of .course old as smuggling but it generally works. I had 'em ready to chuck through the porthole when we reached the Jersey coast expected to get the signal some dark night from a motorboat. Easy, wasn't , it?" ' Captain Tucu was glaring at hin with greedy eyes, his flat nostril dilated to their full expansion. Th mottled complexion of his fac changed like the shifting of a cha meleon. "When the steamer struck," add ed Dick lightly, glancing seaward "my first thought was of those pre cious gems. If left in the stateroon they'd go down with the steamer. I chucked out in time there was chance to salvage them. So," nod ding, "I let 'em go." "Where was this?" asked Tucu .struggling to appear calm. "Neai the Roncador Bank?" Dick laughed, a bit insolently, ane shrugged his shoulders. "I won' tell you, captain," Dick continuei quietly, "unless we can come t some sort of a bargain." "What bargain y' want?" aske the other slowly, checking his an ger. "Half interest no, three quarters You should be satisfied with that.' "An' if not?" "You don't get anything. If I'rr killed or found missing suddenly th jewels will remain a plaything foi the fishes." "We could find the float by cruis' in' around," replied the Carib, smiling smil-ing cratfily. Dick laughed again. "Not in i year of Sundays," he replied. "Yov don't think I'd make that float sc anybody'd spot it, and pick it up? I'm too old at the game. I'd giv you ten chances, captain, if yov were within fifty feet of it. Why, float that looks like a fish or bird oi even a jelly-fish could pass you I dozen times without exciting youi suspicion. Dick could see that his bait wai swallowed now, hook, sinker and line. Captain Tucu became suddenly sudden-ly amiable. He grinned good-naturedly. "We'll go shares," h( said. "Is it a bargain?" "Sure, if you play straight one-quarter one-quarter to you, and the rest to me no double-crdssing." "Never double-crossed a friend," was the purring reply. "Come ir the cabin an' talk about it. Mebbe we get those jewels afore night." Later that day one of the Carib! forward called attention to something some-thing on the horizon. Tucu seized a pair of old sea-glasses and inspected in-spected it in silence for a few moments. mo-ments. Then handing them to Black Burley, he grunted: "What d'ye make o' it?" The mate gave a short squint, and exclaimed: "A schooner wrecked!" "Yes, it's a derelict. We can pick her up before dark." Dick, listening and watching, drew a sigh of relief. .' ; If they had discovered . a floating derelict, they would sail out of their course to overhaul her. That would give him a respite of a few hours, or perhaps another night and day. ; He heard with pleasure the orders or-ders to alter the course of the lugger lug-ger to bring her in direct line with the derelict. ; j Captain Tucu and Black Burley were aroused to keen excitement. A derelict on the high sea might mean much to them. If abandond hastily by her 'crew, the pickings might be of great value. There was ! the cargo to consider, if not water-soaked water-soaked and ruined; and the personal belongings of the crew and officers, if in the excitement of leaving they had. not taken them away. Finally, there was always the possibility ol salvaging the hull, and towing it into some port to sell to the highest bidder, if the original owners didn't make a stiff offer forit. 1 j Derelict Schooner ! Changes Plans ' ' Altogether, it was not an unprofitable unprofit-able business. It paid sometimes better than out and out piracy. At such times the sea scavengers kept strictly within the laws. They knew the laws of sea salvage by heart. When the derelict finally assumed definite shape to the naked eye, Dick became absorbed in studying it. She was not waterlogged; neither was she battered and broken, below decks. Most of the damage seemed to be in the sails and riggingl This fact had not escaped the keen eyes of the skipper ,of the lugger, and the nearer they approached the more promising appeared the prize they had picked up. Then came a sudden guttural; cry from one of the crew, followed by wifd gesticulations and a pointing hand. There, standing in the rigging, rig-ging, waving and nodding at them, j was an old man, hatless and nearly ' shirtless, with bushy whiskers "flopping "flop-ping up and down in the breeze.' Al first they could hear no sounds com ing from his lips, but with a slight change in the wind the voice 'car-' 'car-' ried to them. i For the most part it seemed! like the wild, incoherent gibberish o one demented. "Ahoy there, mates)" it called. "What ship is that? Don't recognize herl Never mind, come aboardl This is the Betty of New London sound of timber and fasl of heels makin' twenty knots an hour. Come "aboard if y'can catch usl Throw me line while I lufl her quick now!" Tucu and Black Burley stared at the man in silence. Then they glanced glanc-ed at each other, and, reading (each ' other's thoughts, nodded. j (TO BE CONTINUED) j j CIIAPTEE n ! Dick concluded that he would be ! a hard customer to deal with, and i it would be much better to court his . friendship than to provoke his en-' en-' mity. : Black Burley, the mate, was near-; near-; ly as tall and powerful as the skip- per, but his black shiny face and swarthy limbs proclaimed the pure Carib Negro. While he was eating and drinking, drink-ing, Captain Tucu grunted and broke the silence. "Where'd y' drift from?" he asked gruffly, his words singularly free from the taint of his black ancestor's ances-tor's dialect. "From the City of Bahia wrecked four days ago," Dick replied, re-plied, wiping his mouth. "Struck something in the storm, reef or another an-other ship, and went down in half an hour. Four hundred people aboard men, women and little children. chil-dren. I was in the last boat that left her, and we capsized Glory! it was awful!" He closed his eyes an instant as if to shut out the memory of it. When he opened them again. Captain Cap-tain Tucu was asking eagerly: "Anythin' left? Lots o' wreckage wreck-age from a steamer floats." "Nothing but the small boats," replied re-plied Dick, "and they were filled with people." The half-breed nodded his head and muttered something to his mate in a dialect that Dick could not translate. "Where was this steamer?" demanded de-manded Tucu, turning suddenly to , Dick. "What latitude?" Dick Jordan shook his head. "I don't know. I'm not a sailor." The skipper's face clouded with disappointment, and an ugly scar across his left cheek showed red, mottled with white. Dick did not like the looks of it. "Carib renegades," he reasoned to himself. "Sea scavengers half fishermen, half pirates. They'd kill me without batting an eyelash if it suited their purpose." He glanced . past the semi-circle of black faces and he saw the wide, heaving, limitless sea. The shock of .being adrift upon it for another period awakened his mind from Its dull lethargy. He had to stay aboard the lugger1 until they reached shore or met' anbther ship. ' He smiled craftily', and spoke slowly. "Wait a jminute, captainl - Come to think ofj it, I'm wrong. I heard the wireless operator ' calling for help and giving the steamer's position. posi-tion. (I'm ' something of a wireless expert myself. It was it was " He hesitated and cocked his head ideways in the attitude "of one re-' calling something that eluded his memory. "I got it," he added a moment later. "It was North latitude lati-tude 134-and 80 or 81 yes, that must have been the longitude; 80 or 81." To Dick's surprise, Captain Tucu broke in abruptly: t "The Roncador Bank!" Black Burley nodded his head, and rumbled: "We can make it in five hours." From One Danger Into Another ,' Roncador Bank was a mystery to Dick. They seemed to know where that was. Perhaps, after all, that was the explanation of the queer accident. ac-cident. The City of Bahia had struck the reef in the night "of the storm and foundered as a result of it. 1 ', "If I can make myself of service to them, they will keep me," Dick muSed to himself. "Therefore, I must make myself, indispensable. But how?" "If I sail with them, I'll know too much find out things they'll want td keep secret. Therefore, I'll be no better off in the end than now. They'll never put me ashore. . On some dark night, I'll disappear, unless un-less " ' (His mind stopped abruptly. He was jolted out of his reverie by the shadow of the skipper in front of him. When he looked up, however, he was smiling in spite of the shock. - "You rescued me in the nick of time, captain," he said pleasantly. "Another hour in the water, and I'd been .done fpr.. , I'm . mighty grateful." , Captain Tucu nodded, but made no comment. Dick felt that his fate was ' hanging by a slender thread- . The indecision on the other's oth-er's face was menacing; but the smile never faded from Dick's lips. , He continued easily: ; "When we get to the spot wjiere jthe steamer went down, I may help j you find something of value." The captain's face grew sudden- |