# The Mystery (Adams and White)/Part 3/Chapter 5
### V
#### THE PINWHEEL VOLCANO

The The surgeon spoke first.
"Another point," said he. "Darrow was alive within a few days."
Captain Parkinson turned slowly away from the grave. "You are right," he said, with an effort. "Our business is with the living now. The dead must wait."
"Hide and seek," growled Trendon. "If he's here why don't he show himself?"
The other shook his head.
"Place is all trampled up with his footprints," said Trendon. "He's plodded back and forth like a prisoner in a cell."
"The ledger," said the captain. "I'd forgotten it. That grave drove everything else out of my mind."
"Bring the book here," called Trendon.
Congdon unwrapped it from his jacket and handed it to him. The sailors cast curious glances at the two headstones.
"Mount guard over Mr. Edwards's grave," commanded the captain.
The coxswain saluted and gave an order. One of the sailors stepped forward to the first mound.
"Not that one," rasped the officer. "The other."
The man saluted and moved on.
"With your permission, sir," said Trendon.
​On a nod from his superior officer he opened the ledger and took up Darrow's record.
"Here it is. Entry of June 3d."
"Everything lovely. Schooner lost to sight. Query—to memory dear? Not exactly. Though I shouldn't mind having her under orders for a few days. Queer glow in the sky last night: if they've been investigating they may have got what's coming to them. Volcano exhibiting fits of temper. Spouted out considerable fire about nine o'clock. Quite spectacular, but no harm done. Can foresee short rations of tobacco. Lava in valley still too hot for comfort. No sign of Dr. Schermerhorn. Still sleep on beach.
"Not much there," sniffed Trendon.
"Go on," said the captain.
"The fellow is a tobacco maniac," growled Trendon, feeling in his breast pocket. "The devil," he cried, bringing forth an empty hand.
Silently the captain handed him a cigar. "Thank you, sir," he said, lighted it, and continued reading.
The surgeon paused in his reading. "That would be the night of the 5th: the night before we picked her up empty."
"Yes," agreed Captain Parkinson. "That was the night Billy Edwards—— Go on."
"That's all, except the scrawl on the last page," said Trendon. "Some action of the volcano scared him off. He just had time to scrawl that last message and drop the book into the cache. The question is, did he get back alive?"
"I doubt it," said the captain. "We will search the headland for his body."
"But the cave," insisted the surgeon. "We ought to have found some sign of him there."
"Slade is the solution," said the captain. "We must ask him."
They put back to the ship. Barnett was anxiously awaiting them.
"Your patient has been in a bad way, Dr. Trendon," he said.
​"What's wrong?" asked Trendon, frowning.
"He came up on deck, wild-eyed and staggering. There was a sheet of paper in his hand which seemed to have some bearing on his trouble. When he found you had gone to the island without him he began to rage like a maniac. I had to have him carried down by force. In the rumpus the paper disappeared. I assumed the responsibility of giving him an opiate."
"Quite right," approved Trendon. "I'll go down. Will you come with me, sir?" he said to the captain.
They found Slade in profound slumber.
"Won't do to wake him now," growled Trendon. "Hello, what's here?"
Lying in the hollow of the sick man's right hand, where it had been crushed to a ball, was a crumpled mass of tracing paper. Trendon smoothed it out, peered at it and passed it to the captain.
"It's a sketch of an Indian arrow-head," he exclaimed in surprise, at the first glance. "What are all these marks?"
"Map of the island," barked Trendon. "Look here."
The drawing was a fairly careful one, showing such geographical points as had been of concern to the two-year inhabitants. There was the large cavern, indicated as they had found it, and at a point between it and the headland the legend, "Seal Cave."
"But it's wrong," cried Captain Parkinson, setting finger to the spot. "We passed there twice. There's no opening."
"No guarantee that there may not have been," returned the other. "This island has been considerably ​shaken up lately. Entrance may have been closed by a landslide down the cliff. Noticed signs myself, but didn't think of it in connection with the cave."
"That's work for Barnett, then," said the captain, brightening. "We'll blow up the whole face of the cliff, if necessary, but we'll get at that cave."
He hurried out. Order followed order, and soon the gig, with the captain, Trendon, and the torpedo expert, was driving for the point marked "Seal Cave" on the map over which they were bent.