The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1891-04-08

uSA oASSONSrl WAS uOuc OluSr Insiu
a castaway Philippine galleon.
Partly from her reserve, and partly
from suddenly conceived plan, she
determined to keep its existence as
unknown to her father, as careful
inquiry on her part had found it
was equally unknown to her neigh
bors. For this shy, Imaginative
young girl of eighteen had con-
WINGED herself that it might still con-
tain part of its old treasure. She
would dig for it herself without tell
ling anybody. If she failed, no one
would know it; if she were success
full, she would surprise her father,
and perhaps retrieve their fortune
by less vulgar means than their
present toll. Thanks to the seclud-
ed locality and the fact that she was
known to spend her leisure moments
in wandering there, she could work
without suspicion. Secretly con-
veying a shovel and few tools TO
the spot the next day, she set about
her prodigious task. AS the up
per works were gone and the galleon
not large, in three weeks, working
an hour or two each day, she had
made deep excavation in the stern.
She had found many curious things
the fioatsam and jetsam of previ-
GUS storms-but as yet it is, perhaps,
needless to say, not the treasure.
To-day she was filled with the
vague hope of making her discov-
cry before long. To have been
able to take her father something
soon-if only few old coins, the
fruit of her own unsupported labor
and intuition, not the result of vul-
gar barter or menial would
have been complete happiness. 1t
was, perhaps, a somewhat visionary
expectation for an educated girl of
eighteen, but / am writing of a
young California girl who had lived
in the fierce glamour of treasure
hunting, and in whose sensitive in
dividuality some of it's subtle poison
has been instilled. Howbeit, to-day
she found nothing. She was sadly
hiding her pick and shovel as was
her custom, when she discovered
the fresh track of an alien foot in
sand. Robinson Crusoe was not
more astonished at the savage foot
print than Jenny Miller at this
proof of the invasion of her sacred
territory. The footprints came
from and returned to the copse of
of shrubs. Some one might have
seen her at work.
But the singular change in the
weather, overlooked in her excite
ment, here forced itself upon her.
A light film over sea and sky,
lifted only by fitful gusts of wind,
seemed to have suddenly thickened
until it became an obaque vault,
narrowing in circumference as the
wind increased. Tho promontory
behind her disappeared, as if swol-
lowed up; tho distance before her
seemed to contract; the ocean at her
side, the color of dull pewter, van
ished in a sheet of slanting rain,
and by the time she reached the
house, half running, half carried
along by the quartering force of the
wind, full gale was blowing.
1t blew all the, evening, reaching
climax and fury at past midnight
that was remembered for many
years along the coast. In the midst
of il they heard the booming of
cannon, and then the voices of
neighbors in the road. "There is"
said the voices "a big steamer ashore
just afore the house." They dressed
quickly and ran out.
Hugging the edge of the copse to
breathe and evade the fury of the
wind, they struggled to the sands.
AT first looking out to sea the girl
saw nothing but foam. But follow
ing the direction of a neighbor's
arm, for in that wild tumult man
alone seemed speechless, she saw
directly before her, SO close upon
her that she could have thrown a
pebble on board, the high bows of the
ship. Indeed its very nearness
gave her the feeling that it was al
ready saved, and its occasional heavy
roll to leeward, drunken, helpless,
ludicrous, but never awful,
broughta hysteric laugh to her lips.
But when livid blue light, lit in
the swinging top, showed a number
of black objects clinging to the bull
warks and rigging, and the sea with
languid, heavy cruelty, pushing
rather than beating them away, one