The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-05-15

| - I0llllIIlIIIIIlIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIl | ing the burying of the treasure by the oiliest old pirate that ever sailed the
 seas in the days before Captain Kidd
 can't tell you, either, of all the differ.
 ent expeditions that combed that is.
 land from end to end without success
 and at last we folks aboard the Indus
 resolved to have . try at it one voy- age when we was sailing light from San Francisco to Valparaiso, where
 we were going to pick up cargo of nitrate.
 -Four of us went ashore in the din ghy, and the minute we stepped on that shell strewn beach and heard the rus tling of the palms and smelled the ripe fruit we knew right away that we were going to find that treasure. There was something in the very at mosphere of the place that hinted at adventure, and we had plenty of 1t be- fore we left Thank you, ma'am. I will take another piece of ginger bread. don't reckon you made it?' he inquired
 Iassured him that Miss Maria Weeks had concocted the spicy loaf, and I thought he looked tenderly reminiscent at the frosting before he removed a semicircle from his slice had sus- picion that in the distant past there might have lurked a tender romance between my companionable old salt and the rather grim spinster who "accommodated'' me with room and board had my own plans for fur thering this romance, and the delicious lunch had brought was only one of little traps I had prepared for the gen. tie, unsuspecting captain.
 'Y0u went ashore"- prompted him. "Yes, ma'am, we went ashore and made little camp among the palms, and after we had had some supper we started oil at a run for the place where we had calculated the treasure was buried. Of course every man who ever went to that island had a different theory as to where 1t. was hid, but we thought ours was sure guess, for Louis Franck, Finn who was one of our crew, had an ancestor who had ac- tually sailed with this bloody old pi- rate away back before the Revolution ary war days. Franck could recite the legend that had been handed down by his ancestor so glibly that he could tell 1t the same every time, and so aft CT awhile we got to believe 1t was real ly so, and that was how it happened we decided to stop there.
 sOf course Franck was the leader and guide, for he said his ancestor had said that the chest was buried ten feet deep under rock ten feet square.
 'We found the largest rock on the island, and it was only three feet six by six feet two, and it looked thin, and Franck said he thought it had been worn of by the wind and weather dur ing all that time. It was snow white coral rock too.
 "The rock was set in little grove of palm trees, and suppose once it had rested on the sandy shore, but as the island grew larger and sand was washed up to form new beach trees grew up around the stone until it real ly was about in the middle of the is- land when we found it.
 We worked away picking and pry- ing at the loose sand around the rock and trying to get crowbars under it so as to lift it up when we smelled wood smoke"
 Whats thatY asked Franck.
 The remains of our campire,' told him, bu. afterward I found out I was wrong.
 "It soon grew dark, for we had been late in landing and we had not in- tended beginning operations until morn ing, but the thirst for adventure was strong within us and even while the shadows heightened a full moon arose from the sea and we decided to con- tinue the work by its light
 We had just pried of the stone and sent it crashing into the undergrowth when there arose from our midst, ap- parently from the disturbed soil under the stone, gigantic figure that gave vent to snarling yell as he leaped into the moonlit space and faced us.
 Miss Telham," said the captain im- pressively, emphasizing his words with successive taps of horny forefnger against his other palm, Miss Pelham, believe me, ma'am, when I tell you that that there figure was nothing more or less than the ghost of the bloody pirate who had buried the treasurer
 Captain Barnabas!' protested.
 He nodded. That's what Louis Franck, the Finn, said. He said the crttter looked just like the description his ancestor had handed down of the pirate who had buried the treasure He whispered it to us, for I'll confess, ma'am, we huddled together all at once under the shock of seeing him and hearing his yell. I don't know which was the worst. He was a crazy looking thing, sure enough, as he pranced around there, waving a rag ged looking knife and shouting all sorts of gibberish that nobody under stood
 II told Franck it sounded to me like Elnn1sh. but he said 1t WAS Italian,