Devils Lake world., 1914-12-31

two months until. scI; Hud dyin@ of sour
~, starvation ,lnd thlst they rad been
wrecked ur Il small isiet
Tho :salicon WAS washed hi&h upon the
beach. where she went TO pieces. but not
before the survivors. who numbered but
ten souls had rescued ono of the great
chests of treasure,
fms they buried well upon the island.
and for l,rec years they lived there in
constant hope Of being rescued
ono by one they sctauch and died until
only one man was left. the writer of the
letter
The men had built :. boat from the
wreckagc Of the gallcon: but. having no
idea where the island WAS locn.ed they
had not dared to put TO sea
When all We're dead except himself how
ever. the awful loneliness so weighed upon
the mind Of tie sol" survivor that he
coull endure it no longer. and choosing
to risk death upon the open sea rather
than madness on the lonely isle, he set
sail in his little boat after nearly Il year
of solitude.
Fortunately he sailed due north and
within a week was in the track of the
Spanish merchantmen plying between the
West Indies and Spain and was picked up
by one of these vessels homcWurd bound
The story he told was merely one Of
.hipwreck in which all but a few had per-
llicd, the balance, except himself dying
after they reached the island lie did not
mention the nlutinN or the chest of buried
treasure.
The master of the mcrchantman as
s,rcd him that from the position at which
they picked him up and the prevailing
Winds for the past week he could have
be IN on no other island than one Of the
Cape Verde gre p, which lie off the west
| co,st of Africa in about 1G degrees or II
degrees north latitude.
| His letter described the island mnutely,
rs well as the location Of the treasure.
and was accompanied by the crudest fun
+! niest little old map you ever saw, with
trees and rocks all marked by scrawly
KS to show the exact spot where the
| treasure had been buried.
When papa explained the real nature
! of the expedition my heart sank, for
know so we'll how visionary and imprac-
| tical the poor dear has always been that
l feared that he had again been duped
especially when he told me that he haC
paid thousand dollars for the letter ant
map.
TO add to my distress I learned that HI
had borrowed $4,000 more from Rober
! Caner and had given his notes for the
I, amount.
Mr. Canler had asked for no security
and You know, dearie, what that vii
mean for me if papa cannot meet them
! Oh how lytcst that man.
We all tried to look on the bright sid'
of things. but Mr.. Phlander and Mr.
Clayton--hc Joined us in London just fo
the adventuie-both felt as sl<eptical as
To make a long story short we founl
the island and the trcasuie--a great irol
bound oak chest wrapped i'll many layer
of oiled sai!cloth and as strong and firm
as when it had been buried nearly %
years ago
1t was simply filled with gold coin am
WAS SO heavy that four men bent beneat1
its weight.
The lurid thing seems to bring nothing
but murder and misfortune to those VIII
have TO do with it, for three days aftc
we sailed from the Cape Verde islands Oh
own crew nlutinied and killed every one O
their officers.
1t was the most terrifying eXpericnc
one could imagine. l cannot even writ
of 1t.
They were going to kill us, too but on
Of them, the leader, a man named Kin;
would not let them, and so they sale
south along the coast to lonely. spc