The Press., 1916-04-26
Red Peppers: Treasure He Died Without Betraying
 Its Whereabouts.
By CLARISSA MACKlE


 Captain Ham Tadskate sat on the wharf and dangled his boots over the water.
 It was very pleasant there, for the tang of the salt air was agreeably mingled with the fragrance from empty clam barrels and lobster pots and the more elusive odors of cedar shavings and tar.
 Besides these odors, each nothing in itself, but as a whole making up what one at once recognized as sea smells, there is the expanse of water surface stretching before one with nothing to break its continuity. A sail here and there creeps along, gull soaring above suddenly swoops down on some luck less fish, and all the while there is the plash of the waters driven in by the salt laden breeze. One who has ever experienced the combination of fragrance and scenery will never for get 1t.
 There was the sound of hammer and saw and the creaking of windlass as a rusty little oyster sloop moved slowly up the railway of the shipyard.
 "Hum-hov yawned Captain Ham contentedly. Where in thunder is Ferdie?'
 At that instant Ferdie Pratt's cau- tious voice hailed him from the land ing steps.
 "Ahoy, there, capv' he called.
 Captain Ham arose with difficulty, rubbed his rheumatic knee with c large freckled hand and limped down the steps.
 Ferdie Pratt, a rotund little man with sunburned skin and bleached tow hair, turned a pair of bulbous blue eyes toward his friend.
 "ReadyT' he asked.
 Ready" assented the captain as he entered the boat and picked up an oar.
 "Letty's watching us," remarked Ferdie as the boat swung out from the wharf.
 Captain Ham squinted over his shoulder at the gable of his white cot tage on the east shore.
 The sun focused on the lens of a marine telescope held in the steady hands of Mrs. Ham Tadskate.
 "I wish Lefty wasn't so dratted nosey," complained Captain Ham as they headed toward the harbor mouth. eff she guessed we were looking for Red Peppers treasure I'll be blamed if know what she'd do."
 Its safe to say that she'd tell every man, woman and child in Punderson village" growled MT. Pratt, who cher ished no illusions regarding that strong minded lady.
 "I wish that the New Jersey wizard they tell about would invent some thing to bridle wimmen's tongues puffed Captain Ham as he bent to his oar against the tide.
 Nothing but death will do it, scoffed Ferdie.
 "What does an old bach like you know about wimmenT
 "It's what I know about wimmen that's made me an old bachelor" was Ferdie's tart reply.
 Outside the breakwater they turned the boat to the east and rowed along the shore for several miles. At last Captain Ham laid down his oars and rubbed his hands together.
 "Now, Ferdie, I guess I'll take an- other look at that map I found," he said complacently.
 He fumbled in his hip pocket and brought out a yellowed bit of paper, which unfolded to display some strag- gling characters in faded purple ink.
 "I guess there ain't no more on it than when you found it a week ago." remarked Ferdie impatiently.
 Captain Ham smoothed out the pa per and studied the rude map with avidly curious eyes, muttering the words to himself.
 "Crab point-hum-that's here-the old hickory-that's yonder-under the big pudding stone three feet deep."
 "Where'd you say you found the map. HamW asked Ferdie
 "In Letty's workbox. It's one that belonged to her great-grandmother. Seems the great-grandfather made 1t for her during long voyage to the In dies. Lefty sets great store by the box, and when the bottom came out she asked me to mend 1t.
 "Confound my buttons, Ferdie, but you could have knocked me flatter'n a pancake when I found this map hid in a false bottom to the box! Course I knew where it came fromr'
 Ferdie winked solemnly. q reckon Letty's great-granddad hid it there. My mother used to say that old Cap tain Riddle was a mate of Red Pepper himself in them pirating days"
 Captain Ham chuckled.
 "Lettyd scold herself to death if she knew she'd overlooked anything like this. She will be surprised when walk in with Red Peppers treasure. and tell her the secret was hid in her own workbox for 150 years"
 The boat grounded on the yellow sand of Crab point.
 "I hope the chest of treasure won't sink her." said Ferdie, with specula- tive eye upon the green dory.
 "We can make two loads of it," ar gued the captain as he stamped up the beach toward the thick growth of woods that fringed the shore. Ferdie shouldered a crowbar and ,pade and followed his leader to the ,ld hickory tree around which they 1ad played in boyhood days, for Crab point, deserted now, had once been the site of little hamlet, now effaced by he prosperous village of Punderson. Many tumbledown houses and weed grown cellars betrayed the site of the abandoned hamlet. The pudding stone was another fa- | niliar object, and around Crab point | tself chung many traditions of that | genial pirate, Red Pepper, who had walked the plank of his own ship with | l joke on his lips and went to death | without betraying the secret of his hidden treasure. 'To think of it being under that old |