The Skipper and the Skipped Part 36

"Oh, I've been a ghost on Cod Lead Nubble, Sence I died--sence I died.

I buried of it deep with a lot of trouble, And the chist it was in was locked up double, And I'm a-watchin' of it still on Cod Lead Nubble, Sence I died--sence I died."

"It's the old Cap Kidd song," admitted the Cap'n, a gleam of new interest in his eyes.

"As a seafarin' man you know that there was a Cap'n Kidd, don't you?"

Cap'n Sproul wagged nod of a.s.sent.

"He sailed and he sailed, and he robbed, and he buried his treasure, ain't that so?"

"I believe that's the idea," said the Cap'n, conservatively.

"And it's still buried, because it ain't been dug up, or else we'd have heard of it. Years ago I read all that hist'ry ever had to say about it. I said then to myself, 'Bodge,' says I, 'if the treasure of old Cap Kidd is ever found, it will be you with your wonderful powers that will find it!' I always said that to myself. I know it now. Here's the tool." He shook the cow's horn under the Cap'n's nose.

"Why ain't you been down and dug it up?" asked Hiram, with cold practicality.

"Diggin' old Cap Kidd's treasure ain't like digging a mess of potaters for dinner, Mr. Look. The song says 'Cod Lead Nubble.' Old Cap Kidd composed that song, and he put in the wrong place just to throw folks off'm the track. But if I had capital behind me I'd hire a schooner and sail round them islands down there, one after the other; and with that power that's in me I could tell the right island the minute I got near it. Then set me ash.o.r.e and see how quick this divinin'-rod would put me over that chist! But it's buried deep. It's goin' to take muscle and grit to dig it up. But the right crew can do it--and that's where capital comes in. Capital ain't ever tackled it right, and that's why capital ain't got hold of that treasure."

"I reckon I'll be movin' along," remarked Hiram, with resentment bristling the horns of his mustache; "it's the first time I ever had a man pick me out as a candidate for a gold brick, and the feelin'

ain't a pleasant one."

But the Cap'n grasped his arm with detaining grip.

"This thing is openin' up. It ain't all clear, but it's openin'. I had instink that I could use him. But I couldn't figger it. It ain't all straightened out in my mind yet. But when you said 'gold brick'

it seemed to be clearer."

Hiram blinked inquiringly at his enigmatic friend.

"It was what I was thinkin' of--gold brick," the Cap'n went on. "I thought that prob'ly you knew some stylish and reliable gold-bricker--havin' met same when you was travellin' round in the show business."

Replying to Mr. Look's indignant snort Cap'n Sproul hastened to say: "Oh, I don't mean that you had any gold-bricker friends, but that you knew one I could hire. Probably, though, you don't know of any.

Most like you don't. I realize that the gold-bricker idea ain't the one to use. There's the trouble in findin' a reliable one. And even when the feller got afoul of him, the chances are the old land-pirut would steal the brick. This here"--jabbing thumb at Mr. Bodge--"is fresher bait. I believe the old shark will gobble it if he's fished for right. What's your idea?"

"Well, generally speakin'," drawled Hiram, sarcastically, "it is that you've got softenin' of the brain. I can't make head or tail out of anything that you're sayin'."

Cap'n Sproul waked suddenly from the reverie in which he had been talking as much to himself as to Hiram.

"Say, look here, you can understand this, can't you, that I've been done out of good property--buncoed by a jeeroosly old hunk of hornbeam?"

"Oh, I got bulletins on that, all right," a.s.sented Hiram.

"Well, from what you know of me, do you think I'm the kind of a man that's goin' to squat like a hen in a dust-heap and not do him? Law?

To Tophet with your law! Pneumony, lightnin', and lawyers--they're the same thing spelled different. I'm just goin' to do him, that's all, and instink is whisperin' how." He turned his back on the showman and ran calculating eye over Mr. Bodge.

"I don't hardly see how that old hair mattress there is goin' to be rung in on the deal," growled Hiram.

"Nor I," agreed the Cap'n, frankly; "not so fur as the details appear to me just now. But there's something about him that gives me hopes."

He pulled out his wallet, licked his thumb, and peeled off a bill.

"Bodge, so fur's I can see now, you seem to be a good investment.

I don't know just yet how much it is goin' to take to capitalize you, but here's ten dollars for an option. You understand now that I'm president of you, and my friend here is sekertary. And you're to keep your mouth shut."

Mr. Bodge agreed with effusive grat.i.tude, and capital went its way.

The inventor chased after them with thumping peg-leg to inquire whether he should first perfect the model of the "cat identifier,"

or develop his idea of an automatic ch.o.r.e-doer, started by the rooster tripping a trigger as he descended to take his matutinal sniff of air.

"You just keep in practise with that thing," commanded the Cap'n, pointing to the cow's horn.

"I don't see even yet how you are goin' to do it," remarked Hiram, as they separated a half-hour later at Cap'n Sproul's gate.

"Nor I," said the Cap'n; "but a lot of meditation and a little prayer will do wonders in this world, especially when you're mad enough."

XX

The night seemed to afford counsel, for the next day Cap'n Sproul walked into the dooryard of Colonel Gideon Ward with features composed to an almost startling expression of amiability. The Colonel, haunted by memories and stung by a guilty conscience, appeared at the door, and his mien indicated that he was prepared for instant and desperate combat.

At the end of a half-hour's discourse, wholly by the Cap'n, his face had lost a measure of its belligerency, but sullen fear had taken its place. For Cap'n Sproul's theme had been the need of peace and mutual confidence in families, forbearance and forgetfulness of injuries that had been mutual. The Cap'n explained that almost always property troubles were the root of family evils, and that as soon as property disputes were eliminated in his case, he at once had come to a realizing sense of his own mistakes and unfair att.i.tude, and had come to make frank and manly confession, and to shake hands. Would the Colonel shake hands?

The Colonel shook hands apprehensively, bending back and ready to duck a blow. Would the Colonel consent to mutual forgiveness, and to dwell thereafter in bonds of brotherly affection? The Colonel had only voiceless stammerings for reply, which the Cap'n translated to his own satisfaction, and went away, casting the radiance of that startling amiability over his shoulder as he departed. Colonel Ward stared after the pudgy figure as long as it remained in sight, muttering his boding thoughts.

It required daily visits for a week to make satisfactory impress on the Colonel's mistrustful fears, but the Cap'n was patient. In the end, Colonel Ward, having carefully viewed this astonis.h.i.+ng conversion from all points, accepted the amity as proof of the guileless nature of a simple seaman, and on his own part reciprocated with warmth--laying up treasures of friends.h.i.+p against that possible day of discovery and wrath that his guilty conscience suggested.

If Colonel Ward, striving to reciprocate, had not been so anxious to please Cap'n Sproul in all his vagaries he would have barked derisive laughter at the mere suggestion of the Captain Kidd treasure, to the subject of which the simple seaman aforesaid led by easy stages.

The Colonel admitted that Mr. Bodge had located a well for him by use of a witch-hazel rod, but allowed that the buried-treasure proposition was too stiff batter for him to swallow. He did come at last to accept Cap'n Sproul's dictum that there was once a Captain Kidd, and that he had buried vast wealth somewhere--for Cap'n Sproul as a sailorman seemed to be ent.i.tled to the possession of authority on that subject. But beyond that point there was reservation that didn't fit with Cap'n Sproul's calculations.

"Blast his old pork rind!" confided the Cap'n to Hiram. "I can circle him round and round the pen easy enough, but when I try to head him through the gate, he just sets back and blinks them hog eyes at me and grunts. To get near him at all I had to act simple, and I reckon I've overdone it. Now he thinks I don't know enough to know that old Bodge is mostly whiskers and guesses. He's known Bodge longer'n I have, and Bodge don't seem to be right bait. I can't get into his wallet by first plan."

"It wasn't no kind of a plan, anyway," said Hiram, bluntly. "It wouldn't be stickin' him good and plenty enough to have Bodge unloaded onto him, just Bodge and northin' else done. 'Twasn't complicated enough."

"I ain't no good on complicated plots," mourned Cap'n Sproul.

"You see," insisted Hiram, "you don't understand dealin' with jay nature the same as I do. Takes the circus business to post you on jays. Once in a while they'll bite a bare hook, but not often. Jays don't get hungry till they see sure things. Your plain word of old Cap Kidd and buried treasure sounds good, and that's all. In the sh.e.l.l-game the best operator lets the edge of the sh.e.l.l rest on the pea carelesslike, as though he didn't notice it, and then joggles it down over as if by accident; and, honest, the jay hates to take the money, it looks so easy! In the candy-game there's nothing doin'

until the jay thinks he catches you puttin' a twenty-dollar bill into the package. Then look troubled, and try to stop him from buyin' that package! You ain't done anything to show your brother-in-law that Bodge ain't a blank."

The Cap'n turned discouraged gaze on his friend. "I've got to give it up," he complained. "I ain't crook enough. He's done me, and I'll have to stay done."

Hiram tapped the ashes from his cigar, musingly surveyed his diamond ring, and at last said: "I ain't a b.u.t.ter-in. But any time you get ready to holler for advice from friends, just holler."

"I holler," said the Cap'n, dispiritedly.

"Holler heard by friends," snapped Hiram, briskly. "Friends all ready with results of considerable meditation. You go right over and tell your esteemed relative that you're organizin' an expedition to discover Cap Kidd's treasure, and invite him to go along as member of your family, free gratis for nothin', all bills paid, and much obleeged to him for pleasant company."

"Me pay the bills?" demanded the Cap'n.

"Money advanced for development work on Bodge, that's all! To be taken care of when Bodge is watered ready for sale. Have thorough understandin' with esteemed relative that no shares in Bodge are for sale. Esteemed relative to be told that any attempt on the trip to buy into Bodge will be considered fightin' talk. Bodge and all results from Bodge are yours, and you need him along--esteemed relative--to see that you have a square deal. That removes suspicion, and teases at the same time."