The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune

ecame aware of a figure coming out of the woods toward the beach. He shouted wit

ice came ov

t's

r, when he had first seen the figure of the newcomer it had struck hi

yelled at the t

e back after a pa

y Che

on! What the dickens a

is voice carry the better,

n this hulk. Can

Wait a

he vanished around a wooded promontory, leaving Harry in a strange jumble of feelings. What could the good-hearted old companion of several of their adventures be doing on this desolate island off the Maine co

ith strong strokes toward the stranded hulk of the Betsy Jane. Harry watched him with eager eyes. Fast as Ben Stubbs rowed,

shed in roughness considerably, and the Betsy Jane lay almost motionless on the reef. Otherwise he would have stood a strong chance of

th as strong a clench as he could. For a moment both of them were too much overco

volving universe are you

ask the same q

out played out. What has happened? I never dr

ned Harry, between a laugh and a sob. "As for myself, I've been adrift all nigh

e way from there. Why, it's

worries me is what the others must be thin

r," struck in Ben in his deep, rumbling voic

horse without sauce or s

there. It ain't much of a place, but I've got enough to eat and a

hooner?" de

s gone down so that she won't do herself any harm, and we can't do her any good right now. You se

e words. Five minutes later they were rowing ashore, and, while Ben bent to the oars with a will, Harry told him in detail all tha

s, half lumber, which stood back under the shelter of a low bluff. The boy was desperately anxious to learn the reason of Ben's presence on the island, for he knew it could have no ordinary cau

ed, "I suppose you're a-dyin' to hear what I'm doin' o

had served him as a chair; "the last person in the world I would

chuc

oving some very black tobacco into his old pipe. "'Member t

; "but how you got here is past my compre

ped his

t was blow number one. To meet that note I had to mortgage some of my boats, and in some way-blow me if I rightly understand it yet-I got myself in a hole whar' the lawyer fellers bled me till I was mighty near dry. I

with real sympathy in his tones, "but you haven't said yet

other, bein' as I knew his father when I was a miner. He-that's this chap's father, I mean-was a Frenchman, Raoul Duval was his name, and his son's name the same. Old man Duval made his

Raoul's son, and that he'd had a run of hard luck and so on, and wants to go into business, and if, for his father's sake, I'll help him out. I asks him how he found me out, and he sa

. You see, I did it for the old man's sake. I was sorry afterward. Young Duval wasn't a chip of

without security of any sor

er Californy, he knew the old man was carrying with him, besides the dust, a fortune in black pearls. Of course, all these went down when the steamer blew up. He had tried, he said, to get a lot of folks interested in a

did

ruth in his yarn than there was in anything else he told me.

u got th

roughly drawn thing, as you see, but I reckon if the ship wa

udely drawn affair, and purported to have been sketched by one of the survivors of the wreck

l get hold of this?

ollecting that his father had carried a sum that amounted to more than $75,000, was naturally interested. He asked the man if he could draw him a sketch of the scene where

hat you are doing on this island

t I felt like I was an old failure, and good fer nuthin', so I remembered all of a sudden about this island that I'd been stranded on a good many years ago. I made inquiries and found that I could live here rent free as long as I

ll just what to say to the old man who to

p. I could see by yer face that you put s

d not appear to be a person on whom much reliance could be placed, but then, again, there was the map, and it at least, even if crude, appeared to have been a genuine effort to mark the spot where the wreck lay. It showed

rom seaward, there came a sound that made both H

n, as the booming echoes died aw

her," rejoined Harry,

skiff. A minute later Harry was close on his heels, and presently they wer