Genre Adventure. Page - 11

minutes longer! Yvonnehas been trying on my fancy dress, but she's nearly done."

The neck and shoulders below the laughing face were bare and a bare armwaved in a propitiatory fashion ere it vanished.

"Looks as if the fancy dress is a minus quantity," observed Billy to hiscompanion with a grin. "I didn't see any of it, did you?"

Scott tried not to laugh. "Your sister?" he asked.

Billy nodded affirmation. "She ain't a bad urchin," he observed, "assisters go. We're staying here along with the de Vignes. Ever met 'em?Lady Grace is a holy terror. Her husband is a horrible stuck-up bore ofan Anglo-Indian,--thinks himself everybody, and tells the most awfulhowlers. Rose--that's the daughter--is by way of being very beautiful.There she goes now; see? That golden-haired girl in red! She's another ofyour beastly star skaters. I'll bet she'll have that big bounder cuttingcapers with her before the day's out."

"Think so?" said Scott.

Billy nodded again. "I suppose he's a prince at least. My

an air of good-humoured sang froid which was peculiar to him, Foster said--

"Captain, don't you think I've had these bits of rope-yarn on my wrists long enough? I'm not used, you see, to walking the deck without the use of my hands; and a heavy lurch, as like as not, would send me slap into the lee scuppers--sailor though I be. Besides, I won't jump overboard without leave, you may rely upon that. Neither will I attempt, single-handed, to fight your whole crew, so you needn't be afraid."

The stern Moor evidently understood part of this speech, and he was so tickled with the last remark that his habitual gravity gave place to the faintest flicker of a smile, while a twinkle gleamed for a moment in his eye. Only for a moment, however. Pointing over the side, he bade his prisoner "look."

Foster looked, and beheld in the far distance a three-masted vessel that seemed to bear a strong resemblance to a British man-of-war.

"You promise," said the captain, "not shout or ro-ar."

his pads out crossin' the lava beds, though what in time any hombre who ain't plumb loco is trapesin' round there for, beats me. There is some grazin' on top of the Cumbre mesa, enough for a small herd, but the other side is jest plain hell with the lights out, one big slice of desert thirty mile' wide."

"Minin' camp over that way, ain't there?"

"Was. There's a lava bed strip of six-seven miles at the end of the pass, then comes a bu'sted mesa, all box cañon an' rim-rock, shot with caves, nothin' greener than cactus an' not much of that. There's a twenty per cent. grade wagon road, or there was, for it warn't engineered none too careful, that run over to the mines. I was over there once, nigh on to ten years ago. They called the camp Hopeful then. Next year they changed the name to Dynamite. Jest natcherully blew up, did that camp. Nothin' left but a lot of tumbledown shacks an' a couple hundred shafts an' tunnels leadin' to nothin'. Reckon this P. Casey is a prospector, Sam. One of them

es that they have something like a quarter of a million dollars buried in tin cans among the brush over there now--"

"It is their form of stocking," put in Charlie Webster.

"Precisely. Well, as I was saying, those old fellows would bury their hoards in some cave or other, and then go off--and get hanged. Their ghosts perhaps came back. The darkies have lots of ghost-tales about them. But their money is still here, lots of it, you bet your life."

"Do they ever make any finds?" I asked.

"Nothing big that I know of. A jug full of old coins now and then. I found one a year or two ago in my garden here--buried down among the roots of that old fig tree."

"Then," put in Charlie, "there was that mysterious stranger over at North Cay. He's supposed to have got away with quite a pile."

"Tell me about him," said I.

"Well, there used to be an old eccentric character in the town here--a half-breed by the name of Andrews. John will remember him--"

John nodded.

s duty by me, and had no desire to hear from me in the future. I was inclined to send the money back to him, but Father O'Leary persuaded me not to do so, saying that I must be in a position to buy these things, if I obtained a commission; and that, no doubt, the money had been given me, not for my own sake, but because he felt that he owed it to me, for some service rendered to him by my father."

"It was an ungracious way of doing it," O'Sullivan said, "but, in your circumstances, I should have taken the money had it come from the old one himself. It is, perhaps, as well that it should have been done in such a manner that you may well feel you owe no great gratitude towards such a man."

"And how did you get over here?"

"There was no great difficulty about that. In spite of the activity of the English cruisers, constant communication is kept up between Ireland and France, and fortunately I had, a short time before, made the acquaintance of one of your officers, who was over there, in disg

h of science.

While father and son were deep in a discussion of the apparatus of the submarine, there will be an opportunity to make the reader a little better acquainted with them. Those of you who have read the previous volumes of this series do not need to be told who Tom Swift is. Others, however, may be glad to have a proper introduction to him.

Tom Swift lived with his father, Barton Swift, in the village of Shopton, New York. The Swift home was on the outskirts of the town, and the large house was surrounded by a number of machine shops, in which father and son, aided by Garret Jackson, the engineer, did their experimental and constructive work. Their house was not far from Lake Carlopa, a fairly large body of water, on which Tom often speeded his motor-boat.

In the first volume of this series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle," it was told how he became acquainted with Mr. Wakefield Damon, who suffered an accident while riding one of the speedy machines. The accident disgus

ouse, where we will see what can be done for him. Now, my dear, the evening meal awaits us, and I for one shall partake of it with a keener relish that this unfortunate affair has terminated so happily."

"I pray God, Graham, that it may be terminated," replied Mrs. Hester, fervently, as she took the child from its father's arms and strained him to her bosom.

The whole of this dramatic scene had transpired within the space of a few minutes, and when the men approached to lift the prostrate Indian they found him so recovered from his exhaustion as to be able to stand, and walk feebly with the aid of some support.

Major Hester's first duty, after conveying his wife and child to the shelter of the blockhouse, was to visit the guest so strangely thrust upon his hospitality and inquire into his condition. He found him lying on a pallet of straw, over which a blanket had been thrown, and conversing with Truman Flagg in an Indian tongue unknown to the proprietor. The hunter was bathing the strang

got to charge it."

"Ah! that's just like you, if you will forgive my saying so. You takeany amount of trouble to invent and perfect a thing, but when it comesto making use of it, then you forget," and with a little gesture ofimpatience the Colonel turned aside to light a match from a box whichhe had found in the pocket of his cape.

"I am sorry," said Morris, with a sigh, "but I am afraid it is true.When one's mind is very fully occupied with one thing----" and hebroke off.

"Ah! that's it, Morris, that's it," said the Colonel, seating himselfupon a garden chair; "this hobby-horse of yours is carrying you--tothe devil, and your family with you. I don't want to be rough, but itis time that I spoke plain. Let's see, how long is it since you leftthe London firm?"

"Nine years this autumn," answered Morris, setting his mouth a little,for he knew what was coming. The port drunk after claret had upset hisfather's digestion and ruffled his temper. This meant that to him--Morris--Fate had appoin

him step by step along my rough path fromthe beginning to the end; through scorching deserts and thirsty sands;through swamp, and jungle, and interminable morass; throughdifficulties, fatigues, and sickness, until I bring him, faint with thewearying journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall burstupon his view--from which he shall look down upon the vast ALBERT LAKE,and drink with me from the Sources of the Nile!

I have written "HE!" How can I lead the more tender sex through dangersand fatigues, and passages of savage life? A veil shall be thrown overmany scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but which I willnot force upon the reader; neither will I intrude anything that is notactually necessary in the description of scenes that unfortunately mustbe passed through in the journey now before us. Should anything offendthe sensitive mind, and suggest the unfitness of the situation for awoman's presence, I must beseech my fair readers to reflect, that thepilgrim's wife f

he glory and eke the gold if I find the hidden chests. Talk about romance being dead! My grandfather was a planter in Mississippi before the Civil War. In about 1860 he saw trouble ahead, and as he was opposed to secession he turned everything he had into gold, bought several tracts of land in Michigan and New York and secretly planted his money. His wife and children refused to share his lonely exile and he sent them to England but clung to America himself, and died suddenly and alone the second year of the war on the very acres my father inherited in Michigan. That's where I'm opening my camp."

"And the gold hasn't been found?" asked Archie deeply interested.

"Not a coin so far! You see grandfather made his will in war time and only divided the land, being afraid to mention the buried treasure in a document that would become a public record when he died."

"This is most exciting. It's only unfortunate that it's not pirate gold to give zest to your enterprise."

"Oh, the pirate in t