"Do you think you ought to risk going ash.o.r.e?" asked Locke, when Trask returned with the bucket of sand.

"I don't believe they'll bother me," said Trask, and calling to Tom to bring him a frying pan, he measured out two or three cupfuls of sand and spread it carefully in the pan.

Then, to the amazement of all of them, he put the pan on the galley fire, and calling Doc, told him to watch the sand, and when it got well heated, to call him.

"Cookin' sand!" exclaimed Doc, with a suspicious look at Trask. "Ah never did hear of such a thing! What fo' yo' doin' it, Mr. Trask?"

He made no attempt to conceal the fact that he doubted the young man's sanity.

"I believe there's gold in it," said Trask, simply. "And if there is, we'll find it by heating the sand and then cooling it with water quickly. See those dark grains? The heat will melt the gold which you can't see, and run it together, and then the cold water cracks away the sh.e.l.l of sand, and your gold particle can be washed out."

"Beats me!" declared Doc, scratching his woolly head, but he went to the galley with renewed interest to watch the strange dish which Trask had prepared.

"Don't stir it," said Trask. "Let it get good and sizzling."

"Yo' goin' cook de whole islan' in a fry pan?" asked Doc.

"If there's a hundred dollars' worth of gold in a bushel of sand, don't you think it would pay?" asked Trask, as he went out.

"Some cookin'!" declared Doc.

Trask now searched Jarrow's cabin in the hope of finding some sort of firearm, but there was neither pistol nor rifle. So he took the captain's spy-gla.s.s, a c.u.mbersome, old-fashioned tube, and went on the p.o.o.p deck to look the island over.

But the only living thing in sight was Dinshaw, busy scooping up sand with his hands, and building what appeared to be sand forts.

The old man was working out near the point, close to the water's edge, piling up sand like a harvester getting ready for the work of gathering a crop. Mound after mound he made, in a long furrow on a line with the sh.o.r.e, just above the rim of the tide.

"I believe he is crazy," said Marjorie, as she looked through the gla.s.s. "Can it be possible he thinks that sand is gold?"

"That's been my suspicion for quite awhile," said Trask.

Locke began to laugh. "We are the prize b.o.o.bs," he said, "if we've come here because a cracked old man thinks a beach is solid gold.

We might have known he was out from the way he talked."

"Anyway, it's lots of fun," a.s.serted Marjorie. "Think of it! A real mutiny, a lunatic, sand that's supposed to be gold----"

"Marge, you're a hard-sh.e.l.l optimist," chided her father. "Don't you realize that we're in danger? That a storm, or a dozen things would----"

"I rather enjoy it, Dad. I've always wanted to do something that was more exciting than playing tennis. I'm glad I came."

Trask looked at her and grinned. As she stood against the rail, spying out the land through an ancient gla.s.s, seeking some sign of a crew of piratical tendencies, he couldn't help thinking that this slender young woman with the yellow hair coiled under a canvas hat really was thrilled by the possibility of danger.

"By George! You do like it!" he said, admiringly.

"I'm only a little bit scared," she confessed.

"Mr. Trask, yo' better take a look at this mess," Doc called up the companion. He betrayed his suppressed excitement in his voice, and when Trask went down, followed by the others, the steward's hands were trembling and his eyes snapping with the spirit of discovery which possessed him. He might have been a scientist making a test which promised to realize lifelong dreams and labours.

"Fine! It's fairly glowing!" said Trask, as he pa.s.sed a hand over the dish of sand.

They all pressed around him as he took a bottle of water from Doc and dashed the liquid into the sand. There was a cloud of steam and a terrific hissing.

"Now," said Trask, "pa.s.s me that wooden chopping bowl," and he dumped the wet sand out into the bowl, and laid it on the cabin table.

"Bring me another pan," he called, "and more water."

He began twisting the bowl with a rotary motion, and when Doc arrived with the pan, nursed the sand out into it, and as the last of the sand went over the lip of the bowl, ran out on deck into the sun, and examined the bottom of the wooden bowl.

"Lordy me!" gasped Doc, leaning over Trask's shoulder. "Look at the sparkle!"

The wet bowl was shot with tiny points of yellow, which caught the sunlight.

"Gold!" exclaimed Marjorie.

"By thunder!" cried Locke. "Dinshaw's right!"

"Gold without a doubt," said Trask, and turned to see Shanghai Tom staring into the bowl, his eyes fairly popping out of his head at this magical cookery which transformed a sea-beach into glittering wealth.

Trask resumed the washing, and in a few minutes had as much of the yellow powder as he could hold in the hollow of a palm.

"Man alive!" remarked the gleeful Doc. "I reckon we better take this yere island apart, right down level to the water!"

"There's millions on it," declared Trask. "When four cups of sand will a.s.say that much gold, consider what's in a mile of beach like this."

"It's a new one on me," said Locke. "I never saw such a thing in my life and---- h.e.l.lo! Here's the boat coming out!"

They ran to the rail, and looking sh.o.r.eward, saw the dinghy, with two men rowing it, and Peth and Jarrow sitting in the stern sheets.

They were heading straight for the schooner.

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT HAPPENED TO DOC AND THE DINGHY

Those aboard the _Nuestra_ watched the dinghy for a minute as it came on, the sunlight flashing from the oars. Two men were still on the beach, far up to the left, with their hands to their eyes, watching the progress of the boat.

"Now what's the game?" asked Locke.

"It looks like a boarding party," said Trask. "If they wanted to come back and behave themselves, they'd all come. Get those dishes out of sight. They may manage to get aboard in spite of all we can do, but we've got to bluff 'em."

"We can't let 'em aboard," declared Locke.

Trask moved forward and mounted the forecastle, followed by Locke.

"h.e.l.lo, you!" called Trask.

The rowers ceased their work, and with suspended oars allowed the dinghy to drift on.