"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because I was aboard of her not twenty-four hours since. The truth is, in that cyclone she was driven ash.o.r.e on the west island you speak about. There Captain Broadbeam and the rest of us discovered her. We found Mr. Drake, the boatswain; Bob Adams, the engineer, and Mike Conners, the cook, prisoners on board."

"That's right," nodded Daley; "those fellows wouldn't come in with us, and Nesik put them in irons. Go on."

"We also found some labeled boxes in the hold."

"The treasure!" cried Daley excitedly. "Alas, yes, it was all divided and made into portions, so much for the Hankers, so much for Nesik, so much for the crew. Why, we saw the Hankers divide it with our own eyes, didn't we, mates?"

"That we did," declared his two companions in unison.

"So Mr. Drake told us," resumed Dave. "Well, we liberated our friends, got the _Swallow_ in trim, and steamed away from the Windjammers' Island about three weeks ago."

"With all that gold!" cried Daley, with disappointed but covetous eyes.

"Oh, my mates, think of it!"

"No," interrupted Dave, "we thought the gold was there. The second home port we reached we opened the boxes to see."

"It must have been a sight," said Daley gloatingly.

"It was," nodded Dave, with a queer little smile--"sand, lead, old junk, every box full of them, and not a gold coin there."

Daley sprang up in the boat with a wild cry. His companions partook of his excitement.

"Then--then----" panted Daley, with blazing eyes.

"Why, the Nesik crowd just deluded you poor foolish fellows. Exactly as he did us," spoke Dave quietly, but with a definite emphasis. "As I say, there was none of the treasure in the boxes. Where was it, then?

Easy to guess. It was put in the boxes to delude you fellows and later secretly removed to the _Raven_. Nesik intended to lose the _Swallow_ some way. The cyclone helped him out."

Daley drew out a long-bladed knife. He began abusing Nesik and the Hankers. He slashed the air in a frantic manner.

"I'll kill them for this, I'll kill them!" he raved. "Men, you'll help me? Why," he exclaimed suddenly, "then the gold must be on the _Raven_, stuck on the rock, eh?"

"Hardly," answered Dave. "No, Nesik intended losing the _Swallow_, sailing for South America, getting rid of you fellows cheap, and then he and the Hankers and Gerstein would make a grand division of the spoils.

Their plans miscarried. The _Raven_ got wrecked. Don't you see they got you all ash.o.r.e quick as they could? Without doubt those mysterious days of scouting in the longboat, as you call it, were devoted to getting the gold ash.o.r.e to some safe and secret hiding-place."

"Then we'll have our share," shouted Daley. "Mates, for sh.o.r.e; for sh.o.r.e, mates, to find those measly robbers, to pounce on them and make them give up what belongs to us. Ha, more," declared Daley. "We'll kill them off; well take it all."

"Why, Mr. Daley," quietly suggested Dave, "it appears to me you are forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"That treasure belongs to my father and myself."

Daley looked sheepish, then surly.

"If you should get hold of it what could you do with it?" pursued Dave.

"You can't spend it on the Windjammers' Island. You can never get it away from there except in a stanch vessel, such as may not come along for years. I should think," added Dave, "after all the trouble you have seen grow out of the Hankers stealing what was not their own, you would take a new tack."

"How, a new tack?" demanded Daley, surlily surveying Dave from under his bushy, bent brows.

"Be square and honest. The _Raven_ people have deceived you. I have a proposition to make you. Put this whole matter in my hands, promise to help me work it out as I think best, and I'll guarantee you two things."

"What are they?" demanded Daley.

"First, that I will soon locate the hiding-place of the treasure--which you never may."

"That's so," mumbled one of Daley's companions, "everything has been queered that we tried to do so far."

"Secondly," added Dave, "when that treasure is found, I promise, if you come in with me, to give each of you a liberal share of it."

CHAPTER XV

A PERILOUS CRUISE

The sailor Daley sat down quietly in the bow of the yawl, his face beaming.

"Do you mean that, Fearless?" he said.

"I certainly do," answered Dave.

"You want us to side with you?"

"I have said so, Mr. Daley, haven't I?" asked Dave pleasantly.

"Make it a bargain, Daley," advised one of his companions eagerly.

"He's a smart lad, and his talk is square, although we have treated him low and shabby."

"Never mind that," said Dave lightly. "You were in bad company, that's all. Make it business, up and down. My father and I came here to get a fortune which we had rightfully inherited. The Hankers have tried to steal it. We shall get that fortune yet. Isn't it better for you people to be in on the winning side?"

"Fearless," said Daley, "there's my hand. It's a compact, is it?"

"True and faithful," answered Dave, and they shook hands all around.

"Now let me tell you that the _Swallow_ is in fine trim, is cruising around these waters somewhere. She is bound, of course, to land on the Windjammers' Island. Get these boats there if you know how to do it, and we'll soon get into some kind of action that is bound to bring us up against Captain Broadbeam and the others, who will be true friends to you if you'll only do the right thing."

Dave felt that he had gained a decided victory in making these men his allies. Without their help he could not reach land. They could guide him to the land camp of Captain Nesik. The four of them could resist attacks of the natives if they ran across them, where one might fail.

Dave reasoned that if the men changed their minds later and attempted any treachery, it would be at a time when he and his friends were prepared to meet and thwart it.

Dave had confidence in the belief that in some way he would find the _Swallow_ or the _Swallow_ would find him.

His previous stirring adventures, among the Windjammers and with the _Raven_ crowd, had brought hardship and endurance that made him now hopeful and courageous and quick to see a way to meet a situation and conquer it.

In fact, Dave's career had made considerable of a man of him. It had taught him self-reliance, and he was pleased to notice how readily the three castaways recognized him as a leader.