"Nobody knows," said Edwards. "He left San Francisco two years ago on a
hundred-foot schooner, with an assistant, a big brass-bound chest, and a
ragamuffin crew. A newspaper man named Slade, who dropped out of the
world about the same time, is supposed to have gone along, too. Their
schooner was last sighted about 450 miles northeast of Oahu, in good
shape, and bound westward. That's all the record of her that there is."

"Was that Ralph Slade?" asked Barnett.

"Yes. He was a free-lance writer and artist."

"I knew him well," said Barnett. "He was in our mess in the Philippine
campaign, on the _North Dakota_. War correspondent then. It's
strange that I never identified him before with the Slade of the
_Laughing Lass_."

"What was the object of the voyage?" asked Ives.

"They were supposed to be after buried treasure," said Barnett.

"I've always thought it more likely that Doctor Schermerhorn was on a
scientific expedition," said Edwards. "I knew the old boy, and he wasn't
the sort to care a hoot in Sheol for treasure, buried or unburied."

"Every time a ship sets out from San Francisco without publishing to all
the world just what her business is, all the world thinks it's one of
those wild-goose hunts," observed Ives.

"Yes," agreed Barnett. "Flora and fauna of some unknown island would be