The pirate's gold

BY GORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M. THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, Ltd. LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS
A preface to a story like the following is hardly needed; yet it is well the reader should know that the tale is not merely founded on fact, but nearly all fact.
The buried treasure was found in Amelia, an island off the coast of Florida, about the beginning of the present year; and I daresay that, although the first, I shall not be the last to weave a bit of romance around the strange, strange narrative.
GORDON-STABLES, M.D., R.N.

“Oh, would I were a boy again, When life seemed formed of sunny years, And all the heart then knew of pain Was wept away in transient tears.” Sam. F. Smith.
IT was autumn—autumn, that is, as we reckon the seasons in the Scottish Highlands. For August was wellnigh at a close. The heather, it is true, still bloomed crimson and red on the mountain sides and the beautiful braes, but the days were now appreciably shorter, and hot though they might be during the day, soon after the sun went down,
“And left the red clouds to preside o’er the scene,”
the winds felt chilly, and sometimes a little raw.
This particular evening was no exception, and darkness came on a full hour sooner, with no moon and never a star to light me from the hill where I had lingered, with my beautiful Gordon setter Dash, longer than usual. I did not care to return without a fairly good bag, and the birds on the bit of shooting I called mine were getting a little wild.
I was living with the minister of Glen T—— in Ross-shire. He was an old man, and did not care to go to the hill much himself. “The scenery all around,” he used to say smiling, “is good enough for me, and I mean to live and die here without ever leaving the glen again.”