“A million dollars off’n Jonas P. Dunn.”
“’Tain’t his treasure, is it? Got as much right to it as he has, hain’t we?”
“Wa-al, now you put it that way, I dunno but what we have.... But hain’t it mutiny?”
“We don’t aim to harm nobody—unless we jest got to. And we’ll jest take his yacht fer a little pleasure cruise—like. We don’t aim to keep it. We’ll cruise till we find a safe place to land, and then we’ll go ashore and divide up the treasure, and everybody skedaddle in a different direction—and live rich and handsome forever after. Who’s a-goin’ to ketch us, and how be they a-goin’to go about it?”
“Sounds like you was right. Sounds mighty easy.... Um.... Fifty thousand. Put out to interest that’s a deal of money. Lemme see, supposin’ I was to git six percent on it all, what would that amount to?”
“Three thousand a year. I got it all figured out.”
“Shucks! Three thousand. Feller could live in a regular hotel with that much to spend. Say, mate, I’m with you. You kin count on me from vegetable soup to toothpicks.”
“Thought I knowed a man when I seen one. Shake.”
They shook hands, and then the man who had thought up the scheme says: “I’m captain. Somebody’s got to be till this is pulled off. I got to have authority and all hands has got to mind what I say.... Jest sit tight till I give the sign, and then we’ll jump ’em. Keep your eye peeled and don’t waggle your tongue.”
Then he moved off and left the man with the lantern thinking it over and spending his fifty thousand dollars, I guess. Catty reached over in the dark and put his hand on my knee, and I could tell he was tickled to death. This was a better adventure than he ever had any idea of running into, and it came free, as you might say. It was extra, without any cost. I could see his face just as well as if it was light as day. I know he’d got kind of pale and that his eyes were shining like they always do when he’s excited. Say, he wouldn’t have taken fifty thousand dollars for his chance at this adventure. Me? Well, I’d have given fifty thousand to be fifty thousand miles away from it!