“Oh, yes, I reckon he would,” admitted Jolly Bill. “I see what you mean. I beg your pardon.” Bob was glad it had passed off this way, for, truth to tell, he had not meant to say what he did.
“Well, Mr. Hickey, we’re ready to hear your story,” said Harry, when they had reached a place in the road from Storm Mountain where the going was safer and easier. “It seems like a sort of pirate yarn to me.”
“Pirate yarn!” cried Jolly Bill. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you three—or four if you like to count in Rod Marbury——”
“I don’t like to count Rod in and I’m not going to!” cried Bill.
“Well, then, you three, yourself, Mr. Beegle and Mr. Denby—seem to have been associated in some voyages where you got wealth—not to say a fortune,” went on Harry.
“No, not a fortune—considerable money, but far from a fortune,” said Jolly Bill. “Enough for us to live on without risking our lives going aloft in a storm, but not much more. I’ll spin you the yarn.”
He settled himself comfortably in the auto and began:
“Originally there were four of us, Hiram, Hank, myself and that rat Rodney Marbury. We sailed together many a year, putting up with hard work and worse food in good ships and bad ships. We were wrecked together and saved together more than once.
“Then, one day, Hank struck it rich—that is he got hold of an old sailor who was dying. This sailor had been what I reckon you might call a pirate if there are such critters nowadays—or were then. And this fellow had gotten possession of a store of gold. It was where it couldn’t be come at easy—hidden on an island in the South Seas, to be exact, but he had papers and a map to show just where it was, and these papers and map he gave to Hank Denby.