The treasure on the beach

He was always a queer old codger--my Great Uncle Abner. I had never laid eyes on him myself, but his eccentricities were tradition to me, and when I thought of him at all, it was as a half-cracked old fellow living alone in a shack, on a sandy key, somewhere off the coast of Florida. Naturally one doesn't get close-range impressions of uncles of this sort, especially if one's own life runs in very different channels, and if one has enough money to get along on, and one's "sandy-key-uncle" is not thought to have much of this world's goods.

On the morning that Uncle Abner's letter came I had gone downstairs to breakfast feeling rather beastly. I saw the large legal-looking envelope beside my plate, but, hardly having an appetite for eggs and coffee, I naturally felt no enthusiasm for mail.

Drinking my coffee, I observed that the envelope was bulky--the sort of envelope that might contain specifications for a breach of promise suit. After a few sips of coffee I found the energy to open it.

Dear Sir:--You will find enclosed herewith a sealed letter, which we are forwarding to you in accordance with instructions of your late uncle, Abner Barker, before his death, which occurred, as you are of course aware, at Lone Palm Key, Florida, December 20th. Our instructions were to forward the enclosed letter to you one month after your uncle's death, and to inform you that another letter--an exact duplicate in every way of this one--has been sent simultaneously to the only other surviving relative of Abner Barker, namely: Graham Stewart, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Trusting that we may hear from you in case we may be of any service, we remain,

Yours very truly, Blackmar, Mathews & Blackmar.

The letter enclosed by Blackmar, Mathews & Blackmar was in a dirty, home-made, yellow envelope, sealed with five large blobs of red wax. It read as follows:

Nephew Allen Spencer:--I send you a chart with this letter. If you are a young man of any energy or ability--which I very much doubt--it will be worth your while to investigate this chart, and put it to whatever use it may suggest.

I shall send another chart exactly like this one to Graham Stewart, of Brooklyn, who is the only other relative to survive me. This letter will be held by my attorneys until one month after the day of my death and will then be forwarded to you. I shall watch your use of it with interest, from the spirit-land. I understand that you are a frivolous, idle youth, who are not likely to seize your opportunities.

Your uncle, Abner Barker.

I unfolded the chart. It was a queer looking thing, carefully drawn upon yellow wrapping paper. It conjured up recollections of Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and pictures of savage-looking buccaneers, and desolate, sandy beaches. There was a square marked "_House_," with a dotted line running through the middle of it. Then there were innumerable other spots, and dots, and lines signified variously. The word "_spring_" was written at one point; "_Lone Palm Tree_" at another. In the centre of a circle, to which led dotted lines, my eyes were arrested by the words: "_Treasure buried here_."

I had imagined Uncle Abner a prosaic man; now it seemed I was wrong. He was a dreamer on his sandy key; he lived with the shades of corsairs and saw ghostly galleons riding at anchor off his strip of coast. Poor old Uncle Abner! There was something grimly grotesque in the situation. One does not associate charts and buried treasure with a light noon breakfast in a clubhouse on Fifth Avenue.

I think it was a flurry of cold rain upon the window which first turned my thoughts seriously toward Lone Palm Key. New York is a beastly place in a January thaw. I imagined the sun shining warmly at Palm Beach, girls in pretty summer dresses and men in tennis flannels. Then again I heard the swish of the rain against the window, and looking out, saw a cab horse slip and fall upon the asphalt.

"Buried treasure or no buried treasure," I said to myself, "Uncle Abner has given me a good idea. I'll go to Florida this very afternoon."

A line from Blackmar, Mathews & Blackmar's letter caught my eye:

----The only other surviving relative of Abner Barker, namely Graham Stewart, of Brooklyn, N.Y.----

Who was Graham Stewart? I had never heard of him before. Most probably a relative on the other side of Uncle Abner's family. Had he received his letter? Perhaps even now he was hurrying South ahead of me!

I had Henry look up trains at once and sent word upstairs to have my trunk and bag packed with nice, summery things for Florida.

An hour later, as I drove to the 23rd Street Ferry, and saw the cold rain streaking down the carriage windows, I felt genuinely grateful to old Uncle Abner for bequeathing me this excellent excuse for getting out of town.

After all, there was something like sport in going down to Florida to look for treasure. The idea appealed to me more and more. I felt that I was in a race with Graham Stewart. As the Seaboard Florida Limited drew out of the Pennsylvania Terminal, and started on its run toward warmth, sunshine and Uncle Abner's treasure--_perhaps_ Uncle Abner's treasure--I settled myself and began a close inspection of my fellow-travellers. If Graham Stewart was on the train I wished to pick him out. And something told me he was on the train. I made a mental inventory of my fellow-passengers. Was he Graham--that slim youth in section twelve? He had pale hair and wore glasses, and looked at though he might live in Brooklyn.

But no; he was calm. Graham would be nervous.

The keen-faced old man in section five was a likelier specimen; men with gray beards and smooth shaven upper lips are usually seekers for treasure, either buried or unburied. I leaned forward and tried to get a glimpse of the letter he was reading, but as I looked he tucked it away in an inside vest pocket. I would hunt him up later and ply him with talk of "Treasure Island," old coins and things of that sort.

By all odds the most interesting passenger was the girl in section seven--the girl with the big, blue eyes and long dark fringe for lashes. Every time I looked at her my interest in the buried treasure dwindled. I wished that she sat opposite instead of several sections off, for I have a rather useful set of plans that often work, when girls sit opposite in Pullman Cars. But alas! How seldom the pretty girls do sit opposite! I always draw a fat man in a skull cap, or a wheezy old lady who uses peppermint! There always is a pretty girl, but she is invariably placed far from where I sit. On this particular occasion she was so pretty--so very pretty--that I grew morbid on the subject. What a dull, stupid thing a bachelor life can be! I have no doubt I stared at her, as I reflected thus, for presently she brought me to with a frosty little look. Pulling myself together hastily I went into the combination car to drink and smoke and think it over--no, not the girl, the buried treasure!

The old man I had picked out for Graham Stewart came in not long after, and sitting near me, lit a very bad cigar. We drifted into conversation and, quite casually, I managed to speak of "Treasure Island."

He said he had never heard of it--or Stevenson.

I told him of the book; of the map in the front of it, that showed where the gold was hidden. Then I professed great interest in old coins.

My efforts were rewarded by the strange side-long glance he gave me and when, shortly after, I began to speak of pirates he left me suddenly. Later, I noticed the porter and the Pullman Car conductor regarding me with interest. When, before the trip was over, I gained the porter's confidence (at reasonable cost) I learned that the old man with the white whiskers had told them I was crazy--that I talked wildly of most extraordinary things. Evidently the old boy was not Uncle Abner's heir, after all.

That evening after dinner I took out the letter and the map and studied them with care. The more I did so the more ridiculous they seemed. There is something indescribably grotesque in starting off to hunt for buried treasure in an electric lighted Limited. I felt that I ought to be dressed in Oriental togs with a red handkerchief about my head and a pair of flint-lock pistols in my belt. When the girl with the long lashes passed and glanced in my direction with cold, unseeing eyes, I felt more ridiculous than ever. How could a man hunt gold, I asked myself, with girls like that abroad?

And immediately two impulses seized me.

"Graham Stewart and the treasure be hanged!" I resolved, crumpling Uncle Abner's chart in my hand. "I'll go back in the Pullman and have a look at the young lady--even if I can't talk with her."

But as I walked through the train I smoothed out the map and laid it away in my wallet. When convention and the girl frown, I might as well have something, I thought, to fall back on.

She was sitting with some magazines in her lap, gazing vacantly into the night. I passed without apparently noticing her and sat dejectedly in my section. Man's sadness will awaken a woman's interest where nothing else will, you know. And before long the corners of my eyes caught a suspicion of sympathy in her regard, as if she read trouble in the countenance I was furrowing for her, and was sorry.

Without seeming to look in her direction I sighed the manliest sigh I could muster. I seemed to feel her sympathy deepen to pity and then--crash! Her magazines slid to the floor. I sprang to collect them for her. But confound these women prigs!--that was all. She thanked me haughtily, rang for the porter and ordered her berth made up.

I went forward for a smoke, was drawn into a game, and forgot about treasure and stingy, sneaking cousins and disagreeable eye-lash girls until late the next morning.

I did feel a good deal hurt, however, when I went by the young person on my way to breakfast that she didn't seem to know me from the porter. I cursed civilization that makes Fate and girls cruel, and stayed away all day to show her I didn't even think of her. I really did think very little. I was canvassing the train for a treasure-troving male relative. I satisfied myself he was not aboard. But the thought of that unapproachable young woman robbed me somewhat of my gratification.

When we reached Palm Beach I drove directly to the Royal Poinciana. I rather expected that the girl might be there, too, but I did not catch sight of her that evening, nor of any man that could possibly be Graham Stewart.

In the romantic surroundings of the Poinciana the interest of my quest returned. Down there, the thought of buried treasure did not seem so strange. Before retiring I ordered a steam launch to take me to Lone Palm Key at nine o'clock the following morning.

It was ten when I woke up. Hurriedly I dressed and breakfasted, but it was noon when I set out, first making an arrangement with the launch's engineer to do some digging for me when we reached the key.

All my eagerness returned as we approached the long, low strip of land where poor old Uncle Abner lived so many years. A sloop, with idly flapping sails, lay at anchor near the little landing, telling me that in all probability my remote connection, Graham Stewart, had reached the key before me.