Page:Barbour--Lost island.djvu/43

 "That's queer," he said. "I wonder if she could have been the same ship."

"Well, if she was, Dad, and nobody's got that platinum out of her—"

"If," Captain Hallard interrupted, laughing. "I guess there are lots of ifs. To begin with, your sailor probably was spinning a yarn, and even if he did see the old wreck of the Hatteras, she must have been nearly smashed to pieces long ago. Everything in her would be washed away by now. Besides, where was this island he saw her on?"

"I remember he mentioned Fanning Island when you read it just now," said Dave, "and besides that he said they were sailing between there and an island called Christmas when they came across the wreck of the Hatteras."

"That's a pretty wide field," commented Captain Hallard."Those two places are hundreds of miles apart, and you might spend a lifetime hunting about there for what you were after."