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 picking up that treasure," replied Captain Hallard, with a twinkle in his eye. "Don't you worry, my lad. Hard dollars don't come like that. You're just as likely to bump up in Broadway against a solid chunk of gold so big that it holds up the traffic as anybody is to rescue a fortune that's been lost in the sea for years."

"I know that, Dad," Dave agreed. "But it does seem an awful shame that the man who spent two years mining the stuff should never have got here with it safely. I asked Billy Tench yesterday to find out from his father what platinum is worth. Billy's father works in a jewelry store. I wrote down what he said to show you. How much do you guess Mr. Peters would have got for the stuff if he had reached America with it?"

Captain Hallard puffed at his pipe and wrinkled his brows in an effort of mental arithmetic.

"I suppose somewhere between ten and twenty dollars an ounce," he guessed.