Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/196



four trips a day from the caves to the cove, taking time for rests, for regular meals, and for sleep, and not working on Sundays, for he kept a diary and an account of days,—the captain succeeded in a little over three weeks in loading his bags of guano, each with a package of golden bars, some of which must have weighed as much as fifteen pounds.

When this work had been accomplished, he began to consider the return of the schooner. But he had no reason to expect her yet, and he determined to continue his work. Each day he brought eight canvas bags of gold from the caves, and making them up into small bundles, he buried them in the sand under his tent. When a full month had elapsed since the departure of the schooner, he began to be very prudent, keeping a careful lookout seaward, as he walked the beach, and never entering the caves without mounting a high point of the rocks and thoroughly scanning the ocean. If, when bearing his burden of gold, he should have seen a sail, he would have instantly stopped and buried his bags in the sand, wherever he might be.

Day after day passed, and larger and larger grew 182