Page:Frank Stockton--Adventures of Captain Horn.djvu/291

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HORN the little stones in the bags had begun to make his shoulder tender, the captain showed him how to fold an empty sack and put it between the bags and his back, and then also told him that what he carried was not stones, but lumps of gold.

"All yourn, cap'n?" asked Maka.

"Yes, all mine," was the reply.

That night Maka told his comrades that when the captain got to the end of this voyage, he would be able to buy a ship bigger than the Castor, and that they would not have to sail in that little brig any more, and that he expected to be cook on the new vessel, and have a fine suit of clothes in which to go on shore.

For nearly a month the work went on, but the contents of the mound diminished so slowly that the captain, and, in fact, the two sailors, also, became very impatient. Only about forty pounds could be carried by each man on a trip, and the captain saw plainly that it would not do to urge greater rapidity or more frequent trips, for in that case there would be sure to be breakdowns. The walk from the cove to the caves was a long one, and rocky barriers had to be climbed, and although now but one man was left on board the vessel, only thirty bags a day were stored in its hold. This was very slow work. Consultations were held, and it was determined that some quicker method of transportation must be adopted. The idea that they could be satisfied with what they already had seemed to enter the mind of none of them. It was a foregone conclusion that their business there was to carry away all the gold that was in the mound.

A new plan, though rather a dangerous one, was 277