252 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



Cocos, fairly well-authenticated as it is, should 

 have inspired all sorts of people with a desire to 

 try theii* luck, even when they had no more to go 

 on than the location of the island, and a lucky feel- 

 ing. 



Captain Gissler tells one story of an expedition 

 that started in Pittsburg, outfitted in San Fran- 

 cisco, and landed on his beach one day, filled with 

 confidence and armed to the teeth. They were pre- 

 pared for battle, murder and sudden death, treason, 

 mutiny and marooning, but they had somewhat 

 neglected the subject of just where the treasure 

 was hidden. They had no tattered old map, no 

 cryptic key; they had come from Pittsburg be- 

 cause "a man" had furnished them with the clue 

 that the treasure was to be found a hundred paces 

 from the wreck of a pirate ship. This upwards of 

 a hundred years since a pirate had been in these 

 waters. 



Captain Gissler says, "When I showed them 

 what fools they were, they could see it too, but they 

 couldn't see it till I told them!" 



Cocos looks very small on the map; when the 

 would-be treasure-seeker finds that it is only three 

 and one-half miles in diameter, (though as most of 

 the island is on end, the actual distance covered in 

 traversing it must be three or four times as much ) , 

 his hopes rise, and he is seldom dashed by the ad- 

 ditional calculation that this area comprises about 

 sixteen square miles. But when he finds himself 

 actually occupying a fraction of those miles, miles 

 of dense thickets, close-woven vines, sharp-edged 



