ADVENTURES AHEAD
to the wreck of the Hatteras and rescue his blessed stuff?"
"I suppose he would," Dave agreed. "But if it comes to that, how do we know that he never did go back to the Hatteras and get it, the same way that we propose to do now?"
"How do you know that pigs can't fly when you are n't watching 'em?" Tempest expostulated. "How do you know the earth is n't flat? How do you know the moon is n't made of green cheese? You 've never been up to see. The only thing we shall know definitely, if ever we do handle the treasure, is that that platinum miner was too dead to go for it himself."
"There's no getting away from that," Dave agreed, now satisfied on the subject.
During his watch below, Dave spent some time during the run to the Samoan Islands writing to his father, knowing that Captain Hallard must be growing anxious. He told how they had been cast away, and wrote cheerfully about all the ad-
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