CHAPTER I
ON A LIVE WIRE
"Now, see here, Mr. Swift, you may think it all a sort of dream, and
imagine that I don\'t know what I\'m talking about; but I do! If you\'ll
consent to finance this expedition to the extent of, say, ten thousand
dollars, I\'ll practically guarantee to give you back five times that sum
"I don\'t know, Alec, I don\'t know," slowly responded the aged inventor.
"I\'ve heard those stories before, and in my experience nothing ever came
of them. Buried treasure, and lost vessels filled with gold, are all well and
good, but hunting for an opal mine on some little-heard-of island goes
them one better."
"Then you don\'t feel like backing me up in this matter, Mr. Swift?"
"No, Alec, I can\'t say I do. Why, just stop and think for a minute.
You\'re asking me to put ten thousand dollars into a company, to fit out an
expedition to go to this island--somewhere down near Panama, you say it
is--and try to locate the lost mine from which, some centuries ago, opals
and other precious stones came. It doesn\'t seem reasonable."
"But I\'m sure I can find the mine, Mr. Swift!" persisted Alec Peterson,
who was almost as elderly a man as the one he addressed. "I have the old
documents that tell how rich the mine once was, how the old Mexican
rulers used to get their opals from it, and how all trace of it was lost in the
last century. I have all the landmarks down pat, and I\'m sure I can find it.
Come on now, take a chance. Put in this ten thousand dollars. I can
manage the rest. You\'ll get back more than five times your investment."