As the boys drew near the end of the voyage, they began to be anxious to see the land once more, not that they were tired of the sea, for they had come to regard the Sea Eagle as their home, and every plank was familiar to them. Moreover, there was nothing equal to the freedom of life on the ocean wave, but they were anxious to start for the Sierras to attempt the discovery of the Lost Mine, so that perchance they could take a trip around the world.

According to their calculations it was now only a question of a few days before they would make the harbor from which they had sailed a few months before. Jim was on the quarter deck talking over matters with Captain Kerns. It was a very pleasant afternoon, with a clear shining sun, and a sparkling sea, and sufficient breeze to make the air alive. The captain was seated in his scarred but comfortable armchair. That was the only piece of furniture which he had brought with him from his cabin on the coast. He wore his heavy woolen jacket buttoned across his chest because it was cool even in the sun. Jim leaned easily against the rail, dressed in his well-remembered blue flannel shirt, and trousers to match, with the gray sombrero pushed back from his forehead. His bronzed face and keen gray eyes determined him to be a very fair specimen of the American boy when in top-notch condition.

“I hope you will be able to look after the Sea Eagle, Captain,” propounded Jim, “while we are in the mountains.”

The captain mused for a while, pursing up his eyes, then he took his short blackened pipe out of his mouth.

“I’ll do it, Skipper,” he said. “I’m fond of this yere boat, and it’s like home to me. Then, too, I like you boys. There’s nothin’ of the fresh, gabby kid about any of you. I’ll do it fer you, Skipper.” And the bargain was sealed with a warm grip between the two friends.

“There’s one thing I ought to speak about though,” said Jim, “and that is in regard to old Bill Broom, the pirate, who had the Sea Eagle before we took her. He is a revengeful old beggar and may make you trouble if he gets a chance.”

“I never really met Broom, though I came near it once,” remarked the old captain grimly, “but if he is wise, he won’t come bothering around me or the Sea Eagle either.”

“I expect old Pete will stay aboard and the boy,” said Jim, “so you won’t be without some company.”

“I’ve always got ‘Lyssus’ here,” grinned the captain, picking up the big tortoise shell that was purring around his legs. “I don’t want any better company than him.”

“He is a good old fellow,” said Jim, playfully nipping the cat’s ears with his fingers, “and a mighty good sailor, too.” Just then Jim chanced to look up, scanning the expanse of sea ahead, not with the expectation of seeing anything, but just force of habit. Immediately he straightened up and his gray eyes narrowed with interest.

“What is it, Skipper?” questioned the old captain, getting to his feet.

“It looks like smoke,” exclaimed Jim, “about three points on our starboard bow.”

“Maybe it’s a steamer,” said the captain. “We ought to be running across them now once in a while.”

“Possibly it’s a volcano,” suggested Jim.

By this time the captain had got the glass from his cabin, and had it focused on the slender blue-gray column of smoke that was rising close to the southeastern horizon.

“It’s a ship, almost burned out,” exclaimed the captain.

“By jove!” cried Jim. “We will see exactly what it is,” and he gave the order to Pete, who was at the wheel, to change the Sea Eagle’s course accordingly.

“I reckon nobody is alive aboard,” remarked the captain. “She looks pretty well burned out.”

No sooner had the ship’s course been changed, than every member of the crew was out on deck to see what was up, and all were intensely interested watching the column of smoke that now could be seen rising from a dark hull close to the water, marking one of those oft-repeated tragedies of the sea. Rapidly the gallant little Sea Eagle plowed the blue surface of the ocean in a straight course towards the burning ship.

Many were the conjectures as to how the destroyed ship came to be in her present hapless condition. Jo thought that she had probably caught afire and the crew had been compelled to abandon her, but the engineer shook his head at this theory.

“I don’t agree with you, Joseph. My idea is that she is a derelict that has been abandoned possibly years ago. Some ship has crossed her trail recently, and to get rid of her as an uncharted menace to ships in regular travel, has set fire to her, but without completing her destruction.”

“They are bad things to be lying around loose,” said Jim. “If we had been off our course a little, and it had been some hours later, we would have stood a jolly good chance of running plump into this ship, and if we had not gone down, we would have been badly stove up.”

“You would have gone down,” said the engineer briefly.

“I suppose there are a good many of these derelicts floating around the oceans,” remarked Juarez.

“Yes,” said the engineer, “and some of them have most interesting histories. There was a curious incident in regard to a barque named the Norton that was abandoned in the Atlantic some years ago. The skipper and the crew were rescued by a sailing vessel, and, after a while, they drew near an English port.

“The skipper of the Norton was pacing the poop deck from force of habit, when he suddenly stopped as if petrified, and his jaw dropped, for there ahead of him alongside of a wharf was his lost and abandoned ship. The explanation was simple. She had been picked up by a passing steamer and towed into port, for salvage.”

The Sea Eagle was now within a half mile of the derelict and she could be made out quite plainly. She was a good-sized wooden vessel, a three-sticker, but the masts had been broken off and the ship had been rendered entirely helpless. She was rolling sluggishly to the motion of the waves, without life or hope.

“She’s the Maria Crothers, London,” said the captain from the upper deck, looking through the glass, “and she looks like she has been floating around for several years.”

In a few minutes the Sea Eagle was lying to, a short distance from the derelict. It was evident that she had been abandoned a long time. The sides and bottom of the ship were encrusted with barnacles and long green streamers of sea weeds on her sides and bow gave her a most ancient and dilapidated appearance.

In the center of the main deck smoke was slowly rising into the air from the charred timbers.

“She is too water-logged to burn,” said the captain.

“We will try to blow her up, Captain,” cried Jim. “She is a dangerous proposition so near to the coast.”

“It’s a good idea, lad,” agreed the captain.

“Lower the boat, my hearties,” ordered Jim with a grin.

They put two kegs of powder into the boat, and with the material for a couple of long fuses, they started for the derelict, now but a short distance off. None of the boys will ever forget that boarding of the abandoned vessel, not on account of the danger, for there was none, but for the unusualness of the occasion and the picturesqueness of the scene.

The sun was just setting as they rowed towards the Maria Crothers, or what was once that gallant vessel, and the crimson glow came over the slow-rolling swell and touched everything with a lurid light, especially the desolate derelict. As they were nearing the hulk, Tom exclaimed:

“Look, there is a shark coming out from a hole under her bow!”

Sure enough, with sinuous motion a long and ugly-looking shark swam slowly a short distance below the surface, taking on a greenish hue, from the color of the water. There was something singularly repellent about him and peculiarly sinister in his every motion.

“If he gets too sassy, we will treat him like we did his friends and brethren near the coast of Maine,” said Jim. “When we were in the canoes. Remember, Jeems?”

“Don’t mention it to me,” warned Jeems. “I’m liable to have a chill.”

It was not difficult to board the derelict, when the boat was brought on the lee side, for the vessel was down well with the water. Jim jumped aboard and the others followed, except old Pete, who was at the oars; he kept the boat close while the barrels of powder were transferred.

The boys found nothing on the old craft of especial interest. They could still see that the cabin had been a handsome one, with dark wood like mahogany and properly gilded, but everything was now mildewed or covered with green slime. There were sea things crawling everywhere.

Jim found his work cut out for him to get the powder planted where it would do the best execution. Darkness came on, and he was busy aft with one keg while Juarez and the engineer were planting the other for’ard. They had got a number of lanterns from the ship to work by, and, from a distance they looked like glow worms on the dark surface of the waters.

It was a most weird and peculiar sight, but after nearly two hours’ work, everything was ready. Only Jim, Juarez and the engineer were left upon the derelict, with old Pete ready at the oars to pull away as soon as the men should jump into the boat after firing the fuses.

“Already for’ard!” yelled Jim.

“Ready,” came Juarez’s reply.

They touched the long fuse and then ran and stepped lightly into the boat. Pete dug the oars into the water and away the boat leapt towards the Sea Eagle. She had cleared the derelict about a hundred feet, when with two dull shaking thuds, and a glare of red light at either end, the derelict was blown to destruction, and pieces of broken timber fell all about the boat. Some pieces fell even on the deck of the Sea Eagle. In a few minutes the broken hull had sunk below the dark waters of the Pacific. The work had been well done.

Two days later the Sea Eagle turned from the windy channel into her own harbor on the southern coast of California with the flag flying, and as the anchor chain rattled down into the quiet water, there came a salute from the two cannon on the upper deck. Then Jim turned and gripped the hand of his old friend.

“Here you are at home, Captain. Now it’s for the Lost Mine, boys.”

“And good luck to you,” said the old captain heartily. “I and the Sea Eagle will be here when you return.”

The boys at parting gave three rousing cheers.