N a trip, last winter, from Southampton in the liner "St. Paul," I had for cabin mate a man named Standish—a Connecticut Yankee, tall, lean, muscular, about forty-five years old. His face, intelligent and serious, but good-natured withal, was deeply tanned by weather. His manners were simple and friendly, but he had a native dignity and self-possession; he had evidently knocked about the world a good deal, and though not a college graduate, was well educated. He seemed to be very well off; but I had a notion that he had not always been so. I found him likable and interesting, and as he took a liking to me, we were much together during the voyage. He gave me some insight into his history—a more adventurous one I have never known in real life. I will relate here one of its later episodes; for it not only is remarkable in itself, but has a bearing upon one of the most mysterious and moving historical romances that have stirred public attention during the last decade. Many speculations as to the sequel of that romance have been put forward, and many rumors circulated; but the truth was never known till now.
In the spring of 1898, Standish was in the Mexican province of Chihuahua, prospecting for gold. He was not successful, but got on the trail of a legend about a large mass of treasure concealed on the coast of the Gulf of California, a little north of latitude 26°. An elderly mestizo with whom he had become friendly gave him a rough map of the place; and he bought mules and hired guides, and set out. The distance to the coast, in an air line, might be one hundred and fifty miles, but the devious trails and almost impassable passes lengthened it to near four hundred. He arrived, in the early part of October, with two mules and one guide; death or desertion accounted for the rest. The point where he struck the coast was Bahia de Agiabampo—a landlocked bay about twenty miles in diameter, with a village settlement on its shores. Here he rested awhile, and made cautious inquiries.
After a couple of weeks, he bought a ten-ton fishing-smack, and hired an Indian. He himself knew how to handle a boat, and he wished to keep all knowledge of his enterprise as much as possible to himself. On the second day out, the Indian fell overboard while splicing a peak-halyard. A shark seized the poor creature, and Standish was now alone. Should he go on, or return?
He decided to go on. The boat was easy to manage, the weather was fine and the adventure was attractive. Toward sunset, being then but a few miles offshore, he saw something which caused him to put over his helm and come up in the wind. Conspicuous in the precipitous dark line of the coast was an oblong boulder or mass of rock, at least two hundred feet in height, of a ghastly white hue; diagonally across it ran a vein some twenty feet in width, the color of blood. This rock was one of the landmarks mentioned by his friend the mestizo.
Much encouraged by this confirmation of the legend, Standish brought the boat before the wind, designing to run inshore; but at that juncture the wind died away, returned in light puffs from various directions, and dropped into a dead calm. Then, with an abruptness that took the lone mariner by surprise, a black and furious storm burst upon him. Before he could lower his sail, it was ripped out of the bolt-ropes, and he was driving helpless before the gale. All that night and all the next day he was beaten this way and that, unable to determine his direction, much less to control it. On the evening of that day, the sky cleared, and Standish saw land to the westward. This could be only the peninsula of Lower California—one of the least-known and least-visited parts of America. It had a mountainous and desolate aspect, rising dark against the glow of the western sky; and Standish was by no means assured of a welcome there. It had been settled by Spaniards two hundred years before; but the vast majority of the sparse population of thirty thousand was Indian, and by all accounts not of a well-disposed or inviting temper.
However, it was necessary to get ashore and refit; he rigged a jury-sail and moved shoreward. Night fell while he was still miles distant, and he was obliged to lay off and on till morning. He then saw that he was near a rocky island, about four miles in length, and as many miles from the mainland. It was probably the island of Coronados, which lies some ten miles north of the twenty-sixth degree of latitude. He approached it with circumspection.