Balto Treasure Island 

 Please note: This story is based on a classic children's book, and is written with a young audience in mind. Readers should be advised, however, it does have violence and some alchohol content.

Footnotes marked with *s can be found at the end of the story to explain key points about the setting and actions of characters.

My name is Balto. Balto Hawkins. I grew up at the Admiral Benbow Inn, which was owned by my mother. She had her paws pretty full raising me without the help of my father, who had gone away when I was a pup about three months old, and sometimes strangers distrusted her for being a wolf. But she managed to run the inn smoothly and neatly enough to draw, if not a constant flow of customers, enough to provide us with the income we needed to get by.

I spent most of my time working at the inn doing various chores, but when I had free time I would go down to the harbor and look at ships. I liked to think that maybe, just maybe I might bump into my father, whom my mother said had gone away on a winter voyage because the inn was seriously in debt. He had been hoping to come back in a few months with enough money to pay off our loans, but no one had seen him since. By the time I was thirteen, my trips to the harbor were more out of an interest in ships than any hope of finding him, but I never stopped thinking in the back of my mind that maybe someday he would get off one of those ships and come home. Would he recognize me? Would I even remember him? I only knew him by his painting on the wall and by what Mother said about him, which wasn’t much.

One day as I was cleaning tables in the dining room, a dog came in dragging a sea chest in a hand cart and carrying the usual waft of tar, tobacco, sea salt, and rum. He had fur as brown as the leather vest he wore, a tall strong figure, and a somewhat generous waist. I noticed a saber cut on his left cheek and briefly wondered how it had gotten there. He looked around and then sang in a high, cracked voice,

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,

Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!”

He looked straight at me and called roughly for a glass of rum. Before I could fetch it for him, he snatched one from another guest and gulped it down*. I quickly ran to the tap and filled two mugs- one to replace the guest’s, the other to keep handy in case the greedy newcomer wanted seconds. I was used to unruly sailors coming in, but mother always said to treat them with courtesy as long as they didn’t break anything. I suspect this was because she had one of those looks that could make all but the rowdiest poltroons sober up at least a little. And if that didn’t work, there was the gun she kept behind the counter (never loaded, but they never knew).

I ran back to the door and replaced the guest’s drink with a quiet apology. The old sailor finished his drink and looked down at me. “This be a handy cove,” he said with a pleasant growl in his voice. “Much company, mate?”

I shook my head. “Hardly any at the moment, sir,” I replied.

He laughed. “Well then, this be just the place I need!” He strode over to the counter as I followed. “I be a plain man,” he said as he walked. “Bacon, eggs, and rum is what I want, and that cliff fer watchin’ ships.”

“That should be quite easy, sir,” I replied, running the empty rooms through my head. “I think we have a nice room looking right in that direction.”

He beamed. “Right perfect,” he growled. “But enough o’ this ‘sir’ talk. Call me captain.”

“Aye, captain,” I agreed.

Mother came in from the kitchen wiping her paws on her apron. “Balto,” she said in that calm voice of hers, “I see we have a guest.”

“Yes, mother,” I nodded.

“Yer boy here was jus’ telling me you’ve a room lookin’ out to sea.”

Mother checked the list she always kept on the counter. “Yes we do,” she confirmed.

“I’ll take it,” growled the captain firmly. He reached into his pocket and slapped down three or four gold pieces. “Just tell me when that runs out!” he laughed.

While Mother checked the coins with her thumbnail to make sure they were real gold**, I hurried to show the captain his room and where he could put his sea chest. It was one of my favorite rooms, a front one with a big window looking out over the cliffs and the vast blue ocean.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver piece. “Would ye like this, lad?” he asked.

My eyes grew wide. “Yes, very much, captain.” A silver piece was more than I usually made in two months! 

He laughed. “Well, you can have it then! Jes’ keep a sharp eye out for…” he stopped and his expression fell as if he were about to utter the name of the Devil himself. “… fer a sailor with one leg,” he finished. “Yeh do that, lad, and I’ll give you a silver fourpenny the first of every month, jes’ like clockwork.”

One leg? I thought. Should be easy enough to spot. “Gladly, sir!” I agreed eagerly. “I mean captain.” My tail was slapping the air like a windmill in a storm.

He flipped me the coin. “There you are. Now, if you sees such a dog, be sure and tell me straightaway, clear?”

I nodded as I caught the coin. “Aye-aye, captain!” And I left to go show Mother what he had given me.

“A silver fourpenny every month?” she asked when she saw it.

“Yes,” I confirmed handing her the coin so she could check it herself.

She tested the coin with her thumbnail, then gave it back and put a paw to her chin. “This sailor must be either a good friend or a deadly foe,” she observed. “And whichever it is, it could be trouble for us if he turns up.”

I remembered the look on the captain’s face. “Probably enemies,” I said. “He looked like he was talking about Blackbeard.”

Mother nodded. “Well, if you see the dog, be sure to tell the captain, and me.”

Months passed, and the captain paid me every month as promised. He stayed on at the inn as the bright summer changed to a blistering winter. But while the seasons changed, his habits never did. Every day, as rhythmically as the sun and the tide, he went out to the cliff with a brass spyglass to watch for ships. In the evenings he would sit in the dining room drinking rum and telling all sorts of “fish stories,” as my mother called them- tales at once wonderful and terrible, full of pirates and hanging and buried treasures vast enough to fill a room from floor to ceiling. Many of them included deadly pirates, cursed gold, ghosts, and monsters of the sea. My mother worried that he would drive off the other customers with these tales, and some guests certainly did tend to leave when he got too rowdy and made everyone join him in various ship songs, chiefly the one about the fifteen men. But at the same time, a number of guests were drawn to his wild tales, and many people came night after night to hear them. I think it must have been the business from these customers that lessened Mother’s persistence in getting payment, since the gold pieces had run out long ago.

As for myself, while I wasn’t unhappy about the extra business, I can’t say I liked his stories as much. At first I enjoyed listening to them while I cleaned tables. But when I tried to sleep on those nights, I had nightmares like I’d never imagined a dog could have. I dreamed of massive squids and serpents and monsters that looked like lobsters, but were so big they could crush an entire ship in a single claw. I dreamed about storms with waves as high as mountains, and ghosts seeking vengeance on those who had killed them. But my worst nightmares were about the one thing even the captain, or Billy Bones as I had come to know him, feared – the seafaring dog with one leg.

I remember one particular dream about him. In it, I opened the door to throw out a bucket of water I had used to scrub the floor. As I did, I heard a great booming sound coming from the bridge. I looked and saw a sight that made every hair on my body stand up and salute. Leaping toward me was a giant beast like a werewolf, dressed in ragged sailor's clothes. It was twenty feet tall and had claws as long as its fingers, with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth each as big as my arm. It was dressed like a sailor, and it had one massive leg beneath the middle of its body, which it used to travel in massive leaps and bounds. It was coming toward me with fire in its eyes. My immediate reaction was to try to get inside, but the door had shut behind me and wouldn't open. I tried to run down the street, but the sailor kept getting closer, closer, its claws stretching out toward me. I have thanked God a hundred times over that I woke at that moment, or I might not have woken at all.

One day, a guest of ours took sick and my mother called for Doctor Boris Livesey, an old Russian goose with a firm demeanor which he attributed to years of tough work. Doctor Livesey came late one afternoon to see his patient, and stayed afterwards to eat dinner at the inn. With him were two young polar bears, Muk and Luk, whom he referred to as his interns. I think this was more a term of affection than an actual description, since the two bears didn’t seem to have enough intelligence between them for an apprentice* chimney sweep.

After his dinner, he told Mother that the guest would need his meals brought up to him for a week or so. He was just in the middle of saying what certain foods the patient should not be given until he was well when, from across the room, old Billy piped up his tireless song:

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest-

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the Devil had done fer the rest-

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

The doctor’s face flashed with annoyance, but he ignored the dog and went on talking. “He should get plenty of fresh fruit,” he advised, “especially apples. He-“

The captain slapped the table. “Silence between the decks!” he roared. “Silence, now, or I’ll have yer head!”

Doc turned on him with an irate expression and snapped, “If you keep drinking rum, the vorld vill soon be short a scoundrel!”

“Swing yeh for a brainless lout,” retorted the captain.

“Now see here!” Muk burst out. “You oughtn’t talk that way about…”

Billy pulled a sailor’s knife from his belt. “I’ll pin ye to the wall if ye don’t close yer yap!” he yelled.

Muk immediately tried to hide behind Doctor Boris. Since he was roughly three times the bird’s size, it didn’t help much.

Boris’ face quivered a little, and his voice dropped a notch. “There is a sick man upstairs who needs peace and qviet.” Eyeing the knife he added, “Especially peace. Now put that knife avay, or I vill see to it that you hang.”

Bones paused. He muttered something about doctors and reclined grumbling into his seat.

“Now listen, and listen vell,” continued Doc, bolder now that the knife had been lowered. “I’ll be in and out of here for a few days, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you. Any complaints about you and I promise, on my honor, the judge shall hear of it.”

The captain was silent for the rest of the evening and, to my surprise, the remainder of the week.

Then, on a cold morning in mid-January, another sailor came into the inn. No missing leg, but he did have two fingers gone from his left hand. He was skinny and nasty-looking, with mangy black fur that looked as if it hadn’t seen a bath in the last ten years at least. He demanded at once to see “my old shipmate, Bill.” The captain was out looking at ships, so the sailor made me wait with him until the captain returned. “Good ol’ Billy Bones!” he greeted in a loud, bold voice as the captain finally came in.

Billy’s face turned ashen gray, and his features seemed to wither as if he had aged a century in a matter of seconds. He resembled one of the ghosts in his stories, and from the way he stared at the other sailor you would have thought he was staring at one of the same. “Black Dog!” he gasped.

“Aye, Black Dog it is, here to see his old friend,” the dog grinned. “Now what say we sit down and talk square, like old shipmates?”

The captain shakily sat down while I stood there, unsure what to do. Black Dog scowled at me and spat, “Mind yer own business, brat!” I quickly busied myself cleaning up the other tables, keeping as far away from the two sea dogs as I could. I hardly heard any of their discussion until Billy pounded his fist so hard it shook the table. “No!” he roared at his “old shipmate.” “No and no twice, by thunder! If it comes to swinging, swing all, says I!” He and the other dog jumped up, drew their cutlasses, and began to fight. It was a brief but intense spectacle as they dueled, until Billy managed to knock Black Dog’s sword out of his grip. Black Dog fled in terror, with Billy close behind him still hacking at the air just inches short of the sailor’s hairy hide. As Black Dog threw himself out the door, Billy swung one last furious stroke that would have killed him if it had struck home. But instead the sword caught in the signpost above the door, and Black Dog got away.

My mother came in, drawn by the shouting, and saw Billy pulling his cutlass out of the signboard. “Mister Bones!” she snapped. “I have had enough…”

But the captain didn’t seem to hear her. He pulled his weapon out of the board, turned, and said slowly, “Rum.” He staggered as he spoke, leaning on a table for support.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Rum! I gotta get away from…” but then he slumped to the floor, his sword falling to the ground with a clatter beside him.

I looked at mother. “Should we take him to his room?”

She shook her head. “We’d better not move him if we can help it or we could make him worse.”

I certainly agreed with that, though it didn’t look like he could get much worse. His face, what I could see through his fur at least, was a hideous shade of blue, his tongue was hanging out, and his breath was coming in loud, ragged gasps.

The door opened again. Fortunately it was no sailor this time, but the doctor coming to check on his patient. He came in as if nothing was wrong until he spotted Billy lying on the floor. “Bwa!” he yelped, recoiling at the sight.

“There was a fight!” I said rapidly. “He was hurt!”

Boris squinted at Billy. “Peh,” he muttered scornfully. “A stroke is vhat he had, just like I said he vould. How long has he been like this?”

“About two minutes,” answered Mother.

“Well, we may still have time to save this rascal’s life. Would one of you get me a basin? Preferably one you do not intend to use for anything else.”

My mother ran to the kitchen and brought a basin, which she handed to the doctor.

“Thank you,” he nodded as he took it. He set it down and proceeded to rip Billy’s sleeve. I could see “Here’s Luck,” “Fair Wind,” and “Billy Bones His Fancy,” all neatly tattooed on his arm. “Balto, I may need some assistance in a moment, so stay close at hand. You’re not afraid of blood, are you?”

I gulped a little. “Not much,” I replied, knowing what he was about to do. He was going to bleed Billy, meaning he was going to drain some blood from a vein in his arm and, hopefully, remove poison from his body in the process. I’d had it done to me once when I was sick, and it wasn’t pleasant.

“Good,” he replied. He took a small scalpel and made a careful opening in Billy’s arm, using the basin to catch the blood. Turning his head away, he instructed, “Tell me vhen ve have drained a pint or so.”

Nauseated, I waited until there was about a pint in the basin and told him. Looking at the blood as little as possible, he quickly bandaged the dog’s foreleg and put the blood well out of sight. “Help me move this scoundrel,” he said. “Once we have gotten him to his room, we’ll dump that blood down the sewer.”

Billy opened his eyes, blinked, and made a clumsy effort to raise himself. “Where’s Black Dog?”

“There’s no one by that name here,” Boris replied. “You have been drinking rum and had a stroke, just as I said. Now listen, and listen well. One drink of rum von’t kill you. But if you take one you vill take another, and another, and then you vill have another stroke. Keep it up, and you are a dead dog for sure! Understand?”

Billy nodded groggily as we helped him up to his room, where he immediately collapsed on the bed. “Come with me, Balto,” said the goose. As soon as the door was shut, he turned to me. “He should be qviet for a while. He vill not be able to rise for a day or two, and it vould be best if he stayed where he is for at least a veek. No rum for him, do you understand? Another stroke like this one, and there vill be nothing I can do.”

I agreed, but later the captain asked for rum when I went to check on him. I explained what doctor Boris had said and he scoffed. “Doctors is swabs, every blighting one of ‘em,” he growled. “Look at me, Balto m’boy, at how my fingers twitches. I be havin’ the horrors, I am. I sees old Flint himself in the corner behind yeh, plain as print.”

I turned, but there was no one behind me. “Flint?” I asked, turning to the captain again. “Who’s Flint?”

“Not is, matey, was. He was a pirate, and a murderous one. Had him enough gold to fill a ship’s hold and ballast and spillin' over the decks, he did. But I won’t see him there if I has a little rum. E’en the doctor said one glass won’t kill me.” He reached in his pocket and fished out a gold piece. “I give ye this for a drink o’ rum.”

I didn’t want his money anymore, but in the end I got him our smallest glass, with only a few drops of rum and the rest water to keep him quiet so he wouldn’t disturb our other sick guest. He drank it greedily, too clouded up to know the difference, and said in a voice that was almost a gargle, “I best be off now.” But just like Doc had said, he was too weak to get up. After several failed attempts he cursed and grumbled, “The doctor’s done me in.” He took a shaky breath and added, “If I can’t get away and they tips me the black spot, they be after me sea-chest. Boy, if they tips me the black spot, run to this doctor swab and ‘ave him pipe all hands. They’ll find Flint’s crew at the Admiral Benbow.”

“The black spot?” I echoed. The only Spot I’d ever known was white and grey. Pretty friendly guy- for a Mastiff, at least.

“It be a summons, lad,” he wheezed. “It be a black spot on a bit o’ paper, meanin’ the crew’ll turn against me. They wants what’s mine. I was Flint’s first mate, and I be the only one that knows the place.” With a raspy breath that sounded like carriage wheels on cobblestone, he added, “Only one alive, that is. Flint gave me the map when he lay dying.” He grabbed my hand and gripped it with all of the little strength he had. “But don’t go nowhere,” he whispered. “Not unless they tips me the spot, or unless yeh sees the one-legged sailor.”

I gave him my solemn promise. “Nowhere,” I agreed.

Over the next few days the Captain seemed to recover, if only a little. He limped downstairs for his meals, but he rarely spoke.

Then, several weeks afterwards, a ragged old beggar-a weasel-came tapping along the road with a green cloth tied over his eyes. From his cane I knew he must be blind, and I briefly wondered if the cloth was there on doctor’s orders to perhaps let his eyes recover, or if it was there by his own choice to hide whatever injury had blinded him.

“Will any kind friend tell a poor old blind chap where he be?” he asked to the air.

I winced. His voice reminded me of a rusty hinge. “The Admiral Benbow Inn of Black Cove,” I answered.

“I hear a voice,” he creaked. “A young voice. Will ye be a kind young friend and lead me inside?”

I hesitated, since by this time I was more than a little wary of strangers. But I reasoned that if he was blind he couldn’t aim a gun or a knife, so I took his paw to lead him in. The instant my paw touched his, he gripped it like a steel vise. “Now, boy,” he hissed, sounding like a snake with its tail caught in a rusty hinge, “Take me to the captain or I’ll crack your wrist like a chicken’s neck.”

“Ow, OW!” I protested. “Fine, I’ll take you to him!” I was tempted to lead him to the nearest horse trough and knock him in, but I decided this would be a bad idea.

I led him to where the old bucaneer was sitting up in bed. “Here he…” I gasped, but the old beggar had already released my hand, having smelled his prey. “Bill!” he screeched. “Here’s an old friend!”

The captain, who had been on the mend, instantly looked a thousand times worse than he ever had (which I’ve got to say, I would have thought was impossible). His face turned as white as the sheets on which he lay, and his mouth hung open like a cave. “Blind Pew!” he gasped.

“Don’t move an inch, old scallawag,” Pew ordered. “I can’t see, but I can hear a finger stirring. Now, stick out your right paw. Pup, bring his right paw near to me left.”

Bill and I both obeyed, and as the hands passed each other I saw Pew pass something to Bill. Then he turned and bolted like a horse that heard a thunderclap. He must have had an excellent memory, for he scarcely used his cane even on the stairs.

The captain gasped at the piece of paper. “The black spot!” he cried. “They give me six hours. We’ll finish ‘em yet, lad!” He sprang to his feet, tottered, and fell. He’d been hit by a stroke, just as Doc had warned us. I felt for a pulse, but the results only confirmed my fear. He was stone dead.

I ran to tell Mother what had happened, and she frowned. She didn’t cry over him – Mother always seemed to be able to put her emotions to one side until the right time to let them out, even where my father was concerned, and she had little sorrow to spare for a drunken sailor. “The captain owed us money,” she noted as she dried her hands on a dishtowel, “And his shipmates won’t leave us anything. We’ll have to take it ourselves.”

“Mother!” I protested. “These dogs will be here soon! We have to go, now!”

But Mother was firm. Money was needed to run the Benbow, and the Benbow was all we had to live on. More important, it was one of the few things she had left of my father. So with a determined gait, she strode up to the captain’s room and crouched by his body, searching his pockets. Her search only turned up a knife, some coins that were nowhere near enough for his debt, a thimble, some thread, and a few big needles. After a moment’s thought she reached for his neck and pulled out the key, hung on a thread and tucked under the dog’s shirt. “Put a sheet over him for now,” she told me as she got up and walked out.

With a grimace, I pulled a sheet from the bed and covered up the captain’s body before following Mother up to the attic, where we kept the chest. I caught up to her at the attic door, and we went in together.

Bill’s sea chest was in the corner, covered with a layer of dust that evidenced the man’s long stay. She unlocked it, causing the stench of tar and tobacco to fill the small room. I gagged. Hadn’t the captain ever heard of potpourri?

Mother, unperturbed by the odor, reached in and extracted a pouch of money. “I’ll only take what he owed us,” she uttered.

“Uh, I don’t know if you got this, but we have pirates after us,” I reminded her. Panic had made me edgy. “Might I suggest we just take the money and run for it?”

But Mother was an honest woman, and insisted on taking only the exact amount – not a copper more or less, a task that required more than two hours to accomplish. The captain must have been one heck of a traveler, because that pouch had every kind of money in it I’d ever heard of! “I wish your father was here,” she murmured. “He knew more about money than I do.”

I wondered what she meant until she started to sort the money she extracted into two piles. English coins in one and everything else in another.

“Oh, no,” I muttered. This could take all day, and we had less than six hours!

After what seemed like an interminably long time, I heard a tapping sound outside. Peeking out the window, I saw Blind Pew coming up the road with a whole gang of dogs, his cane tapping against the street like the knocking sound in old houses which I’d heard is a sign of death. Something told me they weren’t here for a biscuit and a game of fetch. “They’re early!”

Mother scooped the foreign coins back into the pouch and took the English ones she had counted out. “This will have to do,” she sighed.

I glanced into the chest and grabbed the first thing my eyes fell upon, an oilcloth package. “I’ll take this to make it even.”

As we ran downstairs, the sound of furniture being thrown around announced the pirates’ arrival. “To Bill’s cabin, mates!” screeched Pew. “And find that map!”

Map? I wondered. I was jerked out of my thoughts when Mother grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s go!” she cried.

I nodded, and we bolted for the back door. “I just hope they don’t have us surrounded!” I remarked.

By now it was dark out, and I think from the screams that the guests must have been fleeing into the night. Mother and I ran for the bridge that led over the river and into the village. With a desperate leap to cover the last stretch, we slid down the bank and lay there, barely daring to peek up over it to watch the inn. We didn’t have long to watch, though. A whistle came from the other side of the bridge, piercing the night. At first I thought it was a signal that someone had found us, and I could smell by the spike in Mother’s fear that she thought the same. Especially when one of the pirates cried, “The lookout!” I thought we were done for, but the words “Avast! Run for it!” followed and bolstered my courage. Especially when they were followed in turn by the sound of galloping hooves.

“Wait!” I heard Pew scream. “Johnny, Black dog, don’t leave old Pew! Oh, if I had eyes!”

I couldn’t see what happened, but I heard galloping hooves and a scream from Pew, a frantic cry of pain and terror. I later learned that in his confusion, Pew had run right under the horses and been trampled to death.

“Come on,” I told Mother after the ruckus had died down. “The town watch must have chased them off.” We climbed the bank and headed for the inn.

“Hold!” cried one of the dogs on horseback, swinging a long gun barrel in our direction.

“Wait!” I cried, throwing up my hands.

Mother barely flinched. “I am Mrs. Hawkins, the owner of this inn.”

The dog-a dalmatian- squinted at us and coughed. “Oh, sorry Ma’am.” He lowered the gun. “Do you know who those bandits were?”

“They were pirates,” she replied. “And I’ll be glad to explain everything after my son and I have put things in…” she opened the door and screamed. Looking past her, I saw the reason.

The kitchen was a mass of flames.

A bucket brigade was hastily assembled, but by the time the fire was put out most of the Admiral Benbow Inn had been destroyed. Mother was devastated. She wouldn’t say why, but I already knew. My father had built the inn years before I was born, as a home and a source of income for the two of them and the family they hoped to have. Not only that, but in their spite the pirates had slashed the portrait of my father to ribbons. Two of the five things she had to remember him by were gone forever. Only her ring, her locket, and I were left.

A member of the town watch tried to comfort her. “There’s enough left to rebuild,” he reassured her. But he didn’t understand. Even if it were rebuilt, it wouldn’t be the same anymore. All the loving work my father had put into it – the carved panels, the ornate handrails, all of it was gone forever. And besides, any effort to rebuild would leave us penniless.

Then a greyhound strode up. “Are you Ms. Hawkins, the owner of this establishment?” he asked.

“Mrs. Hawkins,” she corrected him. Mother could never stand to be considered a widow, no matter the circumstances. “And yes, I am.”

“I’m Mr. Dance, head of the town revenue service.” The revenue men were in charge of catching smugglers. “I need you to come with me.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“Mr. Trelawney needs to know about this,” Mr. Dance replied. “If you’ll please come with me, Ms… er, Mrs. Hawkins.” It sounded more like a command than a request.

“I’m coming too,” I asserted.

He stared at me. “And who are you?”

“My son,” Mother explained. “He should come too.”

Mr. Dance nodded. “Well then, come along.”

Mr. Trelawney, or Squire Trelawney as most people called him, was a somewhat elderly Saint Bernard who served as the local judge. People called him Squire out of respect because squires had lots of money and valuable estates, and Mr. Trelawney had both.

We came to his house during dinner and, to my surprise, found doctor Livesey visiting as well. I was famished, but Mother was so upset that when the squire told us to sit down and have something to eat, I was the only one who actually ate.

As I ate and Mother brooded over the situation, we told the doctor and Mr. Trelawney about the whole business. From the bird’s expression as he listened, you would have thought he was listening to one of Billy Bones’ fish stories. The squire’s baggy jowels didn’t show much expression, but he too seemed very intrigued.

When I reached the end of the tale, the squire cleared his throat. “Well,” he said in his thick, deep voice, “I hold them blameless for running down that blind scoundrel. It was accident, and he was a w-” I think he was about to say “wolf’s head,” a common expression for outlaws and criminals, but he stopped short with a glance at Mother. “Wicked fellow,” he amended.

“But who vere these dogs?” asked the doctor. “And vhat vere they after?”

I nodded. “I think they were after a map,” I explained. “And I’m not sure who they were, but Billy Bones said something about them being Flint’s crew.”

The squire choked on a mouthful of steak and had to be pounded on the back by one of his servants. “Who did you say?” he wheezed when he finally recovered his breath.

“I said he said something about them being Flint’s crew.”

The squire was all business now. “Do you have this thing they were after?”

“I might.” I pulled it out of my pocket. “Here,” I handed it to him.

Doctor Boris took the oilcloth package. “Vhat have you heard of this Flint person?”

“Heard of him?!” the Saint Bernard cried. “Heard of him?! He was a terror! A monster! They say the Devil trembled at his name! And his treasure made Blackbeard’s look like this brass candlestick!” He pointed to a candleholder which sat on the table. “Blackbeard was a child compared to Flint! He was…”

“Calm down, sqvire! You’re talking so fast I can’t get a vord in. Now if this contains a clue to Flint’s treasure hoard, vill it amount to much?”

“Amount to much?!” cried the squire. “It will amount to this: I will personally commission a ship and crew, and we will find that treasure if we search for a year! And now, Balto, may we open this package?”

Open it? Open it? “Yes, please do!” I answered, caught up in the squire's excitement in spite of myself.

He asked the servants to clear a section of the table, then asked them to leave. Boris laid the package down and delicately untied the strings holding the oilcloth shut. Opening the package, we found two things: an old book, and a sealed envelope. The wax seal bore the sign of a skull with two swords crossed below it. Despite my excitement to break the seal and open the envelope, he examined the book first. “Hmm. Looks like an account book,” he noted. “Every time they robbed a ship, he wrote the date, their position, and his share. Qvite tidy for a pirate. Now for the other.”

“May I?” I asked. Doctor Livesey extended the envelope to me, and with trembling hands I broke the wax and opened the envelope. Inside was a folded piece of paper. “It is a map!” I practically howled in excitement.

The doctor and squire got up (the latter with such energy he almost knocked the table over) and came around to have a look as I spread out the parchment. The map showed an island nine miles high (that is, from North to South), five miles wide, and shaped like a fat dragon standing up. On it there were three Xs marked in red ink. One said, “Bulk of treasure here,” a second said, “Bar silver,” and the third was marked, “Arms.” Latitude, longitude, and landmarks were all marked, and on the back were directions to all three spots.

“That settles it!” declared the squire. “We sail for Treasure Island!”

Mother gave me one of her “oh-no-you-don’t” looks. “Balto, don’t even ask. I’m not letting you go along.”

“But Mother!” I protested. “With half a share of that treasure we could rebuild the whole Admiral Benbow twice and still live like royalty the rest of our lives!”

“Hang the treasure!” she snapped, speaking much more strongly than I’d ever heard. “The sea already took your father away, and now you want me to risk you too?”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Actually,” he interjected, “Balto does have some right to…” he stopped under a withering look from Mother. The kind which, she always said, only my father had never backed down from, which was part of why she had married him. Awkwardly, he shrugged. “But… he is your son.”

“Mrs. Hawkins,” the squire put in, “The men who attacked you will likely continue to persecute you and Balto. I think he would be safer if we brought him with us.”

Mother started to open her mouth, then stopped. “What makes you say that?”

“For one thing,” he replied, “Two are more easily tracked down than one. And once we were over the horizon, it would be virtually impossible for them to track us.”

Mother began to nod slightly. “I see,” she admitted.

“Madam,” pledged the squire. “If we do not return him safe and whole, let it stand on our reputations forever.”

“We?” asked the doctor, largely unnoticed.

Mother frowned.

“Please?” I begged.

She shook her head. “I must be mad,” she groaned, “But alright.”

I hugged her. “Don’t worry, Mother,” I promised. “I’ll be fine.”

She shook her head. “You’d better be,” she replied.

“Vell, good luck on your voyage,” offered the doctor.

“Our voyage, you mean,” the squire replied. “You’ll be coming too.”

Boris choked even though he wasn’t eating. “You said vhat?” he cried.

“Our voyage,” repeated the squire. “Doctor, find someone else to tend your patients. A good ship needs a doctor on board, and I pick you.”

“You are crazy!” Boris cried. “Vhat about pirates, storms, vhales, sharks, sea monsters…”

Sighing, I tapped Boris on the shoulder. Momentarily distracted from his ranting, he turned to me. “Vhat!”

I simply beckoned him to follow and led him out the door to a spot from which the remains of the Admiral Benbow could be seen outlined in the moonlight. Mother and the squire followed too, and I could hear my Mother trying to hold back more crying at the sight. With a paw on top of his head, I pointed the doctor’s gaze from the inn to my Mother. Now he knew why I was going. It wasn’t for the gold. I was going for my home, and for Mother.

He turned around soberly and walked back to the squire’s house. Once we were all back and the door was shut, he faced us. “So,” he replied, “Let’s go get the treasure.”

“Then you’re coming?” asked the squire.

He raised one wing feather. “I do have one thing I am still vorried about.” He pointed at Squire Trelawney. “You. The men after us are dangerous, and you cannot hold your tongue!”

I considered pointing out his previous outburst, but Mr. Trelawney nodded. “You are right. I will be as silent as the grave.”

To Be Continued...

All characters so far belong to Universal Studios.

Based on Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

* Aniu would rather not have any rum around, but in those days, an inn with no rum would have had hardly any customers.

** Gold and silver in their purer states are soft enough that they can be dented with little pressure. Bac when these metals were commonly used in currency, people often bit coins or dented them eith their thumbnails to ascertain that they were getting the real deal.