Treasure Island

   The genesis of my interest in maps and my fascination with prints can be traced to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. When I was ten, Treasure Island and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe were my favorite books.  I read them time and time again.  I was especially fascinated with the map at the front of Treasure Island and every time I read it I followed the action carefully across the terrain of the map.  The illustrations by N. C. Wyeth became the starting points of fantasies and day-dreams.  My friends and I made forts in the pine forest south of Cottonwood Creek and east of the Cheyenne River, and in my mind the pirates were stalking us.  We were all grown up and far from our parents in Edgemont, South Dakota.      
   "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, ..." I would mutter under my breath, "Yo, ho-ho and a bottle of rum."