The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove: or, The Missing Chest of Gold

STUNG!

For a few moments Andy gazed stupidly, unable for the time to understand that he had been made the victim of a hoax. While this was slowly dawning upon him, the door burst open and, with a yell of laughter, the crowd rushed into the hut.

Andy jumped as though he had been shot, and, scrambling out of the hole, stood with open mouth facing the laughing boys. His surprised and discomfited attitude was so ludicrous that their laughter increased tenfold and they fairly shrieked.

“Wh-what’s the big idea, anyway?” gasped Andy at last. “How did you fellows come to be here?”

“Well, you see,” replied Morton, sobering down a little, “I counted on your doing the crooked thing and I wasn’t mistaken.”

“I’ll get even with you some day,” growled Andy. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

“Since you ask me, I must admit I cherish some such idea,” admitted Morton, his eyes twinkling. “The fellows from the city don’t always know everything, you understand.”

“You’ll live to be sorry for this trick,” blustered Andy. “You just see if you don’t.”

He made his way to the door and passed out amid another burst of merriment from those who had witnessed his discomfiture, leaving his implements lying where he had thrown them.

An account of the affair spread quickly over the village and life for Andy became so unbearable that before another twenty-four hours he left the town.

In the natural course of events the story came to the ears of the boys at the lighthouse.

“I’d have given something to be there,” declared Bill. “It must have been worth a year’s allowance to see his face when all those fellows gave him the laugh. He thinks such a lot of himself that it must have been a bitter pill to swallow.”

“Let alone his not finding what he went after,” put in Fred. “It hit him in his pride and his pocketbook, and they’re both sensitive spots with Andy.”

“But how do you suppose he got wind of our being in search of treasure?” queried Teddy.

“I was wondering at that,” replied Lester, “and the only way I could figure it out is that he must have followed us the day we were at Bartanet, and heard what we were talking about when we were eating.”

“Well,” concluded Fred, “he couldn’t have got anything of real value from what we said, or he wouldn’t have gone digging in old Totten’s shack. But it’s up to us to put a padlock on our lips when there’s any chance of being overheard. We may not be so lucky the next time.”

CHAPTER XXVII

A FIGHTING CHANCE

“Only one week more now before we have to go back to Rally Hall,” sighed Teddy one morning, just after they had risen from the breakfast table.

“And nothing done yet in the way of finding that chest of gold,” groaned Fred.

“It’s now or never,” declared Lester with decision.

“I’m afraid it’s never, then,” put in Bill, the skeptical. “Here for days we’ve been blistering our hands and breaking our backs, to say nothing of racking what brains we have, and we’re no nearer finding it than we were at the beginning.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” protested Fred. “We’ve at least explored a lot of places where there were no signs of the peculiar trees and rock shown in that map that Ross told us about. That leaves just so many fewer places to waste our time on, and makes it more likely that the next will be the right one.”

“Not much nourishment in that,” persisted Bill. “I’ll admit that we’ve found plenty of places where the gold isn’t, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. And we’ll be gray-headed before we can explore the whole coast of Maine.”

“Oh, stop your grouching, you old sinner,” exhorted Teddy, clapping him on the back. “This is like football or baseball. The game isn’t over till after the last minute of play.”

“That’s the talk,” cried Lester emphatically. “If we go down, we’ll do it with the guns shotted and the band playing and the flag flying.”

It was not to be wondered at that the lads were all assailed at times by the doubt and discouragement that troubled Bill acutely that morning. They had taken advantage of every day when the sea permitted, and, as Teddy phrased it, had “raked the coast fore and aft.” Their main reliance had been the map that had appeared in the story of the old sailor to Ross, and the first thing they did after entering any bay or cove was to look about them for the clump of two and three trees, with the big rock standing at the right. Once or twice they had found conditions that nearly answered this description, and they had dug and hunted near by, wherever the lay of the land held out any hope of success.

In the absence of anything better, this supposed map was their strongest clue. Yet even this was only supposition. It might not have been anything more than the fanciful sketch of an idle sailor. Or if it indeed were a map of any given locality, it might not refer in the slightest degree to the robbery by the crew of the smuggler.

The knowledge that this might be so had at times a paralyzing effect on the boys. They felt the lack of solid ground beneath their feet. Like the coffin of Mahomet, they were as though suspended between earth and sky.

Still, it was the only clue they had, and there was something in the make-up of these sturdy young Americans that made them desperately unwilling to confess defeat. It was the “die-in-the-last-ditch” spirit that has made America great. Even Bill, although he relieved himself sometimes by grumbling, would not really have given up the search and when the pinch came he dug and hunted as eagerly as the rest.

This morning, they had arranged to set off for a final cruise that might take up all the remaining time of their vacation, which was now drawing rapidly to a close. Their party was complete, with the exception of Ross. He had gone up to Oakland to spend a few days with his mother, who had arrived from Canada, but he had arranged to meet the boys that day at a point agreed on, about fifteen miles up the coast.

As their cruise was expected to be longer than usual, it took them some time before they had everything on board the Ariel and were ready to cast off from the little pier below the lighthouse.

“Well,” said Mr. Lee, who had come down to see them off, “good-by, boys, and luck go with you.”

“Watch us come back with that chest of gold,” called out Teddy gaily.

“I’ll be watching, all right,” grinned the lighthouse keeper, “and I have a sort of hunch that you boys will get there this time. You certainly have earned it, if you do lay your hands on it.”

“And that’s no merry jest, either,” remarked Bill, as he looked at the callous spots on his hands.

“Bill wasn’t made to work,” scoffed Teddy. “He’s made to sit on the box and crack the whip, while we common trash pull and strain in the shafts.”

“Not much,” retorted Bill. “I’m no mule driver.”

“It’s a touching picture, that of Teddy pulling and straining, isn’t it?” laughed Lester, as he pointed to that young gentleman slumped down comfortably in the stern.

With jest and banter, the morning wore away. The day was serene and beautiful, with not a cloud obscuring the sky, while there was just enough wind to make their progress steady and rapid. Almost before they knew it, they had reached the point agreed upon with Ross, and soon after descried the Sleuth coming down to meet them.

They hailed Ross cordially, and his beaming face showed how deep and warm was his feeling for the boys, whom he already seemed to have known for years rather than weeks.

“Some smart navigators, we are, to meet just where we arranged to!” laughed Lester.

“We’re the real thing in the way of sailor men,” assented Ross, throwing out his chest.

“Listen to the mutual admiration society,” jibed the irrepressible Teddy. “Blushing violets aren’t in it with them. Here you let my modest worth pass unnoticed, while you’re handing bouquets to each other. But that’s the way it is in this world. It’s nerve and gall that counts. Now if I–”

But his eloquent peroration was spoiled by a hasty shift to escape a life preserver that Lester hurled at his head, missing him by an inch.

“You’d better let me have Teddy aboard the Sleuth,” laughed Ross. “Then if the engine gives out, I’ll start Teddy wagging his tongue. That will furnish power enough.”

“Not a bit of it,” replied Lester. “I want him here, in case the wind gives out.”

“It’s evident that I’m the most important person here, anyway,” retorted Teddy. “Neither one of you seems to be willing to get along without me.”

“Seven cities claimed Homer, you know,” said Bill sarcastically.

“Yes,” said Teddy complacently, “he and I are in the same class.”

Ross turned his boat around, and the two craft went along side by side.

“The sea’s like a mill pond to-day,” remarked Fred. “How different from the day of the storm, when we watched it from the observation room. Do you remember what your father said?”

“Not especially,” answered Lester. “What particular thing do you mean?”

“Why, when he prophesied that many a good ship would lay her bones on a reef or beach before the storm was over.”

“I suppose he was anxious,” answered Lester gravely, “but I haven’t heard of any ship’s being wrecked on this particular strip of the coast during this storm. The worst time we’ve had around here, as far as I can remember, was about three years ago. That storm kept up for three days and three nights, and when it was over there were at least a dozen wrecks, just on the coast of Maine.

“By the way,” he went on, as a sudden thought struck him, “we’ll have to pass one of those wrecks a few miles from here. It’s a schooner that went ashore in the storm. There’s part of the hull left, and, if you like, we’ll run in and look it over.”

“Was the crew saved?” asked Fred.

“Every soul aboard was drowned,” Lester answered soberly. “They were swept overboard before the life-saving crew could get to them. The masts went over the side, and the hull was driven so hard and deep into the sand that it has been there ever since.”

A half hour more passed, and then Lester gave a twist to the tiller and turned the Ariel inshore.

“There’s the wreck,” he said in response to Fred’s look of inquiry, as he pointed to a dark object near the beach. “We’ll just run in and look her over. But we won’t be able to stay more than a few minutes, for this is to be one of our busy days.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ABANDONED SCHOONER

“Look,” cried Teddy suddenly, pointing at right angles to the course they were pursuing.

“What is it?” came from his companions.

“It’s a shark,” cried Teddy excitedly. “Perhaps it’s the mate of the one we caught the other day. Have you your harpoon along, Lester?”

“No,” replied Lester, as he, with the others, watched the ominous black fin just showing above the surface; “and I haven’t the shark hook, either. It’s just as well anyway, because we can’t afford the time to-day to look after that fellow.”

“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Teddy, reluctantly abandoning his idea, “but I sure would like to add to my collection of shark’s teeth.”

“Wait till we find the chest, and you’ll have money enough to buy a shark and keep him as a pet,” suggested Bill.

“And feed him out of your hand,” grinned Ross.

As they drew near the shore, the wreck of the abandoned schooner came clearly into view. It was a dismal spectacle. There was nothing visible above the main deck, not even stumps. The masts had been snapped close to their butts, showing the terrific fury of the gale that had severed them almost as neatly as though done by a razor. There were several yawning rents in the side through which the water poured and retreated. It was evident that the hold must be entirely flooded. The bow was deeply imbedded in the sand, and there was only a slight perceptible motion of the stern, as it swayed and lifted in obedience to the surge of the waves.

The ship seemed at a casual glance to be about eighty feet in length. The beam was comparatively narrow, and the long graceful lines falling away from the bow showed that she had been built for speed. She was of the greyhound type, and this fact only emphasized her present forlorn condition.

Despite the dilapidated condition of the lower part of the hull, the upper part and the deck itself seemed to be fairly solid.

“Good timber in that old boat,” muttered Lester, as they came close, “or she’d have broken up into kindling wood long ago.”

“How are you going to get aboard?” asked Bill.

“By way of the stern, I guess,” Lester replied, as he measured distances. “Of course it would be easier to get over the bow, but we’d have to go pretty close inshore for that, and I don’t know just how deep it is there. I don’t want to take any chances with the Ariel.”

Fred shortened sail, and they ran in cautiously under the stern. The planks were weatherbeaten, but there were still some vestiges of paint on the upper part, and the boys could clearly make out the name of the unfortunate boat to have been the Albatross.

“Poor old Albatross,” murmured Fred. “Her wings are broken, sure enough.”

“She’ll never fly again,” added Bill.

They put the fenders over the side to avoid scraping, and Lester tossed a coil of rope over a butt that rose at the end of the stern. He held the ends, while Teddy shinned up like a monkey and fastened it more securely. Then Fred and Bill went up, while Lester stayed below to look after the safety of his craft.

“Aren’t you fellows coming along?” asked Fred, looking down over the stern.

“I guess not,” replied Lester. “I’ve seen lots of wrecks in my time, and I want to make sure that the Ariel doesn’t make another.”

“How about you, Ross?” inquired Teddy.

“I’ll stay and keep Lester company,” Ross answered, as he brought the Sleuth a little closer. “You can tell us what you see, which can’t be much, I suppose, after all this time.”

After a little more friendly urging, the others acquiesced in the arrangement and went forward, cautiously testing each plank before they set their feet down, for fear it might give way under them.

A certain feeling of eeriness settled down upon them. Living men, hearty, boisterous, vigorous men, full of the joy of life, had trodden these planks when the vessel was in her prime and winging her way over the seas as swiftly as the gull whose name she bore. Now the hungry waves had swallowed them, and the subdued chanting of the water along her side might well be their requiem.

Instinctively the boys drew closer together, and their voices lowered almost to a whisper.

“Makes you feel kind of creepy, doesn’t it?” remarked Bill.

“It sure does,” answered Teddy. “I shouldn’t care to sleep here over night.”

“You wouldn’t do much sleeping,” affirmed Fred. “You’d be expecting every minute to see something standing at the foot of your bed.”

But these first fancies could not long endure in the flood of sunlight that beat upon the schooner, and the boys soon recovered their normal confidence. They went through the captain’s cabin and two others that had evidently been set apart for the mates. Except one or two sodden mattresses and a huddled bunch of mouldy bed coverings, there was nothing of the slightest value. Whatever there had been at the time of the wreck had either been washed overboard or taken possession of by the authorities, shortly after the wreck occurred.

“Nothing more to see here,” declared Bill, after a brief look around. “I guess we’d better join the other fellows now. Lester’ll be anxious to get going.”

“Right-o,” acceded Fred. “Let’s get a move on.”

But something, he did not know what, moved Teddy to stay a little longer.

“You fellows go back and unfasten the rope,” he suggested, “and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

They went slowly back to the stern and started to untie the rope, bantering meanwhile with Lester and Ross, who were getting restive.

Teddy ran forward toward the bow and looked into the gloomy depths of the forecastle. He could see that the floor was solid, but it was some inches deep in water. He hesitated only a moment and then leaped lightly down.

Three minutes later, Fred and Bill were startled to see Teddy running toward them, his face as white as chalk and his eyes blazing with excitement.

“What’s the matter?” they cried in alarm, leaping to their feet.

Teddy tried to speak, but for a moment no words came.

“The m-m-map!” he stuttered at last. “It’s in the f-forecastle!”

“The map?” repeated Bill blankly.

A light sprang into Fred’s eyes.

“Do you mean the map that the sailor carved?” he demanded, clutching his brother’s arm with a force like a vise.

Teddy nodded, still a prey to his tremendous agitation.

“But how can it be?” asked Fred wildly. “This isn’t the Ranger.”

“How do you know it isn’t?” cried Bill, catching the contagion. “Her name was changed, you remember.”

“What are you fellows chinning about up there?” demanded Lester, with a touch of impatience in his voice.

“Lester!” called Fred. “Scrape the paint off the name on the stern there, and see if you can make out anything underneath.”

Lester took out his claspknife and scraped vigorously.

“There has been something else there,” he announced after a moment, “but I can’t fully make it out. I can see a couple of R’s–”

“That’s it,” shouted Fred jubilantly. “It’s the old Ranger. Come aboard, you fellows. Lively, now. Don’t mind about the boats. They’re safe enough for a few minutes.”

A moment more, and those on board were joined by Ross and Lester, as breathless and excited as themselves, for the meaning of Teddy’s discovery had dawned upon them.

They all raced to the forecastle and tumbled in pell mell.

CHAPTER XXIX

TREASURE COVE

With a finger that he vainly tried to keep steady, Teddy pointed to a rough tracing on the wall at the left side of the forecastle.

It took a moment to accustom their eyes to the dim light of the place, then their vision cleared and the boys could make out the details of a map similar to the one which the old sailor had described to Ross.

There were two clumps, one consisting of two and the other of three trees, at a little distance in from the beach. To the right was a huge rock that rose like some giant sentinel and seemed to mark the entrance to a bay or cove. A series of waving lines appeared to indicate the water, and a more heavily shaded part was evidently meant to denote the land. There was no artistic element in the drawing, but just then the boys would not have exchanged the rough scrawl of that knife blade for a painting by Titian or Raphael.

“Glory, hallelujah!” shouted Teddy, who had by this time recovered his power of speech.

“Eureka!” cried Lester.

“We’ve found it,” translated Fred.

“Joy!” exulted Bill, his habitual caution swept away in the flood of his excitement.

Ross alone said nothing, though his trembling hands and moistened eyes betrayed the depth of his emotion. To the Rally Hall boys this meant a tremendous step forward, they hoped, toward the achievement of their ambition. It meant all that, too, to Ross, but it meant much more. He was on the spot where his father had been foully assaulted and brought to his death. Somewhere in this ship there had been the scuffling of feet and the thud of a deadly weapon, as his father had fought for his property and his life.

The other boys were quick to recognize his feeling, and with the true courtesy that marked them, they strove to restrain their exultation for a time, and to talk among themselves until Ross should have had time to get a grip on himself.

Bill, as usual, was the first to put a brake on their optimism and subdue their enthusiasm by questioning cautiously the real value of their discovery.

“It’s splendid, of course,” he ventured to suggest, “but, after all, what does it give us that we didn’t already know? To be sure, it shows that the sailor was telling the truth. But there doesn’t seem to be anything in the map that he hadn’t already described.”

“That’s so,” admitted Teddy, his enthusiasm a little dampened.

“Don’t be too sure that there’s nothing else,” said Fred. “It’s so dark in here that we can’t see anything but the rough outlines. Who has some matches?”

“Here you are,” replied Lester, producing an oilskin pouch from an inside pocket.

Fred struck one, and as it flared up, five eager pairs of eyes scanned the wall in front.

But while it brought into greater distinctness the main features that they had already seen, the map seemed to reveal nothing more and there was a general sigh of disappointment.

“Why didn’t that fellow go a little further while he was about it?” groaned Teddy.

“If he had only told us not only what it looked like, but where it was,” mourned Lester.

“It’s maddening to get so close and yet miss the one thing that would clear it all up,” complained Bill.

“I can understand now how Tom Bixby felt, when Dick was just on the point of telling him where the gold was hidden,” said Lester.

“I’m not giving it up yet,” declared Fred with determination, “and I’ll not, until I have used up every match we have with us. Even after that, I’ll get a torch somewhere and keep on looking.”

But several more matches struck in quick succession were of no more value than the first, and the boys’ hearts went down.

Just as the fifth match was burning low, Bill gave utterance to a sharp exclamation.

“I saw something down in the corner that time,” he declared. “It looked like figures of some kind.”

The boys had a deep belief in Bill’s sharp eyes, and it was with renewed hope that Fred struck another of the precious matches and held it with fingers that trembled.

“I was right!” exulted Bill. “See there,” and he pointed to some scarcely legible marks in the lower right-hand corner.

“They’re figures, all right,” he confirmed. “I can make out a ‘four’ and a ‘seven’ and, yes, a ‘six.’ But they’re very faint and I can’t make sense of them.”

“Try again, Bill,” begged Teddy.

“Wait a minute,” cried Ross. “I’ve got a small magnifying glass in the cabin of the Sleuth. I’ll get it in a second.”

“That’s the stuff!” gloated Fred. “Now, we’ll make it out, sure.”

It was less than two minutes, but it seemed a long time to the impatient boys before Ross dropped into the forecastle, holding a small but powerful convex glass.

Bill snatched it eagerly and held it in front of the faintly outlined figures.

“All over but the shouting!” he jubilated. “Take them down, you fellows, while I read them aloud to you.”

Three pencils were all the boys could muster, but these fairly leaped from their pockets.

“I don’t know what they mean,” was Bill’s prelude, “but here they are. Forty-four, then a space, then thirty-two. That’s what’s on the first line. Then under that is another lot, sixty-seven, then a space, then forty-one.”

“Hurrah!” yelled Lester, jumping up and clicking his heels together. “Latitude! Longitude! We’ll find it now!”

“Do you think that’s what the figures mean?” inquired Bill, his caution still in evidence.

“I don’t think at all, I know,” jubilated Lester. “It means longitude sixty-seven degrees forty-one minutes, and latitude forty-four degrees and thirty-two minutes. Look again and see if there’s anything about seconds.”

But further search failed to reveal anything more than had already been detected.

“Never mind, that’s near enough,” concluded Lester. “That will give it to us within a few miles, and it’s up to us to find the exact spot.”

“Have you got the instruments to take the observations with and find out just where the spot is?” asked Teddy.

“Sure I have,” was the answer. “I’ve a sextant stowed away in a locker on board the Ariel and father has shown me how to use it.”

“I have one, too,” put in Ross.

“So much the better. We can take independent observations and then compare them. But come along, boys. We’re on the right trail at last.”

They all hastened out of the forecastle, wildly excited by this latest and most important clue.

It was the work of only a moment to throw off the lines, and the boats were off at the fastest speed of which they were capable. Teddy had gone aboard the Sleuth, so as to run the boat while Ross took his observations, and the other boys took the Ariel off Lester’s hands for the same purpose.