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

“Same here,” echoed Teddy. “It certainly looked as if it were all up with us when you came shooting toward these rocks.”

“It was a dandy bit of work,” said Bill warmly. “It’s a lucky thing for this crowd that you were at the helm. If you hadn’t been, we might be food for the fishes by this time.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Lester, flushing a little at the chorus of appreciation. “I just happened to know of this place, and I knew we had to get to shore before dark. So I took a chance on making it. But it’s nearly dark now, and we’ve got a lot to do, before we’re snug and tidy for the night.

“The first thing to do is to find a shallow place where you fellows can wade ashore. Then I’ll take the Ariel out a way and anchor her. As soon as that’s done, I’ll swim ashore and join you.”

They poled the boat in carefully with a pair of long sweeps until their soundings showed them that they were in less than three feet of water. Here Bill and the two Rushton boys jumped overboard, and while they held out their arms to him, Lester carefully let down the stranger. He could walk by this time, although he was still weak and shaky, and the boys helped him to the shore.

“Now you sit here for a while,” said Fred, when they had reached a point twenty feet or so up the beach, “while the rest of us hustle around and get something to eat. Do you feel hungry?”

“I’m beginning to,” smiled the other. “I guess I can punish my part of the supper pretty well.”

“Good!” said Fred heartily. “That reminds me. Say, Lester!” he called, as he waded back, “hand us over that string of bluefish. It’s lucky we caught them before the storm came up. Is there anything left from the lunch?”

“Not a thing,” answered Lester. “You wolves went through that lunch like a prairie fire. But I’ve got some slices of bacon in the locker, and here’s some salt and pepper. I guess we won’t go hungry.”

“Not from the looks of that string we won’t,” laughed Fred, as he received from Lester enough bluefish to feed a dozen men. “Now hand over the other things, and by the time you anchor and come ashore, we’ll be ready to fill you up.”

“That’s a big contract,” grinned Lester, “but I’m going to hold you to it.”

He poled the Ariel out a little way and dropped the anchor. Then he made everything shipshape about the little craft, slipped into the water, and swam ashore.

He found that his comrades had not been idle. Teddy had ransacked the hut and found an old frying pan and a bent up broiler, probably left there by the hunters that made this their rendezvous in the sniping season. Bill collected all the shrubs and twigs that he could find, and taking a match from an oilskin pouch started a fire. Fred was busy with his clasp knife, cleaning the fish, and when Lester reached them, he had half a dozen speckled beauties ready for the frying pan.

“Let’s use the busted broiler instead,” suggested Lester. “Bluefish are twice as good broiled as they are fried. We’ll use the frying pan for the bacon.”

“The fish would be better yet, if we had some oak twigs to broil them on, instead of the broiler,” said Bill, whose experience in camping out made him an expert adviser, “but there doesn’t seem to be any wood around here except pine. And the flavor of that spoils the fish.”

So they compromised on the dilapidated broiler, holding the fish over a fire of embers that they raked out from the main blaze. Bill busied himself with the bacon, and the appetizing odors that blended together made the hungry boys wild with anticipation.

At last the meal was ready, and they found it a feast fit for a king. They had no forks, but they used their knives as substitutes.

“Eating with your knife, Fred!” said Teddy, in mock horror. “What would mother say if she saw you?”

“I certainly am some sword swallower,” grinned Fred. “But we’re all in the same boat, and everything goes. I don’t suppose Robinson Crusoe and Friday were very particular about their table manners. And this is certainly a Robinson Crusoe stunt we’re doing.”

“Except that this isn’t an island,” laughed Lester.

“And there are no cannibals ready to make us into soup,” added Bill.

“And our boat hasn’t been wrecked,” exulted Teddy, looking out over the water, where the Ariel lay with the firelight reflected from her side.

CHAPTER IV

A STRANGE MISSION

It seemed to the boys as though they could never get enough, and Fred, as he saw one bluefish after another vanish, reminded the others that they would want something for breakfast the next morning. But at last even their ravenous appetites were satisfied, and they lay back on the sand, blissfully content.

“Easy camping,” remarked Teddy lazily. “No dishes to wash, no beds to make, nothing to do till to-morrow.”

“Do you think the storm will be over by that time, Lester?” asked Fred.

“I guess so,” answered Lester, as he looked up at the sky where some stars showed through. “The clouds seem to be breaking away and the wind has died down a little. The surf doesn’t sound so loud on the cliffs outside, either.”

“I suppose your father will be worried when we don’t get back to-night,” remarked Bill.

“I’m afraid he will,” assented Lester. “But I’ve had to stay away sometimes before when I’ve been caught in a squall, and he knows the Ariel is a pretty staunch boat. Still, he can’t help feeling worried, and we’ll make sail for home the first thing in the morning.”

By this time, their clothes had dried in the warmth of the fire, and the comfort that this gave, together with the hearty meal they had eaten, put the youths in a state of supreme content. They were at peace with themselves and with all the world, and their satisfaction was all the greater by contrast with their peril of the afternoon.

The stranger had eaten heartily and joined freely in the conversation, but by tacit consent they had waited till the meal was over before they discussed his narrow escape. The Rally Hall boys had had time to take the unknown one’s measure, and the general impression was favorable.

He was a clean-cut, well set up youth of about sixteen years. His form was lithe and muscular, his hair black, and his eyes frank and friendly. His speech showed education, and his manners were easy and correct.

If there was anything about him that marked him out as peculiar, it was a certain baffled expression that came and went in his eyes. He looked like one who was always seeking for something, but never finding it. His glance had taken in the cove and the surrounding shore, as though to impress it on his memory, with a view to using the knowledge later on.

Now as the boys lounged around the fire, he seemed to feel that the time had come to give some account of himself.

“I can’t thank you fellows enough for having pulled me out of the water,” he began.

“Here’s the fellow to thank,” interrupted Lester, clapping his hand on Fred’s shoulder. “He went overboard after you.”

“What?” was the surprised reply. “I thought you pulled me in from the deck. That was an awfully plucky thing for you to do,” the stranger declared, as he grasped Fred’s hand warmly, “and I’ll never forget it. With that shark swimming around there, too!”

“Oh, that was nothing,” disclaimed Fred. “I had tight hold of a rope, and it was no trick at all to hold on to you until the other fellows pulled us in.”

“You took your life in your hand just the same,” affirmed the other. “I hope that some day I’ll be able to show you how much I appreciate it.”

“What was the matter with your motor boat anyway?” asked Fred, who was always embarrassed by thanks and wanted to change the subject.

“The ignition was bad, and the water that I shipped made things worse. I was tinkering away at it and had almost got it to working right, when that big wave came aboard and carried me over the side. I can just remember its hitting me, and after that everything was blank until I came to my senses on the deck of the boat.”

“I’ve seen that motor boat of yours cruising up and down the coast a good deal this last year or so,” remarked Lester. “You seem to be pretty fond of the water.”

The stranger shot a swift glance at the last speaker, as if he thought some hidden meaning might lurk behind the words.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m never happier than when I’m out on the open sea. Some of my ancestors must have been sailors I guess, and I have it in the blood. But that isn’t the only reason I’ve been cruising along this coast.”

“What is the reason then?” asked Teddy curiously. “That is,” he went on hastily, “if you care to tell us. We don’t want to pry into your affairs.”

The other seemed to debate with himself. It was as if a habit of secrecy were battling with a sudden desire for expression.

“I’ll tell you,” he burst out. “It’s a thing I’ve never told any one else. But you fellows have been so white to me, to say nothing of one of you having risked his life for mine, that I’m going to take a chance. Perhaps it will be a relief anyway. Brooding over it so long and not confiding in any one, I’ve been afraid some time I might go crazy over it.”

The boys were startled, but they gave no sign and the speaker went on:

“My name is Ross Montgomery. I’m looking for a chest of gold.”

The effect was electric. The thrilling phrase appealed to all that was most romantic in the listeners. Visions floated before their eyes of hidden treasures, of pirate hoards, of sunken galleons with their doubloons and “pieces of eight.” These things had seemed to belong to the misty past, to distant seas. Yet here in the prosaic twentieth century, in a civilized country, on a quiet beach along the coast of Maine, this boy of their own age was talking of a quest that might well stir the most sluggish blood.

“A chest of gold!” repeated Fred, as though he could not believe his ears.

“Where do you think it’s hidden?” questioned Teddy eagerly.

“How much money is in the chest?” asked Bill.

“Perhaps it isn’t money,” corrected Lester. “It may be gold dust, or it may be in bars. Have you any clue?” he asked, turning to Ross.

“What makes you think it’s on this coast?” put in Fred.

Ross raised his hand good-naturedly, as though to ward off the rain of questions.

“Easy there,” he smiled, “and I’ll tell you the whole thing from the beginning. Perhaps you’ll think I’m crazy. Perhaps you’ll say I have as good a chance of finding it as the fellow who looks for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And you may be right. Anyway, I’ll give you what facts I know, and you can figure out for yourselves whether I have a chance or not.”

Ross waited a moment to collect his thoughts, and the other boys disposed themselves to listen. Their blood was bounding and their eyes shining. The situation was romantic in itself. The firelight played over their eager faces, the waters of the cove lay shimmering before them, while, at the outlet, the surf thundered against the rocks. The boys might have been castaways on some desert island in the tropics. The great world outside seemed very far away.

“My father was in business in Boston about fifteen years ago,” Ross began. “I was just a baby then, and, of course, I don’t know anything about those days except what I’ve been told since by my mother.

“Father was a good business man and he had built up a fairly large trade. We had a home in a suburb near Boston and all the money we needed. The business had been expanding, and father had put into it not only all his own ready money, but a lot that he had borrowed from his friends. Then hard times came. Of course he had to retrench in every way he could. He took in his sails and worked hard to weather the storm. He’d have succeeded, too, but just as things were looking brighter, a big bank failure knocked him out completely.”

There was a murmur of sympathy from the boys.

“As if that wasn’t enough, he came down with brain fever,” went on Ross. “I suppose it was brought on by worry and overwork. Anyway, when he got on his feet again, everything had gone to smash and he didn’t have a cent left. Worse than that, he was in debt for a good many thousand dollars.

“Father was honest though,” and there was a touch of pride in the boy’s voice. “Everybody that knew him at all knew that. If his health had been good, he could have started in all over again, and even some of the men to whom he owed money would have lent him more to get him on his feet. But the doctor told him it would be simply suicide for him to go on under the circumstances, and that he’d have to go away somewhere and take a long rest.

“All of his property had gone to his creditors, but mother owned a small place up in Canada on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. She had inherited it from her father, and as it was free and clear, the whole family packed up and went out there.

“It was a complete change from the life we had lived before and my father’s health began to mend right away. There was a good deal of valuable lumber on the place and as there was a good demand for this, he sold it at a profit. Then, too, he traded a good deal with the trappers who came out of the forests every spring with their skins and furs.

“Money began to pile up and father was feeling fine. It wasn’t so much because he was getting the money, though of course that was a great thing, but he was fairly crazy to pay off every cent of the money he owed when he went into bankruptcy. He was a very proud man and couldn’t bear to be in any one’s debt. I’ve often heard him say to mother that the day he stood clear with the world again would be the happiest day of his life.

“He had kept a careful record of every cent he owed in a little memorandum book. Here it is now.”

Ross reached into his pocket and drew out a small morocco-covered book that gleamed red in the light of the fire.

CHAPTER V

THE CHEST OF GOLD

Ross Montgomery turned over the pages rapidly, and the boys could see a number of accounts in a precise, methodical script.

“The first two or three years were the hardest,” the strange boy went on, “but after that the money came in fast. Father made a number of investments in lumber and in fishing interests, and everything he touched seemed to bring him luck. By the time I was six years old, he had got enough together to pay all his debts and make him independent for life.

“There was one funny thing about it, though. He had burned his fingers so badly in that big bank failure that he never would trust a bank again. Every dollar he got above what he needed to use in business, he stored away in an oak chest that he kept in a secret place at home. He had no use for paper money either. He’d take it, of course, when he couldn’t get anything else, but the first chance he got he’d change it for gold. Of course it was just a whim of his, but somehow it made him feel safer. Maybe it was a little mental twist left from his siege of brain fever. At any rate that’s the way he felt, and he kept piling up the gold in that old chest. All sorts of money, too, English, Canadian, French and American coins. I was small then and didn’t know much of the value of money, but I can remember once how the pieces shone when father gathered up a handful and let the coins fall in a shower back into the chest–”

“Gee!” interrupted Teddy, “just think of it. A rain of gold!”

“I’d like to be caught out in such a shower,” laughed Fred.

“And I wouldn’t want any umbrella to ward it off either,” added Bill.

“Cork up, you money grabbers, and let Ross go on with his story,” Lester laughingly advised.

“It brought bad luck to father, though,” said Ross soberly. “If it hadn’t been for that gold he might be alive to-day.”

It was the first intimation the boys had had that the lad’s father was dead, and they kept a respectful silence during the moment that followed while Ross seemed struggling with painful memories.

“A little over nine years ago,” the boy went on at last, “father concluded that he had enough on hand to settle with all his creditors, capital and interest, and still have enough left to make him independent for life. He planned to leave mother and me–I haven’t any brothers or sisters–at home, while he came down to Boston and settled the claims. Then he was going to pick out a home here and send for us to come to him. Although he had made the money in Canada, he had always felt homesick for his own country.

“Then the question came up,” continued Ross, “of how he was to get the money down here. Of course, the safer way would have been to take it to some Canadian bank and get a draft on Boston. But I’ve told you of the bitter feeling he had toward all banks, and he’d counted so long on turning over that identical gold to his creditors that he couldn’t give it up.

“We were a long distance from any large city, and the only way to travel by sea was to take some sailing vessel that stopped once in a while at a town near by. There was a good deal of smuggling going on just then between Canada and this country, and as there was a big profit in it, almost all the coastwise sailing vessels took a hand in it now and then. Sometimes it would be opium that had been landed on the Pacific coast and brought over to Quebec. Then, too, there were French laces and silks and wines.

“Of course it was illegal, but lots of people couldn’t see much harm in it. You know how it is with people that come over from Europe to New York. A vast number of them try to get things in without paying duty and they think it’s rather smart to get the best of Uncle Sam. Many who are honorable in every other way seem to lose that feeling when it comes to smuggling.

“Of course it’s wrong, as everything is wrong that breaks the law, whether we think the law is just or not. But I’m just saying this to explain why father was willing to trust himself and his gold on board a smuggler.”

The boys bent forward eagerly.

“For that’s what he did,” continued Ross. “There was a schooner, named the Ranger, that often stopped at the river town near where we lived. The captain was a man, Ramsay by name, whom father knew and trusted. His boat did a good deal of legitimate trading, but sandwiched in with that was quite a lot of smuggling off and on. Still, aside from that, Captain Ramsay had the reputation of being a strictly honest man, and he and father had been on friendly terms for years.

“When the time came, father went on board with all his baggage, including the chest of gold. Of course he did not take any one in the secret of what the chest contained. He figured on getting to Boston in a week or ten days.

“But the second day out, a tackle block fell from the foremast and laid Captain Ramsay dead on the deck. He was buried at sea and the first mate took command of the schooner. And it was right here that the trouble began.

“This first mate was a Portuguese, a good sailor, but aside from that I guess he was as big a villain as ever went unhung. There were five others in the crew, and they didn’t seem to be much better than the mate. Captain Ramsay had been a rough captain and had been able to hold the men down, but as soon as he had gone things began to happen.”

There was a pause for a moment while the boys held their breath waiting for the story to go on.

“And,” resumed Ross, impressively, “I’d give my right hand to know just what those things were.”

His hearers sat for a moment stunned and bewildered by this sudden ending.

“What!” gasped Teddy. “Do you mean that you don’t know what happened?”

“No,” was the reply. “I don’t know. From what I’ve been able to learn I can make a pretty good guess. All I know is that my father was picked up a week later in an open boat, wounded and starving and delirious.”

A gasp of wonder and pity ran around the little circle.

“From a letter found in his pocket they learned who he was, and after he had partially recovered they sent him home to us,” Ross went on. “But from then to the day of his death, which took place a year later, he was insane.”

“The scoundrels!” muttered Fred, clenching his fists in indignation.

“We tried to get at the facts by piecing together what he said when he was quieter than usual,” Ross continued. “Again and again, he would speak of ‘the lighthouse’ and ‘Bartanet Shoals.’ Then he would imagine himself in a fight with the mate. Many times he spoke of ‘burying the box.’

“All these of course were slight things to go on, but by putting them all together and looking at them from every side, we figured out something like this:

“The mate probably had his suspicions aroused by the weight of the box that held the gold. Father must have come upon him when he was trying to open it, and there was a fight in which the rest of the crew joined. They were probably somewhere near Bartanet Shoals when this happened, and they put in at some quiet place along here to think over what they’d better do. They finally decided to bury the box and leave it there until the matter should have blown over and been forgotten. The men probably intended to put father out of the way, and, after the search for him had been given up, to come back and get the box. Father either tried to escape in the open boat, or the crew, not quite willing to kill him in cold blood, set him adrift, knowing that in his wounded condition it would probably amount to the same thing.”

“Didn’t the Ranger ever turn up?” asked Fred.

“Not at any of the home towns,” answered Ross. “But some months later it was found tied up to a wharf near Halifax. It was from the log they found on board that they learned of Captain Ramsay’s death. The crew were traced, and it was found that they had shipped on a brig that was bound for the Pacific. She went down in a storm off Cape Horn, and every soul on board was lost.”

“Then everybody who was actually concerned in the matter is probably dead,” mused Lester.

“Yes,” answered Ross, “we can’t look for any help from human witnesses. There’s a bare chance that some letter or document may turn up that will give us a clue. But that’s so unlikely that it’s hardly worth considering.”

“Then all you have to go on is the possibility that the box was buried somewhere on this coast not very far from Bartanet Shoals, and that if it was, it’s never been taken away?” asked Bill.

“That’s all,” admitted Ross, “except–”

He checked himself hastily.

CHAPTER VI

AARON RUSHTON, CREDITOR

If the other boys noticed the involuntary movement, they made no comment, and Ross went on:

“You fellows may think I’m foolish to go on hunting for the gold when I’ve got so little evidence to go on. It seems almost like hunting for a needle in a haystack. But there’s such a lot at stake that I can’t give it up.”

“I don’t think you’re foolish,” maintained Teddy stoutly. “It’s just what I’d do, if I were in your place.”

“So would I,” agreed Fred. “Of course you may never find it. But if you didn’t try for it, you’d feel restless and uneasy all the rest of your life.”

“It’s better to have tried and failed, than never to have tried at all,” declared Bill.

“You’re young enough yet to spare a year or two more at it anyway,” said Lester. “If nothing comes of it, you can settle down at something else.”

“Yes,” replied Ross, “it isn’t a matter of life and death anyway. Mother is still keeping the old place up in Canada and looking after the property that father left there. The income is small, but it is enough to keep us going, and if I finally have to give up looking for the gold, I can go back there and do pretty well. But it would take me a long time to get enough together to pay father’s debts, and perhaps I could never do it. That’s the real reason why I’m so anxious to find the chest. It isn’t so much for what it would give me, though of course I’d be glad to have it. But I know how father felt, and I feel that I owe it to his memory to carry out his wishes, if I possibly can.”

“Do the debts mount up to a very large amount?” Bill ventured to ask.

“Larger than I care to think of,” answered Ross. “I should say that it would take about twenty thousand dollars if they were settled now. And, of course, there’s the interest creeping up with every day that passes.”

“I guess the creditors would be so glad to get back the principal, that they wouldn’t worry much about the interest,” remarked Lester.

“I suppose they would,” answered Ross. “But they ought to get both, and I shall never feel that I’m clear with the world until they do.”