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

“You can hardly blame him, if he felt a little doubtful about us,” observed Teddy. “He had never seen us before, and I think he went pretty far in telling us even as much as he did.”

“You’re right there,” said Lester. “How did he know that we wouldn’t blurt out the whole thing to any one who would listen. It might spoil all his chances of recovering anything. There are plenty of fellows who would spy on his every act and make life a burden to him. Others might plan to follow him and take the gold away from him by force if he should find it.”

“It would be a big temptation,” agreed Bill. “There are some fellows who would sell their souls for a ten dollar bill. How much more, if the reward were a chest of gold!”

“I don’t blame Ross a bit under the circumstances,” said Fred, “but I’m sorry just the same. We have so little to go by that we can’t afford to lose the slightest thing that may help us out.”

“We’ll see him again before long anyway,” put in Teddy hopefully, “and he may grow to know us well enough to put us wise to all that he’s been keeping back.”

“We’ll live in hopes,” said Lester. “But look over there, boys, and see a sight to gladden your eyes. We are almost home.”

They followed his gaze and saw the Bartanet Shoals Lighthouse, its great reflector sparkling in the rays of the morning sun.

CHAPTER IX

THE BEACON LIGHT

The lighthouse was a massive structure, over a hundred feet in height. It had been built in obedience to a general demand, owing to the number of vessels that had been wrecked in the vicinity. There were treacherous currents and swiftly running tides due to the peculiar conformation of the Maine coast at that point, and if a ship once grounded on the shoals while a storm was raging its hours were numbered.

In the distance, with the sun playing on it and the sea gulls swooping about its top, it seemed something slender and ethereal. It was only when one was close at hand that its real strength and solidity could be appreciated.

It was built on a solid rock foundation that sloped down into the sea many feet distant from its base. The tower was circular in form so as to offer as little surface as possible to the wind from whatever quarter it might blow. The walls at the bottom, where the force of the waves spent itself, were many feet thick, but they grew thinner as the tower rose in the air. At the top was the enormous light of many thousand candle power. It was the alternating kind, and every fifteen seconds it threw out a ray that could be seen by mariners for many miles.

The lighthouse stood about a mile from the mainland, and all the household supplies had to be brought over by Lester or his father from the little village of Bartanet. Whatever was needed for the light itself came at stated intervals on the government cutters that cruised along that section of the coast.

The boys, under Lester’s guidance, had long before this explored every portion of the lighthouse and wondered at the marvels of the machinery that set the light in motion and kept it going automatically through the night. Brought up in inland towns, all this was new to them, and their curiosity and interest were insatiable.

Now as they watched it growing larger as they drew nearer, they shared the delight and pride of Lester in the noble structure of which his father was the guardian.

“Isn’t it glorious?” demanded Fred.

“Think of the lives that have been saved by it,” said Teddy.

“And will be saved by it during the next hundred years,” added Bill.

“I wonder if poor Mr. Montgomery saw it on that last cruise of his,” pondered Fred.

“He must have, if the smugglers really came this way,” answered Lester. “That was only about nine years ago, you remember Ross said, and the lighthouse has stood for twenty years.”

“Has your father had charge of it all that time?” asked Bill.

“No, he was appointed about twelve years ago.”

“Then he must have been here at the time the gold was stolen,” said Teddy eagerly. “I wonder if he heard anything about the matter.”

“I never heard him speak about it, but I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he had. There are so many old salts that run over to spin yarns with him, that there’s very little sea gossip going around that he doesn’t hear at one time or another.”

“Let’s ask him,” suggested Bill.

“Surely we will. He may be able to tell us something that Ross himself doesn’t know.”

“In that case, the next time we meet Ross it will be our turn to look wise and mysterious,” laughed Fred.

“Or we can bargain with him. We’ll tell him what we know in return for what he was going to tell us but didn’t,” added his brother.

“We’ll have to come to something like that sooner or later,” said Lester decidedly. “It’s all nonsense our going round blindly, when each might be able to help the other. A sick man ought to tell everything to his doctor, and a prisoner oughtn’t to keep anything back from his lawyer. When he does, he has no one to blame but himself if things don’t go right. I’m going to put it up to Ross, full and plain, the next time I see him.”

“I wonder when that will be,” murmured Teddy.

“Before long I hope. If he doesn’t come over to see us, we’ll go up to Oakland to see him.”

“How far is Oakland from here?” asked Bill.

“Not more than thirty miles. With a good wind we can make it in a few hours. But I think I see father standing on the platform of the tower. Take a look, Bill, and tell me if it is. My eyes are pretty good, but yours are better.”

“That’s who it is,” pronounced Bill, after a minute’s scrutiny. “He has a pair of glasses in his hands. There, he’s waving to us.”

“Dear old dad!” exclaimed Lester. “I suppose he’s worried himself half sick, wondering what had become of us. But he knows now that we are safe, and with this wind we’ll not be more than twenty minutes or half an hour in getting in.”

They flew along over the waves, cunningly coaxing every inch of speed out of the Ariel, and in less time than Lester had predicted they rounded to at the little dock on the leeward side of the lighthouse rock. A bronzed, elderly man, of medium height, came hurriedly down to meet them.

“Thank God, you are safe!” he exclaimed, as he grasped Lester’s hand, then that of each of the boys in turn. “I haven’t been able to think of anything but you all night long. What happened to you?”

“It’s a long story, Dad,” said Lester, beaming affectionately on his father, as, after fastening the Ariel, they all walked up to the lighthouse. “We picked up a fellow that had been carried overboard from his motor boat, and by that time the storm had grown so bad that we had to run for it to the nearest place that offered us shelter.”

“And where was that?”

“Up in Sentinel Cove. You know, where those two big rocks stand at the entrance.”

“Do you mean to say that you took the boat through that entrance while that storm was raging?” asked his father, in a tone in which surprise and pride were equally blended.

“There wasn’t anything else to do,” answered Lester.

“You ought to have seen the way he shot through there, Mr. Lee,” put in Fred. “It was a fine bit of seamanship. He’s your own son when it comes to sailing.”

“I’m glad I didn’t see him,” was the answer. “It would have made my hair grayer than it is, and that’s gray enough. But all’s well that ends well, and I needn’t tell you how thankful I am to have you turn up safe and sound. It wasn’t only my own boy, but I feel that I’m responsible for you young chaps, too, while you’re visiting here.”

The boys had grown very fond of this kindly, hearty man who was their friend’s father. He had made them instantly welcome and given them the run of the place. His means were limited but his heart was big, and from the outset he had spared no pains to make them feel at home and to give them a good time.

There were no women on the little island, as Lester’s mother had died ten years before. Because of this, the father and son, having no one but each other, were bound together by the strongest affection.

Their housekeeping was of the simplest kind, but both of them were prime cooks and they set such an abundant table that even the boys with their ravenous appetites were completely satisfied. They even found a certain pleasure in the lack of some of the “trimmings,” as Teddy called them, that had surrounded them in their more elaborate homes. It gave them a sense of freedom, and the whole adventure became a sort of exalted camping out.

Bill’s life and Fred’s and Teddy’s recent experiences in the West had hardened and toughened them and also made them more self-reliant. The breezy outdoor life had become almost a necessity to them. So they entered heartily into the domestic arrangements at Bartanet Shoals, making their own beds and helping to prepare the meals. It is probable that some of their women relatives would have sniffed contemptuously at some of the results they reached, but this bothered them not at all. They ate like wolves, slept like logs and were content.

Mr. Lee had followed the sea for many years. When scarcely out of his teens, he had entered the navy. Later, he had shipped as a whaler, and the boys listened breathlessly to the thrilling stories he had to tell of his adventures in that perilous calling. After his wife’s death, he felt that the interests of his son required that he should stay at home; so he had applied for the position of lighthouse keeper at Bartanet Shoals, and had received it.

“You boys must be half starved,” he said, as they entered the living room of the lighthouse. “As I remember, you didn’t have anything when you started out except a few slices of bacon, and those wouldn’t go far with such a hungry crew as you are.”

“Guess again, Dad,” laughed Lester. “We didn’t exactly starve last night and this morning, did we, boys?”

“Um-yum,” assented Fred, “I should say not! Clam soup and fried bacon and broiled bluefish and hot coffee! Nothing more than that. And we didn’t do a thing to them, eh, fellows?”

“Not a thing!” chorused Bill and Teddy fervently.

Mr. Lee’s eyes twinkled.

“I’m afraid I’ve made an awful mistake then,” he said soberly. “I thought you’d be nearly famished, and so I spread myself in getting up an extra good dinner. But of course, if you’ve had so many good things, you won’t want anything more and I’ll have to eat all alone.”

He threw open the dining-room door and savory odors issued forth.

“Lead me to it!” shouted Bill. The next moment there was a regular football rush, as the four laughing boys tried to beat each other to the table.

CHAPTER X

THE CASTAWAY

For the next few minutes there was not much talking, and the boys devoted themselves to making a wreck of the good things heaped before them. Their morning in the salt air on the open sea had put them in fine fettle and they had enormous appetites.

“Well,” said Fred, when at last they were satisfied, “we have to hand it to you as a cook, Mr. Lee. You certainly know how to make things taste good.”

“Lester comes rightly by his talent in fixing up the eats,” declared Bill.

“A sailor has to learn to turn his hand to anything,” laughed their host. “He gets into lots of places where he has to depend on himself alone or go hungry. I’ve been shipwrecked twice in the course of my life, and I’ve had to learn to eat all sorts of things and to cook them in a way that would help me get them down.”

“Talking about shipwrecks,” he went on, as he filled and lighted his pipe and settled down for an after-dinner smoke, “reminds me of the fellow you say you picked up yesterday. How did he come there? Go ahead and spin your yarn.”

“It wasn’t exactly a shipwreck,” explained Lester. “The boat wasn’t smashed, and as a matter of fact we found it for Ross again to-day. It was a motor boat–”

“A motor boat!” interrupted Mr. Lee, with a sniff. He had the distrust felt by most deep-water sailors, of what he called “these pesky modern contraptions.”

“Ross was tinkering with some part of the machinery that had gone wrong,” continued Lester, “when a big wave caught him and carried him overboard. We were near by at the time and we made for him and got him.”

“Yanked him in with a boathook, I suppose,” said his father.

“We were too late for that,” answered Lester. “He had gone down, but Fred grabbed a rope and dived over after him. It was a close call, but he got him, and then we dragged them both in.”

“A plucky thing to do in a storm like that,” commented Mr. Lee, looking approvingly at Fred.

“Ross came to after a while, and we found that the only hurt he had was the water he had swallowed,” went on Lester. “We couldn’t do anything with the motor boat just then, so we made straight for Sentinel Cove. This morning, Montgomery was as good as ever.”

Mr. Lee started slightly as he heard this name.

“Montgomery, did you say?” he asked. “I thought you called him Ross.”

“Yes, Ross Montgomery. Why?”

“Nothing,” was the reply. “Go ahead with your story.”

“There isn’t very much more to tell, as far as we’re concerned. We anchored at the cove for the night, and got away bright and early this morning. But Ross himself had a story to tell that has got us all worked up. You’d never guess what it was, Dad, in a thousand years.”

“I never was much good at guessing,” smiled Mr. Lee, “so let’s have it just as he told it.”

Lester started at the beginning and told the story as he had received it from Ross, with frequent suggestions from the other boys to remind him of some slight detail he had overlooked.

Mr. Lee listened intently, but he asked no questions, and for some minutes after Lester had finished he continued to smoke in silence, while the boys looked at him eagerly, anxious to know what he made of it.

“Well, Dad,” said Lester, a little impatiently, “what do you think of the story? Is there anything in it?”

“There’s a great deal in it,” replied Mr. Lee gravely, removing his pipe from his mouth. “I believe every word of it is true.”

The boys were delighted at this confirmation of their own feeling by a mind more mature than theirs. They had been afraid that Mr. Lee would ridicule the story, or throw cold water on their plan to go ahead and try to find the treasure.

“I was perfectly sure that Ross was telling us the truth,” jubilated Teddy.

“I never doubted that for a minute,” put in Bill, “but I thought he might be building hope on a very slight foundation. After all, he has so little to go on.”

“Then you really think that there was a chest of gold and that smugglers took it from Mr. Montgomery and buried it?” asked Fred.

“I think they took it from him, but I don’t think they buried it,” answered Mr. Lee.

“What do you think they did with it; spent it?” asked Teddy in quick alarm.

“I don’t think that either,” was the reply. “I think they hid it somewhere and that it’s there yet.”

“Oh!” said Fred, with a sigh of relief. “Then we still have a chance.”

“Now, look here, Dad!” exclaimed Lester, “I can see by what you’re saying that you know more about this thing than we do. Don’t tease us by acting in such a mysterious way. Come right out with it.”

Mr. Lee laughed good-naturedly.

“You boys are always in a hurry,” he remarked as he refilled his pipe with a deliberation that was maddening to his hearers. “But just let me get my pipe drawing well, and I’ll tell you all I know. It isn’t so much after all as maybe you think, but it may help to piece out a bit here and there.”

He settled himself comfortably in his seat and began:

“It was about nine or ten years ago–I don’t remember the exact date–that Mark Taylor was out fishing at a point about twenty miles from here.”

“The Mark Taylor who lives in Milton?” inquired Lester.

“That was the one. He wasn’t having very good luck, and had about made up his mind to pull up and go home, when he caught sight of a little boat tossing up and down on the waves. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and Mark could see that there was no one rowing or steering it. He thought that was strange and made up his mind he’d look into the matter. So he ran up his sail and ran over to what he thought was the empty boat. He told me afterwards he was knocked all in a heap, when he saw a man lying in the bottom of it.

“At first Mark thought the man was either dead or drunk. But there wasn’t any smell of liquor on him, and he moved when Mark touched him. Mark saw that something serious was the matter, and he tried to get the man into his sailboat. But Mark didn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and this man was so big and so heavily built that he had to give it up.

“So, leaving the man in it, he tied the small boat to the stern of his, and made a quick run for home. He took the man into his cabin and sent for the doctor. The doctor examined the man carefully and found a big gash in his head that looked as though it had been made with a hatchet. He saw it hadn’t reached a vital point, though, so he sewed it up and left some medicine, promising to come again the next day.

“Mark said that the doctor had no sooner gone than the man began to rave and toss about. After a while he became violent, and Mark, being a small man as I have said, had to call in some of the neighbors to hold him down. He seemed to imagine that he was in a fight and that a crowd was piling on him. And he kept talking about ‘the gold’ and ‘the chest,’ and vowing that they would never get it away from him.”

A murmur ran around the listening circle.

“Mark didn’t pay much attention to what he said,” resumed Mr. Lee, “because he thought it was only the raving of a crazy man.

“Mark and the neighbors searched his clothes and found some papers that showed them the man’s name was Montgomery. They found out, too, that he lived in a place on the coast of Canada. They wrote to his folks right away, and a couple of men came down to take him home as soon as he was able to travel.

“That wasn’t for a good while, though, for Montgomery had come down with an attack of brain fever that kept him on his back for weeks. He got over that at last, but his mind wasn’t right. He wasn’t violent any longer but was melancholy. Went around all the time in a daze. Couldn’t get anything out of him, except that he kept muttering to himself about ‘the gold.’ Sometimes, though, he’d speak of debts that seemed to worry him. He couldn’t carry on any connected conversation, and he’d get so excited when any one tried to question him, that the doctor said they must let him alone.

“He was taken away as soon as he was strong enough, and that’s the last Mark ever saw of him. A little while later, the man’s wife sent a little money to Mark to cover his expenses in caring for her husband, and she said in her letter that he was no better. And from what you boys tell me to-day, he must have died soon after.”

“Didn’t he give any hint of where this fight and robbery had taken place?” asked Fred.

“No, except that Mark says the man often spoke of Bartanet Shoals. Of course, that may have meant something and it may have meant nothing. Still, judging from where the boat was found, it probably was somewhere within fifty miles of here.”

“Fifty miles,” murmured Bill. “That’s an awful lot of territory to cover.”

“Wasn’t there anything in the little boat to give a clue?” asked Teddy.

“Not a thing except that it had the name ’Ranger’ painted on the stern. That showed that it must have come from a large boat of that name.”

“Are you sure that Mark didn’t tell you anything else that might give us a hint?” asked Lester. “Try to remember, Dad.”

“Well,” mused his father, “I didn’t question him very much at the time, because I felt as he did, that it was just the foolish raving of a man who was out of his head.”

“How far is Milton from here?” questioned Bill.

“Only a matter of twenty-five miles or so,” was the answer.

“We’ll go over and see Mark the first chance we get,” said Lester decidedly. “He may drop something when we put him through the third degree that may put us on the trail.”

“That’s a good idea,” commented his father. “Mark’s growing pretty old now and his memory isn’t as good as it was, but he may remember something that will be of use. At any rate there’s no harm in trying.”

“We have something to work with now,” said Fred cheerily. “We’ve been able to check up Ross’ story and know that he wasn’t dreaming. Then, too, we have the name of the man who actually found Mr. Montgomery when he was set adrift, if that’s the way he came into the open boat.”

“But there must be more,” persisted Lester. “What did you mean, Dad, when you said that the gold wasn’t buried but that it was hidden?”

“You’re right,” admitted his father, “there is more that happened some time later.”

CHAPTER XI

THE SMUGGLERS’ FLIGHT

The boys were all on edge as they awaited further developments.

“Six years ago,” resumed Mr. Lee, “an old sailor, named Tom Bixby, who had sailed on the same ship with me in the old days, drifted down this way, and hearing that I had charge of the lighthouse came over to see me. Tom was always a decent sort of fellow, and I was glad to see him and talk over the old times when we had sailed the seas together.

“He stayed here a couple of days and one night he told me a strange story.

“It seems that his last trip had been on a four-master sailing out of Halifax. She had been rather short-handed, and the skipper had been worrying about where he could get enough sailors to work his craft.

“While he was casting around, he was surprised and glad one day to have half a dozen burly fellows come aboard and offer to sign articles for the voyage. They told a story of just having finished a trip on a tramp from Liverpool, and as they were all messmates they were anxious to get a berth together on the same ship.

“The captain didn’t ask any question–no captain ever does when he happens to be short-handed–and he signed the men on at once. That very night the ship hove her anchor and put out to sea.

“They were to go around Cape Horn, and it would be at least two years and maybe more before they would see home again.

“Tom said that the men were good, smart sailors and no mistake. But there was something queer about them. They didn’t mix much with the others of the crew. They would gather together in a little knot when they were off duty and talk in whispers. It seemed as though some secret held them together.

“The man who seemed to be most influential among them was a big Portuguese named Manuel. The others seemed to stand in fear of him. He didn’t seem like a common sailor, but acted as if he were used to giving orders instead of obeying them.

“Tom said that at last he got rather chummy with one of them, named Dick, and used to have long talks with him. From what the man let slip, Tom learned that he had passed most of his life in the coastwise trade, and though he didn’t say right out that he had been a smuggler, Tom guessed as much.

“One night Dick, while reefing sails in a blow, had a bad fall from aloft. He was a very sick man for a while, and the skipper didn’t know whether he’d pull through or not. The captain detailed Tom to look after him, and in that way they got more confidential than ever.

“One day Dick had a turn for the worse and thought he was going to die. He was dreadfully scared and after a good deal of beating around the bush, told Tom that he wanted to get something off his mind. He didn’t want to die, he said, without having made a clean breast of it.

“Then he went on to say that he had been a seaman on board a coastwise trader called the Ranger that hailed from some Canadian port not far from Halifax. She did a good deal of legitimate trading, but mixed in with this a considerable amount of smuggling.

“Her captain was a man named Ramsay–”

“That’s the very name Ross gave us,” broke in Teddy excitedly.

“He was a hard man, but, outside the smuggling, a straight one,” resumed Mr. Lee, “and the people along the coast had confidence in him.

“One day a man, whose name Dick didn’t remember, came aboard for a trip to the New England coast. He had considerable luggage, and among other things there was a heavy box that it took two men to handle. The man had them put the box in his cabin, although some other things he permitted to be placed in the hold.