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

“They had only been a day or two out, when Ramsay was killed by a tackle block that fell from aloft while he was walking the deck. The mate, Manuel, who Dick explained was the big Portuguese, took command and the captain was buried at sea.

“The passenger seemed to grow nervous after the captain’s death, and kept pretty closely to his room. But he couldn’t stay there always, and one day when he entered it he found Manuel there trying to open the chest. There was a fight right away, and in the struggle the man was badly hurt by a blow from a hatchet that Manuel had in his hand.

“The whole crew had been drawn to the spot by the struggle, and Dick says they were all scared, even Manuel himself, at the outcome of the fight. Manuel would have robbed, but neither he nor the others would have gone so far as to murder.

“But they had got into the scrape now, and felt that they might as well be hung for sheep as for lambs. They had passed Bartanet Shoals a few hours before the fight took place–”

“That’s why Mr. Montgomery kept harping on that, I suppose,” said Lester. “It was one of his last conscious thoughts.”

“That must have been it,” said his father. “They opened the box and got the surprise of their lives. Dick said that there was nothing but gold pieces, and it shone so that it dazzled their eyes.”

“Did he say how much there was?” asked Bill.

“Dick said he didn’t know, but it must have been a great many thousands of dollars. Dick was an ignorant fellow and he said he didn’t know that there was as much money as that in the world.

“At any rate, there was more money than any one of them could ever hope to earn at the beggarly wages they were getting. They took an oath then and there that they would divide the gold evenly among them, and all swore to take the life of any one who betrayed the others.

“They didn’t dare keep on their voyage to the port where they were going. There would have been too much explaining to do. So they made for a cove on the coast–”

“Where was it? What was its name? How far from here?” came in a chorus from the boys.

“A cove on the coast,” went on Mr. Lee, disregarding the interruption, “where they could think things over and make their plans. They anchored at a little distance out, and came into the cove in a small boat, carrying the chest of gold and the unconscious passenger. They carried the gold ashore and left the passenger in the boat. But in the excitement, they must have failed to draw the boat far enough up on the sand. At all events, it got adrift and floated out into the darkness.

“When they missed it, they were panic-stricken. They didn’t know what to do with the gold. If it had been in small bills that couldn’t have been traced, the matter would have been easy enough. But they feared that if Mr. Montgomery escaped and recovered there would be a regular hue and cry, and a close watch kept for any one who was spending gold pieces, which is rather an unusual thing to do in these days of paper money. Of course, professional sharpers would have found some way out, but these men were not that, and now that they had taken part in a crime they were in deadly fear of detection.

“They concluded at last that the best thing they could do for the present was to leave the gold in its chest carefully concealed in that lonely place, sail their ship to some harbor where they could sell it for what it would bring, and then ship together on a long voyage that would keep them out of the country until the storm blew over. Thus each could watch the others and when they got back they could get the chest and divide the gold among them.

“Tom told me that when Dick got to this point, he couldn’t hold in any longer but asked him point blank where it was that he had buried the treasure chest.

“‘We didn’t bury it,’ Dick answered. ‘We hid it in–’

“Just then the skipper called Tom and he had to leave Dick, but promised to come back as soon as he could.

“But one duty after another kept him busy, and he wasn’t able to go back to Dick for some time. Then he found that a great change had taken place. Dick’s fever had gone down, he had a little appetite, and it was clear that he was on the mend. Perhaps the relieving of his conscience by telling of the crime had helped him get better.

“However that might have been, he was a very different Dick from the night before. His mouth was shut as tight as an oyster, and Tom couldn’t get another word out of him. When he reminded him that he hadn’t finished his confession of the night before, Dick stared at him coldly and asked him what confession he was talking about. Tom told him, and Dick said that was the first he had heard of anything of the kind. Said he must have been out of his mind, if he’d gotten off any nonsense like that. And he gave Tom a hint that it wouldn’t be healthy for him, if he spread the report among the rest of the crew.

“He didn’t need to do that, for Tom had no idea of talking. He knew that if he did, it would be a very easy thing for one of the half dozen confederates to knock him senseless and heave him overboard some dark night. So he kept a quiet tongue in his head, and neither he nor Dick ever referred to the matter again as long as Tom was on board.

“As luck would have it, they soon after fell in with another ship of the same line that was on its way back home. Some of her crew had been swept overboard in a cyclone, and she was short-handed. Her skipper asked the captain of Tom’s craft to let him have a couple of men and he consented. Tom and one other sailor volunteered, and they were transferred to the other ship. It was a lucky thing for Tom, because his old ship went down in a hurricane off Cape Horn and every soul on board was lost.”

“Is that certain?” asked Bill.

“As certain as those things can ever be,” was the answer. “That was as much as eight years ago, and not a single man of her crew has ever turned up anywhere. If any one of them had been picked up by another ship, the matter would have been reported as soon as the ship reached port. Of course, there’s a bare chance that some of them might have reached a desert island and still be alive. But that’s so unlikely that it might as well be put out of mind.”

“What’s become of Tom Bixby?” asked Teddy.

“He shipped on a Canadian sealer soon after he was here, and I haven’t seen or heard of him since.”

“Is there any chance that he might have gone on a still hunt for the treasure?”

“Not Tom,” laughed Mr. Lee. “He didn’t have enough to go on. But he certainly was sore at the skipper for having called him away from Dick just when he did. Another minute–yes, another ten seconds–and Dick would have blurted out just where the treasure was hidden.”

“It must have been fearfully exasperating to come so near finding out and yet just to miss it,” remarked Bill.

“It is a lucky thing for Ross that he didn’t find out,” interjected Fred. “Tom didn’t know who the rightful owner was, and if he’d found it he would have kept the gold.”

“I’m afraid that he wouldn’t have tried to find out very hard,” laughed their host. “Sailor men have peculiar ideas about hidden treasure. The general rule they go by is that ‘findings is keepings.’”

“I guess there are a good many besides sailors who would go by the same rule,” said Teddy.

“Human nature is much the same, no matter what a man’s calling is,” assented Mr. Lee. “But you lads have kept me talking a long while, and I’ve got to look after my work. I’ve given you all I know about the Montgomery case, and it’s up to you now to put your heads together and make the most of it.”

CHAPTER XII

UNCLE AARON REJOICES

“Well,” said Fred, drawing a long breath and looking around at his companions after Mr. Lee had left the room, “we’ve certainly got more than we expected from this after-dinner talk.”

“And we didn’t know at the start that we’d get a thing,” exulted Teddy.

“It’s queer that dad never mentioned the matter to me,” mused Lester. “Still I was a little chap when it all happened, and the whole thing has been almost forgotten.”

“But what’s the net result?” asked Bill. “We haven’t the least idea yet where the treasure really is.”

“No,” admitted Fred. “We haven’t. And yet we’ve made a long step forward. In the first place, we know that Ross was absolutely honest and truthful in all that he said. Then, too, we know from Tom’s story that the treasure wasn’t taken away by the smugglers then, and couldn’t have been afterwards, since they were all drowned. So we can be sure that it’s still where they left it unless some one else has stumbled on it, which isn’t at all likely. Further than that, we know where the man lives who picked up Mr. Montgomery when he was adrift, and there’s no knowing what we may be able to get out of him. It seems to me that we’re already far ahead of where we were this morning.”

“There’s another point too, Fred,” broke in Teddy. “Dick told Tom that the chest wasn’t buried, but was hidden somewhere. That gives us a mighty good tip. If we didn’t know that, we might waste our time and break our backs in digging, when it wouldn’t do us a bit of good.”

“That’s funny, too,” remarked Lester. “You’d think that burying would have been the first thing they thought of. In all the stories one reads of pirate hoards, the treasure is buried deep down in the earth.”

“And the pirate usually shot the man who dug the hole and left his skeleton to guard the treasure,” said Bill.

“Perhaps Manuel might have done something of the kind, if there hadn’t been so many in the crew,” said Fred. “He seems from all accounts to have been more desperate and bloody-minded than the rest.”

“We needn’t worry our brains as to why it wasn’t done,” remarked Teddy. “The only thing that concerns us is that it was hidden instead of buried.”

“Hidden is a pretty big word,” put in skeptical Bill. “It might be hidden on a mountain top or in a thicket or in a hollow tree or under water or in a cave or any other old place. Instead of making the problem easier, it seems to me it makes it harder.”

“I can see Bill getting cross-eyed trying to keep one eye on the mountains and the other on the sea,” jibed Teddy.

“Bill’s all right,” assented Fred. “He acts as a brake to hold us in check and keep us from going ahead too fast.”

“I guess we can cut out the mountain top idea,” put in Lester, “as there aren’t any mountains of any size close to the coast.”

“And you must remember, too,” chimed in Fred, “that they were in a hurry to get away. Mr. Montgomery was adrift, and they didn’t know at just what moment he might be picked up. Of course, he was unconscious, but he might come to his senses at any time and tell his rescuers just what had happened. In that case, the fat would be in the fire right away.”

“No,” said Lester thoughtfully, “whatever was done had to be done in a hurry. It’s a dead sure thing that they didn’t go far in from the coast.”

“For the same reason, we can dismiss the hollow tree idea,” said Teddy. “Those things can’t be found just when you want them, and they didn’t have time to hunt around for one. Besides it would take a mighty big hollow to hold a chest as big as that.”

“We’ll consider the other possibilities later,” summed up Fred. “For the present, the one thing on which I guess we’re all agreed is that the chest was hidden somewhere close to the coast.”

“There’s one thing we fellows must do above everything else,” recommended Lester, “and that is to keep the whole thing absolutely secret. Even when we go to see Mark, we must put our questions in such a way that he’ll not have the slightest suspicion of what we’re really after. He might set his tongue wagging, and some reporter might get wind of it and put it in a local paper. Then it would be copied in others, and the first thing we knew it would be written up for the front page of the Sunday edition of a city paper with all sorts of scareheads and pictures. That would put the hoodoo on us for fair. We’d be followed and spied on, and the first thing you know some other party would be finding the money and Ross wouldn’t get a dollar of it.

“Of course, Tom Bixby, if he’s still alive, knows something about it, but that was so long ago that he probably only thinks of it once in a while, and if he should speak of it to any of his mates it would be put down only as a sailor’s yarn.

“Fred, you and Teddy will have to tell your folks, because it’s only right that your Uncle Aaron, who is so heavy a creditor, should know about it, and then, too, he may be able to give us some information that will help. But you can give the tip to the folks at home that it is to be kept strictly among themselves. Dad, of course, won’t let on to anybody.”

“That reminds me,” said Fred, “that we ought to write to Uncle Aaron right away.”

“Suppose you fellows do that then, while I’m over in Bartanet,” suggested Lester. “I have to go over there this afternoon to get supplies. Want to come along, Bill?”

“Sure thing,” answered Bill, rising and stretching himself. “I need a little fresh air and exercise after the big dinner I’ve just put away.”

The Rushton boys, left alone, got out pen and paper and prepared to send the momentous news to their family at Oldtown.

Up to now, letters to their Uncle Aaron had been rather hard to write. Sometimes they had been little notes of thanks for presents sent to them at Christmas or on birthdays. Often–much too often–they had been apologies that their parents had forced them to write for some piece of mischief that had offended their uncle. He had usually been so crusty and had so obviously resented the fact that they had ever been born to cause him trouble, that they had usually approached the task of writing with the feeling of martyrs.

This time it was different. Mr. Aaron Rushton, though by no means a miser, was sufficiently fond of money, and took great care to get all that was rightfully his. Therefore the boys knew that the letter, telling of the bare possibility of getting back such a large sum, would be very welcome.

“I’d like to see his face when he reads it,” chuckled Teddy. “By the way, Fred, who shall write it, you or I?”

“You do it,” said Fred. “He’s always been sorer at you than he has at me, and this will help square you with him. While you’re doing that, I’ll write a line to mother.”

“Think of me writing a letter to him that really pleases him!” laughed Teddy. “It will be the first time in my life.”

“We really have an awful lot to thank Uncle Aaron for, although he didn’t think he was doing us a favor,” replied his brother. “If it hadn’t been for his insisting on it, we wouldn’t have gone to Rally Hall, we wouldn’t have met Bill and Lester, and we wouldn’t have had the glorious times we’ve had so far this summer.”

“And you wouldn’t have thrashed Andy Shanks,” grinned Teddy. “Don’t forget that when you’re counting up the advantages.”

“It was a satisfaction,” grinned Fred. “But go ahead now with that letter, or we won’t get through by the time Bill and Lester come back.”

Thus adjured, Teddy set to work. He wrote at first of ordinary matters, keeping the tidbit till the last. When he came to that he wrote exultingly, telling in glowing terms all they had found out and all that they hoped to find in the future.

“Don’t forget to tell him how Ross and his mother appreciate the way he’s acted toward them,” suggested Fred, himself busy on the letter to his mother.

“I’m glad you reminded me of that,” said Teddy, making the addition. “I was so wrapped up in the rest of it that I’d have surely forgotten that.”

At last both letters were finished and stamped ready for mailing.

“There!” remarked Teddy, with a sigh of relief, “I’ll wager there’ll be some little excitement at home when they read that letter.”

“If only we can follow it up with another one later on, telling that we have actually found the chest of gold!” said Fred.

“If we do, you’ll have the pleasure of writing it,” declared Teddy. “Turn about is fair play.”

It was late on the following day when the letters reached the Rushton home. The head of the house had not yet returned from his office in the city, and the only people in the house, besides Martha, the colored cook, were Mrs. Rushton and Mr. Aaron Rushton.

The latter had been detained at home by an attack of neuralgia, and was in a bad temper. At his best, he could never be called a congenial companion, but when to his naturally surly disposition neuralgia was added, he became simply intolerable. Mrs. Rushton’s nerves had been worn to a frazzle by having him around, and it was almost with a hysterical feeling of relief that she pounced upon the letters that Martha brought in. There were several, but that from Fred was on top.

“A letter from Fred!” she exclaimed delightedly, as she recognized the writing. “I wonder what the dear boys are doing.”

“Doing everybody, probably,” said her brother-in-law gloomily. “Especially that boy Teddy. He’s either in mischief or he’s sick.”

“Now, Aaron, you oughtn’t to talk that way about Teddy,” protested Mrs. Rushton, bridling in defence of her offspring. “There are plenty of worse boys than Teddy in the world.”

“Maybe, but I never met them,” retorted Aaron Rushton.

“He has a great, big heart,” went on Teddy’s mother.

“His gall has impressed me more than any other bodily organ he owns,” was the reply. Evidently Mr. Aaron Rushton’s temper had a razor edge that day.

“You forgot how he got back your watch and papers,” Mrs. Rushton indignantly reminded him.

“I don’t forget that if it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have lost them,” snapped Aaron. “Who was it that hit the horse with a ball and caused the runaway that might have cost me my life? Who was it that painted Jed Muggs’ team red, white and blue on the Fourth of July? Who was it that nearly caused a panic on the common, when he set those mice loose among the women?”

Mrs. Rushton knew only too well who it was, and she took refuge in generalities.

“He’s just the dearest boy, anyway,” she declared defiantly. “He’s fond of mischief like all boys of his age, but he never did a mean or dishonorable thing in his life. And didn’t I hear you tell Mr. Barrett once, just after you got your papers back, that your nephews were the finest boys in Oldtown?”

“If I did, I must have been out of my mind,” growled Aaron, as a twinge of neuralgia made him wince. “But I’ll admit that the boys are angels. Heaven forgive me for lying. Go ahead and read your letter.”

But Mrs. Rushton had already torn the envelope open and was deep in the reading of its contents.

“Why,” she remarked, after a paragraph or two, “Fred says here that Teddy was writing a letter to you at the same time. I wonder if it’s among these,” and she turned over the other letters in her lap. “Oh, here it is, sure enough,” she added as she saw Teddy’s scrawling writing.

Aaron Rushton himself was somewhat startled at the unusual occurrence.

“For me?” he growled, reaching for it. “What has he been doing to me now that he has to apologize for?”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” protested Mrs. Rushton. “Can’t a boy write to his own uncle without having an apology to make?”

“Not Teddy,” said Aaron with conviction.

He took the letter and tore the envelope with studied indifference, to conceal his real curiosity.

The first few paragraphs dealt with ordinary topics, and he passed them over quickly. Then the letter seemed to grip him. He read with ever increasing excitement, while Mrs. Rushton watched him wonderingly. He finished it at last and leaped to his feet with an exulting exclamation.

“Eureka!” he shouted. “Those boys are wonders!”

CHAPTER XIII

AN EXCITING CONFERENCE

Mrs. Rushton gasped with astonishment. It was an unusual thing for Aaron Rushton to let himself go in this manner.

“Why, what on earth is the matter?” she asked.

“Matter enough!” replied Aaron, beginning to pace the floor. “The best news I’ve heard for years!”

“Has any one left you a legacy?” she queried, not knowing of anything else that could cause him such joyous emotion.

“No such luck as that,” he replied, “but it may amount to the same thing in the long run.”

He sat down again, fixed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and again ran over the contents of the letter.

“For goodness’ sake, Aaron, don’t keep me on tenter-hooks!” cried Mrs. Rushton, no longer able to restrain her curiosity. “What can Teddy have to say that makes you feel so good?”

“Here,” he replied, thrusting the letter into her hand, “read it for yourself.”

She took it, while he resumed his pacing, and for the first time in years he actually hummed a tune.

“A chest of gold!” he muttered to himself. “Twelve thousand dollars!”

Mrs. Rushton hurriedly ran over the first few lines of the letter. Then she uttered a frightened exclamation and her cheeks grew pale. She had reached the part where Teddy told of Fred’s daring exploit in diving overboard to rescue Ross.

“A shark!” she exclaimed. “And my Fred in the water!”

“Bother the shark,” cried Aaron impatiently. “It didn’t bite him, did it?”

“No, but it might have,” returned Fred’s mother, in tones that were a blending of pride and terror. “My brave, rash boy!”

“Your ‘brave, rash boy’ is all right,” retorted Aaron. “Get on to the really important part of the letter.”

Mrs. Rushton darted an indignant glance at her brother-in-law, but went on, her eyes shining and her breath coming fast. When she had finished she was almost as excited as Aaron Rushton himself.

They looked at each other in mutual congratulation, he rejoicing in the unexpected windfall, she exulting in the part her boys had played in the affair.

At that moment Mr. Mansfield Rushton, returning from business, strode into the room. He tossed his hat on a chair and greeted his wife affectionately.

“You seem to be conducting a correspondence school, judging from the letters on hand,” he said gaily.

He seemed to bring a flood of sunshine with him, and it was easy to see where Fred and Teddy got their high spirits and joyous outlook on life.

“You’d never guess what’s happened, Mansfield!” cried his wife. “We’ve just got letters from the boys and there’s the greatest news,” she added proudly.

“Let’s see them,” he said with quick interest.

“Read this one first,” she said, thrusting Teddy’s letter into his hand.

“Why!” he said in surprise, as he glanced at the address, “this is directed to Aaron.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Rushton replied. She could not forbear the thrust and added: “Aaron thought it was an apology.”

Aaron Rushton squirmed in his chair a little uncomfortably.

“Never mind what I thought,” he growled. “Go ahead, Mansfield, and then we’ll talk the matter over.”

Mansfield Rushton’s quick eye ran rapidly over the lines while the others watched him.

“Hurrah for Fred and Teddy!” he cried at the end. “They’re boys worth having, eh, Agnes? What’s your opinion, Aaron?” he added slyly.

“They’ve done very well in this case,” his brother was forced to admit, though it cost him a pang. “If this thing really pans out as I hope it will, I’ll see that they get a liberal share of what they turn up.”

“Oh, they’ll get all the pay they want in the fun of hunting for it,” laughed their father. “I know if I were their age, there’d be nothing that would suit me better than searching for hidden gold. I’m so much of a boy even now, that if I were down there I’d go into the thing with the same zest as the boys themselves.”

“I’m going to write to them this very night,” said Aaron, “and send them a little money for current expenses. They may run across somebody who can give them some information, and there’s nothing like a little money to make people talk.”

“Well, I certainly hope you get this, Aaron,” said his brother heartily. “Twelve thousand dollars is a whole lot of money.”

“It certainly is in these hard times,” answered Aaron. “I’ve been hit rather hard in some of my investments lately, and this would do a good deal toward helping me out of the hole.”

“How is it that you never happened to mention this matter to me?” asked Mansfield. “I never heard you speak of Montgomery or of any money that he owed you.”

“It was a long time ago, when I lent it to him,” returned Aaron. “All of fifteen years, I reckon.”

“It seems to me that it was a good deal to put into one loan,” remarked Mansfield. “What security did he offer?”