It was a frightful mouth, armed with huge rows of sawlike teeth, and although they knew the brute was dead the boys could not repress a shudder as they looked at it.

"Talk about a buzz saw!" exclaimed Teddy. "It couldn't cut you in two more neatly than this fellow could when he was swimming around."

"If those teeth could talk, I imagine they'd have some stories to tell," added Ross.

"And they wouldn't be pretty stories either," observed Bill.

"I wouldn't want him to be the undertaker at my funeral," said Fred, who could not help thinking that that dismal function might have been performed by this shark or some other the day he had gone overboard.

"Look at those wicked eyes," said Lester. "They're almost as fiendish now as they were when they looked up at us as he came swimming around the boat. I'll wager we'll see them more than once in our dreams."

"As long as we don't see them any other way it won't matter much," concluded Bill, the practical.

It was a full hour before the boys had cut the teeth from the bony sockets and had secured all the strips of hide they wanted to make up into souvenirs.

"We'll leave the rest of the carcass here until the tide comes in and carries it away," remarked Lester, when the work was finished. "It'll float out to sea and the other fish will make short work of it."

"That'll be only justice," said Teddy. "He's feasted on them or their brothers by the ton in his time."

"The gulls will help them out," said Lester, as he pointed to a number of the great birds circling around. "They're getting ready now to pick the bones, and are only waiting for us to get out of the way before they settle down to the job."

"It's getting pretty late, isn't it?" inquired Bill. "I hardly think we'll see Bartanet Shoals again to-night."

"Not a chance in the world," replied Lester, as he looked at the sky, already crimsoning in the west. "We'll have to stay all night with Mark and make a break for home in the morning. But it doesn't matter, and dad won't be worrying about us this time, especially if the weather stays clear."

"I'm afraid Mark will find it some job to put us up for the night," observed Ross, as he noted the tiny dimensions of the little cabin on the beach.

"It isn't exactly a summer hotel," grinned Lester. "There's only one room and that's pretty well cluttered up with his nets and tackle and other junk."

"We'll probably have to sleep outside on the sand," remarked Bill.

"All the more fun," chimed in Teddy. "We've done it once and we can do it again. One thing sure, there won't be any kick coming on the question of ventilation. The earth for a bed, the sky for a blanket——"

"And the sea for a lullaby," finished Ross.



CHAPTER XX

THE EMPTY HUT

"Listen to the poets," jibed Bill. "Homer and Milton have nothing on them."

"Don't mind his knocking, Ross," said Teddy. "He's only envious because he can't rise to our heights. He's like that fellow that Wordsworth tells us about:

"'A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him And nothing more.'"

"Well, what more was it?" grinned Bill, stubbornly holding his ground.

"A hopeless case," groaned Teddy. "If he heard a bobolink singing, he'd ask whether it was good to eat."

"What is this anyway?" laughed Fred. "It sounds like elocution day at Rally Hall."

"Talking about eats," chimed in Lester, "what's the matter with getting our stuff off the boat before it gets dark? Mark will have plenty of fish with him when he gets back, and with what we can supply we ought to be able to get up a nifty little supper."

"Count me in on this," said Ross. "I've got quite a cargo of supplies on the Sleuth, and we'll all chip in together."

"The more the merrier," cried Lester, accepting the offer. "I imagine Mark doesn't have much variety in his diet, and we'll see that to-night at least the old man has a bang-up meal."

"They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach," observed Teddy, "and if we fill him up, he'll be all the more ready to loosen up and tell us all he knows."

"I wish we had a Chinaman along," remarked Fred. "We'd get him to make us a soup out of the shark's fins."

"We'll try it ourselves if we get hard up," laughed Ross, "but it seems to me we've got our money's worth out of the shark already, without taxing him any further."

They waded out to the boats and ransacked the lockers, returning loaded with coffee and bacon and beans and eggs and jams, the sight of which added a spur to their already lively appetites.

"That looks like Mark's boat out there now," observed Lester, as he straightened up and surveyed the sea.

He pointed to a tiny catboat coming in at a spanking gait, and that seemed to be headed directly for that part of the beach where the boys stood.

"At the rate he's coming, he'll be here in fifteen minutes," Lester announced a moment later.

"What's the matter with having supper all ready when the old man gets in?" chuckled Fred. "It'll pay for using his tools, and it will give him the surprise of his life."

"Good thing!" exclaimed Lester heartily. "The poor old chap doesn't get many surprises—pleasant ones I mean—and it will warm his heart."

"To say nothing of his stomach," added the ever practical Bill.

The boys set to work with a zest, and five pairs of hands transformed the interior of the little hut in a twinkling. Fred lighted a fire in the rusty stove, Bill cut up some wood for fuel, Ross brought water for the coffee from a neighboring spring, Teddy cleared the litter of odds and ends off the rough pine table and set out the eatables, while Lester fried the bacon, warmed the beans and made the coffee. Everything, even down to salt and sugar, had come from their own stores, so that Mark's meagre stock was not drawn upon for anything. A fluffy omelet finished Lester's part of the work, and when Ross produced a big apple pie that his landlady had given him to take along that morning, the boys stood off and viewed their handiwork with pride.

"It makes one's mouth water," said Teddy, who claimed to be an expert where food was concerned.

"I can't wait," declared Bill. "I wish Mark had wings."

"He doesn't need them," replied Lester, looking out of the door, "for here he comes now."

The boys ran out to greet the returning master of the house, who had rounded the point into the sheltered bay and was fast approaching the beach. He had already noticed the two boats lying side by side and surmised that he had visitors. He looked at the boys curiously and waved his hand to Lester in friendly fashion.

Then his boat claimed all his attention. With surprising agility for one so old, he did all that was necessary to lay it up snugly for the night. Then he clambered into a small rowboat that trailed at the stern, loosed the rope that held it and with a few deft pulls at the oars rowed in until he grounded on the beach. The boys ran forward and drew the boat far up on the sands above the high water mark, while Lester shook hands with the newcomer.

"How are you, Mark?" he said heartily.

"How be yer, Les?" responded the other with no less cordiality, "an' how's yer pa?"

"Dad's all right and so am I," was the answer. "You see I've brought a bunch of my friends over to see you."

"I take it kindly of yer," said Mark. "I get a leetle lonesome here all by myself, an' it heartens me up a bit ter git a sight of young critters. Out on a fishin' trip, I s'pose?"

The boys had crowded round them by this time, and Lester introduced them to the old fisherman, who shook hands heartily, albeit rather awkwardly.

"Yes," said Lester, when this ceremony was finished, answering Mark's last question, "we are on a fishing trip, but we're fishing for information more than for anything else."

"Information?" repeated Mark, taken a little aback. "Waal," he said, recovering himself, "ef there's anythin' I know, yer welcome ter have it. What is it yer want ter know?"

"Lots of things," laughed Lester. "But they can wait till after supper. By the way, Mark, I suppose you'll let us stay to supper? I know it's awfully nervy to plump ourselves down on you this way without any warning and without being invited. But if you can take care of us for the night and give us a bite to eat, we'll be mighty thankful."

"Sure I will," replied Mark warmly. "But yer'll have ter take pot luck. Come up ter the cabin an' I'll hunt yer up a snack of sumthin'."

The boys had been standing between him and their catch of the morning, but as they separated to go up to the shack he caught sight of the stranded body of the shark. He stopped short in amazement.

"Sufferin' cats!" he shouted. "Where in the world did that thing come from?"

"He didn't come of his own accord," laughed Fred. "We picked him up and brought him along."

"Do yer mean ter tell me that you youngsters caught him all by yerselves?" asked Mark, looking from one to the other in incredulous astonishment.

"That's what we did," replied Teddy. "That is, we all had a part in hooking him, and then Lester, here, finished the job with his father's harpoon."

"Les, ye're a chip of the old block," cried Mark delightedly. "Yer pa was one of the best harpooners thet ever sailed from these parts an' ye sure have got his blood in yer ter do a man-sized job like this. A mighty good job it is too, fer I don't know when these fellers has been more troublesome than they've been this year, what with sp'ilin' the nets an' scarin' away the fish."

He walked around the body, giving vent to muttered exclamations of wonder and satisfaction, and the boys had a chance to study him more closely than they had yet been able to do.

He was a wizened, dried-up little man, not much more than five feet in height. His shoulders were bent with the infirmities of age—they judged him to be over seventy—but his movements were spry, and they had already seen by the way he handled his boat that he was not lacking in dexterity. There was a suspicious redness about his nose that was explained by Lester's hint about his fondness for a certain black bottle. But his eyes were friendly and free from guile, and the simple cordiality with which he had welcomed them to his scanty fare showed that his heart was kindly.

He found it hard to tear himself away from gloating over the body of the shark—the shark he hated with the hatred of all the members of his calling—but he recalled himself at last to the duties of hospitality.

"Waal, I swan!" he ejaculated. "Here I am wastin' time on this cantankerous old pirate when I ought ter be hustlin' around ter get you boys some grub."

The boys could see a growing perplexity in the old fellow's kindly face as he tried to think how to feed such a hungry crew as he saw about him.

"Oh, anything will do," Lester hastened to assure him. "Come along up to the cabin and we'll pitch in and help."

They reached the door, and as Mark's eyes fell upon the crowded table, and as the fragrant odor of the coffee and the other good things assailed his nostrils, he gave vent to an exclamation of astonishment and relief that was lost in the roar of laughter that burst from the boys.

"Waal, I vum!" he exclaimed as soon as he could catch his breath.

"Some surprise party, eh Mark?" asked Lester.

"Yer could knock me down with a feather," the old fisherman replied. "An' me a-rackin' my old noddle as ter how I was goin' ter giv' ye anythin' but fish."

"You're not going to taste of fish to-night," stated Teddy.

"Waal, that won't be no loss," grinned Mark delightedly. "I eat so much fish that I'm expectin' almost any minnit I'll be sproutin' fins an' gills."

"This treat is all on us," affirmed Fred, "and all you have to do is to fill up on what you see before you and tell us what you think of our cook."

"I'll do that right enough," said Mark, "an' ef it tastes as good as it smells an' looks, there ain't one of you youngsters that will stow away more than I kin."

They installed him at the head of the table in the one chair that the cabin boasted, while they disposed themselves around on boxes and whatever else would serve as seats. Their surroundings were of the rudest kind but the fare was ample and their appetites keen and there was an atmosphere of mirth and high spirits that made full amends for whatever was lacking in the way of what Teddy called frills. Mark renewed his youth in the unaccustomed company of so many young lads, and ate as he had not eaten for many a day or year.

They did not broach the object of their visit until the meal was finished and the remnants cleared away. Then they adjourned to the beach in front of the cabin, where Mark filled his pipe and tilted back in his chair against the front of the shack, while the boys threw themselves down on the sand around him.

"Well, Mark," began Lester, when, with his pipe drawing well, the old fisherman beamed on them all in rare good humor, "I suppose you've been wondering what we mean by coming down and taking you by storm in this way."

"I'd like ter be taken by storm that way a mighty sight oftener than I be," returned Mark. "But sence yer speak of it, I am a leetle mite curious as ter what yer wanted with an old fisherman like me."

"It's about something that happened nine or ten years ago," went on Lester. "Do you remember the time you picked up a man in an open boat off this coast somewhere?"

Mark was attentive in an instant.

"I'll never forgit it," he declared emphatically. "I never was so sorry fur a feller-bein' in all my life as I was fur him."

"This is his son," said Lester, indicating Ross.



CHAPTER XXI

BITS OF EVIDENCE

If Mark had received a shock from a galvanic battery he would not have been more startled.

"What's that you say?" he demanded, bringing his chair down from its tilted position and looking around upon the group in a bewildered way.

"Lester is right," said Ross, who had risen to his feet and stretched out his hand. "My name is Ross Montgomery, and I want to thank you with all my heart for what you did for my father. I've never had the chance to do it before."

His voice was shaken with emotion at this meeting with the man who had played so large a part in the tragedy of his family so many years before.

Mark grasped the extended hand and shook it warmly.

"So it was your pa that I picked up that day," he said. "I hed a sort of feelin' to-day that I had seen you somewheres, an' I s'pose it's because you favored him some. You have the same kind of hair an' eyes, as near as I kin rec'lect."

"Of course I was only a little chap when it all happened," said Ross, "but I've often heard mother tell how kind you were to him after you found him adrift."

"Oh, pshaw! that was nothin'," replied Mark deprecatingly, as he resumed his seat. "I only did fur him what any man would do fur an' unfo'tunit feller-man. He was nearly all gone when I come across him. The doc said he would 'a' died ef he'd floated around a few hours longer."

"Do you remember anything he said to you while you were taking care of him?" asked Lester.

"Oh, he said a heap o' things, jest like any man does when he is out of his head," was the answer. "I didn't pay much attention like. I was too busy holdin' him down when he got vi'lent, as he did pretty often the first few days. After that he kind of settled down an' only kep' a-mutterin' to himself."

"Yes, but didn't he say anything that would give you a hint of what had happened to him and how he came to be adrift?" asked Fred.

Mark ruminated for a full minute, evidently doing his best to tax his memory.

"I ain't got the best memory in the world," he said apologetically, "an' I couldn't make out fur certain all he said. But I got the idee thet there'd been a fight of some kind an' thet he'd lost a pile of money. He kep' a talkin' of 'gold' an' some 'debts' he owed. Course I thought it was only the ravin's of a crazy man an' I didn't take much stock in it."

"Wasn't there anything else?" prodded Fred.

"N-no," replied Mark hesitatingly, "nothin' thet I remember on. Oh, yes," he went on, as a sudden flash of memory came to him, "I do rec'lect he kep' sayin': 'It's where the water's comin' in.' But of course there wasn't no sense in that."

The boys sat up straight.

"Say that again, won't you?" asked Teddy.

"It's where the water's comin' in," repeated Mark. "He said that over and over. I s'pose it was the feelin' of the spray thet came over him in the boat. I don't rightly know what else it could have been."

As the boys themselves turned the phrase over in their minds, they could not see how it bore on the object of their search. They filed it away in their minds to think about later on.

For the next two hours they discussed the matter with Mark, trying to get from him any little shred of evidence that would be of help, and yet at the same time guarding carefully against revealing the real object of their questioning. He, for his part, set it down to the natural curiosity they felt in an event that touched the life of one of them so nearly, and did his best to cudgel his memory. But nothing more came of it than they had already learned, and it was with a sense of depression and failure that they finally gave up the cross examination that they had come so far to make.

"Well, Mark," said Lester at last, when several long yawns had shown that the old man was tired and sleepy, "we can't tell you how much obliged we are to you for all you've told us. But I guess we've tired you out with all our questions."

"Not a bit of it," denied Mark valiantly, though his drooping eyelids belied his words.

"I was just a-wonderin' where I was goin' to put all you boys for the night," he went on. "There's only one bed in the cabin, but I kin spread some blankets on the floor, ef that'll do yer."

"Don't worry at all about that," said Fred cheerily. "You go right in to bed and we'll bunk out here on the beach. It's a warm night, and we'd as soon do it as not."

As there was really nothing else to do, Mark, after making a feeble protest, said good-night and went inside, while the boys moved down the beach until they were out of earshot and prepared to camp out.

"We didn't get much out of the old chap after all, did we?" said Bill rather despondently.

"After coming all this way too," added Teddy, even more dejectedly.

"The only thing we'll have to show for the trip will be the shark, I guess," said Lester.

"Well, that would be enough if we hadn't gotten anything else," declared Fred. "But I'm not so sure that we came on a fool's errand after all."

"What makes you think we didn't?" asked Bill. "What do we know that we didn't know before?"

"Well," suggested Fred, "we hadn't heard before of that phrase Mr. Montgomery used over and over. 'It's where the water's coming in.'"

"That's nothing at all," affirmed Bill decidedly.

"I have a hunch it does mean something," replied Fred, "and I'm going to keep mulling it over in my mind until I find out what the meaning is.

"By the way, Ross," he went on, turning to their new-found friend where he sat brooding a little way apart from the rest, "we've learned something since we saw you first that may interest you. We'd have told you earlier this afternoon, but we've been traveling in different boats, and then when we got on shore we were so busy with cutting up the shark that we didn't get a chance till now."

Ross looked up eagerly.

"What is it?" he cried, getting up and joining the group.

He listened breathlessly while Fred told him what they had learned during their talk with Mr. Lee—the fight with the smugglers, their flight to the south Pacific, the partial confession of Dick and the going down of the ship with all on board.

When Fred had finished, Ross rose and paced the beach excitedly.

"You fellows found out in a few minutes what I've spent years trying to learn," he cried. "All the time I've been hunting, I've been haunted by the fear that even if I found where the gold had been hidden, the money would long ago have been taken and spent by the robbers. I've felt like all kinds of an idiot in keeping up the search on such a slender chance, and again and again I've been tempted to give it up. But this puts new life and hope in me. There's still a chance to find the gold and pay my father's debts."

"It's practically certain that the money is still there," affirmed Fred. "The fellows who took it are all drowned—unless they're living somewhere on a desert island, and that's so unlikely after all this time that it isn't worth giving it a second thought. The only living man, outside of ourselves, who knows about the gold is Tom Bixby. He's just a rough sailor knocking about all over the world, and he too may be dead by this time. The whole secret lies with us, and if the gold's ever found, we'll be the ones who will find it."

"You boys have been perfect bricks," declared Ross warmly, "and you make me ashamed for having kept anything back from you from the start."

"You needn't feel that way at all," asserted Teddy. "For my part, I think you've been very generous and outspoken in telling us as much as you have. You'd never met us before that day of the storm and didn't know anything about us."

"Well, I know all about you now," declared Ross, "and from now on, everything I find out will be known to you as fast as I can get it to you."

The boys said nothing but waited expectantly.

"There's one thing I didn't tell you that first night," Ross continued. "I don't know how important it may prove to be, but at least it's a clue that may lead to something.

"As you know, the Ranger was taken to Halifax and abandoned there by the smugglers. Ramsay, the captain who died on the trip, had owned it, but he had no family and the authorities took charge of the boat and sold it after a while, holding the money they got for it for the benefit of the heirs, if any should ever turn up. The new owner used the boat for a voyage or two, but he found it hard to get a crew. You know how superstitious sailors are. The mysterious way it was found abandoned gave sailor men the impression that there was a hoodoo of some kind connected with it, and they wouldn't ship aboard her. So the new owner sold it and the name was changed.

"One day in Canada I ran across a sailor who had made a trip in the ship before the name was changed, and he told me a queer thing. He said he had found a rough map cut out on the wood of the forecastle with a jackknife. There were wavy lines to represent the water and a shaded part that might stand for a beach. Then there was a clump of three trees standing together, and a little way off were two more. One big rock rose out of the water on the right-hand side.

"Of course I jumped to the conclusion that it might have something to do with the place where the gold was hidden. I thought perhaps some of the sailors had wanted to impress on their memory just how the place looked, so that they could find it more easily when the time came. I pumped the man for more details, but that was all he could remember. I've tried in every way I knew to trace the old Ranger but she has slipped out of sight like a ghost. If I could only have one look at that old forecastle, I think that the map might put me on the right trail."

"I'll bet it would," declared Fred with conviction, and his opinion was eagerly echoed by the others.

For a long time they debated the matter from this new angle, and it was very late when Lester urged that they should settle down for the night.

"We'll get an early start in the morning and get back to the Shoals before noon," he suggested. "I want to get busy on the government maps and plot out every mile of the coast so that we can start out in earnest."

But Lester's plan miscarried in part. They got the early start after a cordial good-bye to Mark. But the wind was baffling and they had to make long tacks, so that dusk was drawing on when they at last reached Bartanet Shoals.



CHAPTER XXII

ANGRY WATERS

As the five boys entered the lighthouse, Teddy happened to glance at the barometer that was fastened to the wall near the door.

"Say, fellows!" he exclaimed, "the glass is certainly mighty low this evening. Looks as though there might be some weather coming."

"Let's take a peep," responded Lester carelessly. "We're not due for any bad weather yet awhile, and I don't think—Whew! but it is low, isn't it?" he exclaimed as he examined the dial of the instrument. "There's something on the way, that's sure. I don't remember the barometer often getting quite as low as that."

"Oh, well, let it come!" exclaimed Fred. "What do we care? We won't be out in the Ariel this time, and I guess it would take some storm to wash this old lighthouse away."

"Yes," assented Lester. "I guess no storm that ever blew or ever will blow can do us much damage. It is built on a ledge of solid bed rock, and it would take an earthquake to shake it loose. We'll be snug and safe enough, no matter how hard it blows."

"In that case, bring on your show," grinned Teddy. "I've always wanted to see a first-class, bang-up storm, so you can't pile on the scenic effects too strong. Let's have plenty of wind and waves and all the rest of the fixings. Do a good job, while you're about it, Lester."

"Judging from the looks of that barometer, I won't have to do a blessed thing," replied Lester in the same tone of banter. "My stage manager, old Father Neptune, is going to be right on the job, and when he gets going I don't feel called on to interfere. I've seen a few of his performances and I must confess that I haven't seen much room for improvement.

"Except," he went on in a graver tone, "that if I had my way, I'd leave some of the ships out of the production. After you've once seen some big craft go to pieces on the shoals, you rather lose your liking for the entertainment."

"Yes, I suppose that's so," acquiesced Teddy, his usually high spirits sobered for a moment by having this view of the case presented to him. "I hadn't thought of that part of it."

"Well," observed Fred, "if there's going to be a storm, as seems pretty likely now, we'll hope that nothing of the kind occurs. After that stormy time we had on the Ariel, I can imagine pretty well what it must feel like to be shipwrecked. When we were headed for those rocks, I expected to be swimming for dear life in about two minutes."

"It must have been rather bad, I suppose," said Lester with a smile. "It wasn't so bad for me, because I had done the stunt before and was sure I could do it again.

"But this is no time for talking," he added. "Either I've got to get something to eat pretty soon or else quietly give up the ghost. I'm as hungry as a bear in spring time, and I'm willing to bet something that you fellows feel the same way."

"You win," admitted Fred. "But luckily for us it's near dinner time so we still have a chance to live awhile."

"Let's hurry and clean up then before dad calls us to the table."

As Lester stopped speaking, a gust of wind tore past the lighthouse with a mournful wail. The sound died down for a few seconds and then rose again in a dismal, long-drawn-out note that caused the boys to give an involuntary shudder.

"That's the beginning," declared Lester. "It will keep getting worse and worse, and after a while we'll hardly be able to hear each other speak. We're in for a real blow this time I think."

"Let's go up into the light room and see what it looks like outside," suggested Fred. "It's getting dark fast and we'll not be able to see anything before long."

"All right, come ahead," agreed Lester.

He headed the group up the spiral stairs that led to the lamp room.

An early dusk had fallen over the heaving ocean, yet it was not so dark but that they could see that the seas were rising rapidly. Here and there the big waves were capped with white crests as they raced away before the spur of the merciless wind. Already they were breaking against the rocks on which the lighthouse stood with a heavy roar and a force that caused the building, stout as it was, to tremble.

"It sure is working up fast, isn't it?" asked Teddy in a subdued voice. "I'd hate to be out in it even now. And I suppose it hasn't really begun to get bad yet."

"You're right, it hasn't," assented Lester grimly. "But now while we are up here, I'd better light the lamps. Then I can go down and eat with an easy conscience."

Accordingly, he lit the wicks of the great lamps and, after assuring himself that everything was in perfect order, he and the other boys descended to the dining room. There they found everything in readiness and made one of the hearty and satisfactory meals that the lighthouse larder never failed to afford.

As they ate, they could feel the building shake to the furious blasts that smote against it, and Mr. Lee shook his head gravely.

"It will be a wild night on the ocean, I'm thinking," he remarked, "and we can thank our lucky stars that we're all in a snug shelter and well out of harm's way. I feel sorry for those who have to be abroad on the water to-night."

"So do I," echoed Fred. "Just listen to that wind roar, will you? It seems as though a million demons were yelling at once."

"And the ocean's a good second," chimed in Teddy. "Wow!" he cried, as a giant breaker thundered down on the reef, "that must have been the daddy of them all, I guess. Let's go up to the lookout room as soon as we're through and watch the storm."

The other boys were quite as eager as Teddy, and when they had finished their meal they went up the stairs to what might be called the observation room. This was situated just below the room in which the lamps were placed, and had windows of thick glass facing the sea. A door led out from it on to a balcony that ran completely around the structure. This door also faced the ocean, and Teddy, always enterprising, thought that he would like to go out on the balcony to feel the force of the wind.

He attempted to push the door open, but without success. He tried again, with the same result.

"Guess the old thing must be locked," he remarked, "but I don't see the key anywhere. Have you got it with you, Lester?"

"No," replied Lester, who had been watching Teddy's ineffectual efforts with a smile, "but that door isn't locked. The reason you couldn't open it was because the wind was blowing so fiercely against it. I doubt if the four of us put together could do it."

"It's no wonder that I had trouble then. But never mind. The wind can't keep me from looking out, anyway."

He shaded his eyes with his hands and peered through the thick plate glass windows. The others followed his example, and saw a sight that they never forgot.

The wind had piled the waves up higher and higher, until they looked like an endless succession of undulating, constantly advancing hills and valleys. From the ragged crests the spray was torn and blown in solid sheets before the raging wind so that at times it was impossible to see the heaving waters beneath. As the breakers came up against the lighthouse ledge, their tops would curve over and come crashing down with mighty blows that it seemed must pulverize the solid granite. The rebounding spray was snatched up by the gale and hurled against the lighthouse, as though the elements were furious at this one obstacle that prevented them from wreaking their full rage on some unfortunate ship and were resolved to sweep it from their path once and for all.

The boys gazed spellbound at the awe-inspiring spectacle, and for a time none of them uttered a word. Lester was the first to break the long silence.

"I've never seen anything better—or worse—than this," he said. "I guess the barometer knew what it was doing to-day."

"It surely is a tremendous thing to watch," assented Fred, and again applied himself to the window, where the others kept their faces glued, too fascinated with the elemental turmoil to think of anything else.

They tore themselves away at last and went up into the lamp room where Mr. Lee was on duty.

He had just finished trimming the wicks when the boys entered.

"What do you think of this for a storm?" he quizzed. "Is it blowing hard enough to suit you?"

"It's tremendous!" ejaculated Ross. "I never knew that wind could blow so hard or waves get so big. It's something to remember for a lifetime."

Mr. Lee smiled at his earnestness and nodded his head.

"You may well say so," he observed. "Of course, I've seen worse winds in the tropics, when they developed into hurricanes or typhoons. But for this coast, it doesn't often blow harder. There's more than one fine ship will lay her bones down on some reef or beach this night."

While Mr. Lee was speaking, the boys had noticed several dull blows against the outside lens of the light, and Teddy took the first opportunity to inquire the cause.

"That's caused by sea-gulls and other water birds dashing themselves against the light," explained Lester. "They're driven by the wind, and are so confused and terrified that I don't suppose they know what they're doing. Or perhaps the bright light has an attraction for them. At any rate, they always do it in a big storm, and in large numbers too. Why, in the morning we can go out and find hundreds of dead birds where they've dropped at the base of the tower."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Teddy, who always had a tender place in his heart for dumb creatures. "I suppose they don't see the glass at all, and think they can keep right on going."

"That's about the way of it, I guess," affirmed Mr. Lee. "They come against the glass with such force sometimes that I'm almost afraid they'll break it. It's too bad, but there's no help for it yet, though men are at work trying to find some device to prevent it."

"How long do you think the storm will last?" inquired Fred.

"Chances are that it'll last out all to-morrow," answered their host, "though it's blowing so hard that it may blow itself out before that. There's no telling."

"We'll have a good chance to mend up our fishing tackle then," remarked Fred, "because it doesn't look as though there'd be much chance doing anything outdoors."

"If you find time hanging heavy on your hands," observed Mr. Lee with a sly twinkle in his eye, "you might get busy and clean out the lamps. They're about due for a good scouring, and it might help you to pass away a long day indoors."

"That's certainly a great idea," said Lester reflectively, "but there's nothing in it for me. I've done it before and there's no novelty in it. But I'm sure that Teddy and Fred would enjoy it immensely."

"Nothing doing," replied Teddy hastily. "Fred and I aren't going to come to see you, Lester, and then butt in on all your simple pleasures. You just go ahead and enjoy yourself cleaning out the lamps, just as though we weren't around. We'll manage to plug along some way in the meantime."

They all laughed at this sally and shortly afterwards the boys took leave of Mr. Lee and returned to the observation room. The wind roared and the ocean boomed on the rocks with undiminished force, and they spent the rest of the evening gazing out through the streaming windows and wondering at the mighty spectacle spread out before them.

At last Lester, to whom the fury of a storm was a more common thing than to his companions, proposed that they go to bed, and they reluctantly tore themselves away. The last thing the lads heard as they sank into dreamless slumber was the crash of tumbling waves and the maddened shrieks of the wind as it hurtled past the lighthouse.



CHAPTER XXIII

AN UNEXPECTED WINDFALL

Dawn broke the following day without any sign of the storm's abating, and the boys were forced to keep close within doors. Despite their forced imprisonment, time did not hang heavily, and they found plenty with which to occupy their hands and minds.

Of course, all about the lighthouse was new to Ross, and he spent a good many hours exploring its delightful mysteries under the guidance of Lester and Mr. Lee himself, who had taken an instant liking to this new addition to his household and had given him a most cordial welcome, not only on his own account, but on account of his romantic story, which had appealed strongly to the old man's fancy and sympathy.

Bill busied himself with overhauling and getting into first-class shape his fishing paraphernalia, and discharged a neglected duty in writing a long letter to his mother, filled with enthusiastic descriptions of the glorious times he was having, and dwelling most, as may be imagined, on the hooking of the shark the day before.

Fred and Teddy had been delighted to find letters waiting them from the family at home, including one from their Uncle Aaron. They pounced upon the letters eagerly. That from their mother, to which their father had added a few lines as postscript, was full of pride at Fred's exploit and delight at the prospect opened up of being useful to their uncle in case they found the missing gold.

Teddy tore open the letter which bore the precise handwriting of his uncle with a broad grin on his face.

"Just think, Fred, of opening a letter from Uncle Aaron that doesn't contain a scolding!" he exclaimed.

"Don't be too sure," laughed Fred. "Perhaps he'll scold you for not having found the chest, instead of telling him you hoped to find it. Hello, what's that?" as a blue slip fluttered out from the envelope and fell to the floor.

Teddy was on it like a hawk.

"Glory, hallelujah!" he yelled, as he capered around the floor, waving the paper in the air. "It's a money order for fifty dollars."

"Fifty dollars!" cried his brother in amazement. "Do you mean to say that Uncle Aaron has loosened up as much as that? You must be crazy."

"Straight goods," replied Teddy. "Look for yourself."

Fred scanned the paper. There was no mistake.

"I take back what I said about your being crazy," Fred remarked, as he handed the money order back, "but if you're not, Uncle Aaron is. He must have had a sudden attack of enlargement of the heart."

He looked over Teddy's shoulder and they read the letter together. It was written in their uncle's customary style, except that it was tinctured with a more cordial feeling than he usually displayed toward his nephews. He spoke in terms of great respect of Mr. Montgomery and confirmed what the little memorandum book had revealed as to the amount of the debt. He declared that if the money was found he wanted nothing but the principal, and stated that the interest could go to Ross and his mother as a gift. He warned the boys about letting their hopes get too high, but at the same time urged them to spare no time or pains in the search. If they were successful, they could depend on him to reward them handsomely. As they might need a little extra money he was enclosing fifty dollars, to be used in any way they might think best in carrying on the hunt.

"He's not such a bad old chap after all," observed Fred, as they finished reading the letter.

"You bet he isn't!" echoed Teddy. "There are lots of worse fellows than Uncle Aaron."

With this qualified praise, they sought out their comrades, who were almost as delighted as the Rushton boys themselves were at the letter and the money order.

"It's up to us now to get busier than ever," remarked Lester. "It won't do to disappoint him after raising his hopes."

"That's what," replied Fred. "So get out the maps you were talking about yesterday, and we'll lay our plans for the next week or two."

The boys went to the room where the government maps were kept. These showed every creek and inlet and cove and indentation of the Maine coast, together with the depths of water at these points and a host of other details that were of use to seafaring men.

The boys went at them in a businesslike way, picking out those places most likely to be entered by a sailing ship, rejecting others that were difficult or dangerous to approach, until they had mapped out a program that would keep them busy for ten days to come.

Toward evening the storm gave signs of having spent its worst fury, and just before supper a rift appeared in the clouds on the western horizon.

"That looks promising," observed Lester to Teddy, who was looking out over the water with him. "Probably it will clear up during the night and we'll have a peach of a day to-morrow."

"I certainly hope so," replied Teddy. "I don't so much mind being cooped up for one day, but after that it gets kind of monotonous. The strenuous life for me, every time."

"Yes," agreed Lester, "one day is about my limit, too. If it's clear to-morrow, I'll have to go over to Bartanet to order some supplies and maybe you and the rest of the bunch will come along and keep me company."

"Surest thing you know," acquiesced Teddy heartily. "We can see all the excitement that may be stirring in that rushing burg, too. I notice that there's usually a great deal going on there—not."

"Well, I've got to admit that it isn't the liveliest place in the world," admitted Lester with a grin. "Still, once in a while, somebody wakes up long enough to start something. Not often, though, for a fact."

The others were equally anxious to go and the matter was settled, provided that the weather permitted.

As Lester had predicted, the next day was bright and clear and the boys were up early. Mr. Lee had made out the list of the things he needed, and the boys went merrily down to the little landing place where the boats were kept.

It was decided that they were to row over to the mainland, and Lester and Fred took their places at the oars while the others acted as ballast.

"I'll let you fellows row at first," remarked Teddy, in a patronizing tone. "It's easy going now with no storm in sight. I'll take it easy, but if any emergency should arise, I'll take the oars and bring the boat safe to shore. There's no earthly use, though, in an expert navigator like me spending his time in every-day tugging at a pair of oars. It would be wasting my giant strength for nothing."

"Oh, it would never do to let Ted row with an ordinary pair of oars," said Fred sarcastically to Lester. "He'd break those as easily as most people would break the stem of a churchwarden pipe. Back home, we had a pair of tempered steel oars made especially for him and even then he broke them every once in a while. It's really altogether too expensive."

"Yes, I should think it would be," replied Lester gravely. "He must be a good deal like a very strong rower we had about these parts a few years ago."

"Did he have steel oars, too?" asked Ross, keeping a straight face.

"No," said Lester slowly. "I've no doubt he would have used them if he could have found a pair, but as it happened there weren't any of that description around. He used to get around it, though, by using two very heavy wooden oars in each hand. That was all right as far as it went, but it wasn't good enough."

"Why, what was the matter with that?" asked Teddy.

"Well, you see, there wasn't any boat strong enough for him," explained Lester. "He'd sit up in the bow and start to row, and he'd give such tremendous strokes that the front part of the boat would tear away from the stern and go on without it. Of course, the people who owned the boats found this rather expensive, so after a while this man couldn't get a steady job in the fishing trade at all. He did get another position, though, and as far as I know is working at it yet."

"It must be a job requiring some strength," remarked Teddy. "What was it?"

"Carrying barrels of holes from a swiss cheese factory to be made into crullers," chuckled Lester. "I guess that will hold you for a while. If you like that one, I'll tell you some more."

"That's quite enough from you," said Teddy, with great dignity. "You're apt to bring a judgment on us with such stuff as that. One of these big waves may come slap into the boat and send us all to Davy Jones' locker, if you're not careful."



CHAPTER XXIV

RIDING THE SURF

The words were spoken in jest, but they bade fair before long to turn to earnest.

Although the wind had died down, the waves were still running high from the effects of the storm. Lester, however, handled the oars like the skilled waterman he was, and Fred was not far behind him, so that the occupants of the boat felt that they could not be in safer hands. As they got farther out from under the lee of the lighthouse rocks, however, they felt the force of the waves more and more, and Lester had to draw on all his knowledge to keep the boat headed before the big rollers. As one wave followed another, it would shoot the boat ahead as though propelled by some invisible motor, and while this was very exhilarating, it also had a strong element of danger. As long as they went before the waves they were safe enough, but Lester knew that if they broached to, broadside to the waves, they would be swamped in the twinkling of an eye. The water was pretty shoal where they were, and while not actually surf was still near enough like it to keep them all tense and expectant.

As the boys approached the shore, they could see that there was a big surf breaking on the sands. Lester scanned it closely.

"I think we can get through all right, fellows," he said, "but if we should be swamped going in, it won't mean anything more than a good wetting. When I say the word, Fred, we want to act fast and together. If we can get a wave just right, we'll shoot in like an arrow."

"All right, say when, and I'll pull my arms out," promised Fred, taking a firm grip on the oars. "Let her go."

"Look out you don't pull the boat apart," admonished Teddy. "Remember, I'm in the stern, and I don't want to be left behind."

His more serious brother rebuked Teddy's frivolity with a glance, and then turned his eyes toward the line of thundering surf they were rapidly approaching. Lester was absorbed in the problem before him, glancing now at the line of breakers and then at the big waves chasing the boat, each one looking as though it must surely overwhelm it. At last, when they were not more than a hundred feet from the beach, Lester bent to the oars with all his strength, calling:

"Now, Fred, pull! Pull for all you're worth!"

An involuntary exclamation broke from Bill as he glanced astern. Close behind was a gigantic roller, its foaming crest already starting to bend over. As he gazed, fascinated, the crest broke and rushed at the little boat with a seething hiss. Up, up went the stern and the bow dug deep into the water.

"Pull, pull!" yelled Lester.

His oars and Fred's bent beneath the force of their straining backs. For a moment it seemed as though the wave must surely break into the boat and swamp it. But suddenly they felt the boat leap forward, as though some giant of the deep had seized it and thrown it from him. With the white water boiling under the stern the boat raced on, caught in the grip of the breaker and traveling inshore with the same speed at which the wave itself moved. The bow cut through the water, curling up a bow wave on each side that at times came into the boat.

Suddenly the little craft started to turn to starboard.

"Pull on the starboard side," shouted Lester, suiting the action to the word.

Fred promptly obeyed, and after a few straining strokes, the boat returned to a straight path before the roller and the next moment had rushed up on the sand, propelled by the last force of the breaker which went seething and hissing up the beach.

"Out! Get out! Quick!" shouted Fred. "Let's lift the boat up higher before the next wave comes. Lively's the word!"

The boys leaped out and rapidly dragged the boat up past the high water mark, just as another wave, even larger than the one that had carried them in, came sweeping over the place where they had landed.

They were a little white and shaken at the danger they had passed through, but at the same time were wildly exhilarated by the excitement of it.

"Whew!" exclaimed Teddy. "It seemed to me that we were traveling faster than the Twentieth Century Limited just then. Why, we were fairly flying. While we were going through I was scared to death, but now I think I'd like to go out and try it again."

"Not while I'm still in my right mind," protested Lester. "Surf riding is good sport sometimes, but not when there's the kind of sea running that there is to-day. It's possible to have too much of a good thing, you know."

"Oh, I suppose so," said the incorrigible Teddy. "But you fellows didn't have anything to worry about, anyway. I was in the stern, and if a wave had come aboard, I'd have been the one to get wet first."

"Yes, by about one-tenth of a second," laughed Bill. "However, all's well that ends well. I think we all owe a vote of thanks to Teddy for taking us through the way he did. Nobody could have sat there and watched others work better than Teddy did. I think he deserves all sorts of credit."

"Well, you see, I was neutral," explained Teddy. "If I didn't help you, you'll have to admit that I didn't help the wave, either."

"Ted wins," declared Lester. "Anybody who wants to prove anything against him has got to get up early."

"If he's ever accused of a crime, he'll be able to argue his way out without half trying," affirmed Ross.

"He could probably get off by giving the judge and jury a bad attack of brain fever," sniffed Fred. "But what do you say; shall we bail the boat out? We shipped quite a good deal of water."

"Not so much, considering what we came through," replied Lester. "Let's turn the boat over and save the trouble of bailing."

They turned it over on one side and soon had all the water drained out. Then they left it to dry out in the sun until they should be ready to return.

"Get a wiggle on now," enjoined Lester. "We've got a lot to do and we'd better get going at once."

The boys started off at a brisk pace and soon found themselves in the part of the village where the stores were located. They made the rounds, Lester making the purchases and having them wrapped up for him and his friends to call for and carry back later on. They met several of Lester's friends and the time passed so quickly that they were surprised when they found that it was past noon.

"Time to eat!" exclaimed Teddy. "Think of me passing up lunch time like that! I must be sick or something."

"It is rather a bad sign," admitted his brother. "Still I guess you're not going to die just yet. Only the good die young, and that lets you out. But what do you say to stopping in somewhere and getting a bite, Lester? Now that it's brought to my attention, I find that I'm almost as hungry as Ted usually is. And I can't put it much stronger than that."

"Well," replied Lester, "I was thinking that it might be fun to buy something here and eat it on the way back. We can get some sandwiches and other things and have a regular picnic after we get out of town."

"Great!" pronounced Bill.

"And the sooner the better," added Ross.

The lads stopped at the nearest store that promised to supply their needs. As they gazed in the window, trying to make up their minds what to buy, Teddy exclaimed:

"What a nuisance it is to choose! You always have to leave behind more than you take away. If I had plenty of money, I'd buy out the whole store. Wait till we unearth that fortune of Ross' and then——"

"Sh-h, keep quiet," warned Fred in a low tone. "You don't want to tell the whole town all you know, do you?"

"That was a slip of the tongue for fair," confessed Teddy ruefully, "but I won't do it again, honest. Besides, nobody could have heard me."



CHAPTER XXV

ANDY SHANKS, EAVESDROPPER

Suddenly the boys heard two voices raised in what seemed to be an altercation of some kind. The sound appeared to come from behind a board fence a few feet away.

One of the speakers was evidently threatening, while the other was begging off from something that had been demanded of him.

"I tell you, I can't," the latter was saying. "I've already given you every cent of my allowance and I've borrowed from every friend I have in this town. You can't get blood out of a stone. If gold dollars were selling for fifty cents, I couldn't buy one."

"I tell you, you must," the other said fiercely. "I know well enough you can pawn something. You can get a few plunks on that ring and scarf-pin of yours. I've long ago put everything I had in hock. Come now, Sid," and the voice became more wheedling in tone, "you know well enough this state of things won't last long. The old man will take me back again and I'll be rolling in money. Then I can pay back all you've let me have."

Fred and Teddy looked at each other with a conviction that flashed on both of them at the same moment.

"Where have I heard those dulcet tones before?" murmured Fred. "Either I'm going crazy or that's Andy Shanks."

"And the other is Sid Wilton," replied Teddy. "Come to think of it, I heard he lived down this way somewhere. I wonder what all this gab is about."

"It seems to me that Andy's father has thrown him out to face life on his own hook," conjectured Fred.

"And he doesn't seem to be making a success of it," judged Bill.

Just then the two debaters emerged from behind the fence and came face to face with their former schoolmates.

The former bully of Rally Hall and his crony started back, and for a moment were so nonplussed that they could do nothing but stare.

"How are you, Sid?" said Fred, breaking a silence that was beginning to be awkward.

Sid made a stammering reply.

Andy had flushed angrily at the sight of the boys and seemed about to indulge in his usual bluster, but a thought appeared to come to him suddenly that made him change his mind.

"How are you, fellows?" he asked, in a way that was meant to be ingratiating, and holding out his hand.

The movement was so wholly unexpected that for an instant the boys hardly knew what to do. They all disliked him heartily, and the Rushton boys in particular had been bitterly wronged by him during their first year at Rally Hall. Still, it would have seemed ungracious to reject the proffered hand, so they took it under protest, mentally resolved to get away from him as soon as possible.

It was a different Andy from the one to whom they had been accustomed. He had formerly been expensively dressed, and had borne himself with the arrogance of the snob and the brutality of the bully. Now he was beginning to look shabby and his eyes had a furtive look very different from the insolent assurance that the boys remembered.

They exchanged a few commonplace remarks, and then, as Andy made no move toward following Sid, who had excused himself and gone on, Bill finally gave him a gentle hint.

"Well, so long, Andy," he said. "We'll have to be going."

Then the motive for Andy's sudden change of front became apparent.

"Wait just a minute," he said rather sheepishly. "Will you fellows do me a favor and lend me a five spot? I'm stony broke—not a dime to bless myself with. You know the governor has gone back on me. Says he won't give me a red cent, and that I'll have to learn to hoe my own row. I'm up against it for fair, and I know you fellows won't mind lending me a little something. I'll pay it back as soon as the old man comes across, which he's bound to do sooner or later. What do you say?"

Fred, who remembered how the bully had tried to put on him the theft of some examination papers at Rally Hall, hesitated, but Teddy, who noticed how shabby and downcast Andy looked, intervened.

"I guess we might fix it up," he ventured to say. "Just let me speak to the others for a minute."

They had a short conference, as a result of which Teddy collected and handed over the five dollars that Andy desired.

Andy's thanks were profuse, but after having tucked the money safely away in his pocket, something of his old surly manner returned. He took leave of his benefactors with scant ceremony, but the boys were so glad to get rid of him that they hardly noticed this.

"After all," remarked Bill, as they watched Andy go down the street, "five dollars isn't so much to pay for getting free from that bird. I'd be willing to lose a lot more than that if I could be sure of never seeing him again."

The boys made their purchases and took their way to the place that Lester had in mind to eat their lunch. They found themselves on a high sand dune, overgrown with coarse grass. It afforded an excellent view of the sea and also furnished a comfortable place to lean against.

"This is great!" exclaimed Ross. "Let's get out that grub and pitch in. I could eat a barrel full of brass tacks and never know I had eaten anything."

"I guess you wouldn't know anything very long," laughed Lester, as he proceeded to lay out the provisions.

The eatables vanished with surprising speed, and after the first sharp edge of their hunger had worn off, the conversation turned, as it usually did these days, to their quest for the missing treasure.

A brisk breeze was blowing in from the ocean and the brittle sand grass kept up a constant rustling. This sound served admirably to cover the approach of a stealthy figure that had followed the boys at a distance ever since they had left Bartanet. This figure crept closer and closer to the sand dune, until only a projecting hump concealed it from the five boys on the seaward side.

As it attained this position of vantage, Teddy was addressing a remark to Ross.

"Haven't you lost a bit of your confidence yet, Ross?" he queried.

"Not a particle," affirmed Ross stoutly. "We'll find that treasure, sooner or later, if it ever was actually hidden in the neighborhood of Bartanet Shoals."

"You bet we will!" declared Fred, "even if we have to import a steam shovel to dig up the whole territory."

"I hope it will be soon," interposed Bill. "It'll be us for Rally Hall, you know, before long, and then what chance will we have?"

"Keep a stiff upper lip," counseled Lester. "We've just begun to fight."

During the conversation the eavesdropper had lain quietly and listened with the closest attention. Now he edged away cautiously, and when he had reached a sufficient distance rose to his feet and hurried back in the direction of Bartanet.

The boys light-heartedly got into their boat and rowed back to the lighthouse without the slightest suspicion that almost all they had said had been overheard by Andy Shanks.

That rascal hastened back to town, his brain awhirl with dreams of sudden riches. He had heard enough to know that there was treasure buried in or around Bartanet, and he also knew that the boys whom he held in hatred were in search of it. What joy to steal the riches from them and thus gain the twofold advantage of thwarting them and at the same time putting himself in a position to indulge those vices in which he delighted!

Before Andy had gone far, he met one of the village youths whose acquaintance he had recently made. Unfortunately for Andy, this young fellow, who was named Morton, had a strong liking for practical jokes, and after Andy, with his usual boastfulness, had thrown out sly hints about knowing how to "pick up all the money that he wanted," Morton scented a chance to make a victim.

As Andy was very vague regarding the sources from which he expected to get his wealth, Morton did not hesitate to impart to Andy the slighting opinion that he was "talking through his hat."

"Not much I'm not," retorted Andy, stung by the imputation. "I tell you I know there's oodles of money buried somewhere around here and what's more, if you'll help me to find it, I'll let you in for a share of it."

His acquaintance, seeing that Andy was in earnest, quickly formed a plan to have some fun at the other's expense.

"Well, seeing you're so certain of it, I will help you, then!" he exclaimed. "Shake hands on the bargain."



CHAPTER XXVI

BADLY FOOLED

Morton gravely extended his hand and Andy shook it.

"Let's see, now," said the town youth, pretending to be racking his memory, "whereabouts could that money be hid? It's probably in some old shack or cave somewhere. Say!" he shouted as though struck by an idea, "I'll wager I know the identical place where it's stowed away. Come to think of it, I'm sure I do."

"Where? Where?" questioned Andy eagerly.

"Well, I know you're on the square and won't give me the double cross," replied Morton, "so I don't mind telling you what I know.

"There was an old fellow partly tipsy one winter night, who told me a long yarn about knowing where there was a mint of money hidden away. I didn't pay any attention to him then, because I thought he was just raving, the way those people often do. But now I come to think of it, I remember his speaking of an old hut that was almost buried in a sand dune close to the water. Let's see now, where is there an old shack that answers to that description?"

Morton pretended to meditate deeply, while Andy waited breathlessly for him to continue.

"I have it!" exclaimed Morton abruptly. "It's the place old Totten used to have on the beach just north of Bartanet. He kept very close to himself, but he always seemed to have slathers of money. He died two or three years ago, and since then the sand has nearly rolled over his shack. I'll venture to say that if we dug there we'd find money enough to make us both rich for the rest of our lives."

"By jinks! but I believe you're right," blurted out Andy with an avaricious glitter in his shifty eyes. "Let's go there to-night and see if we can find it."

"Oh, we won't be able to go to-night," protested Morton. "We'll have to get picks and shovels, and we'll have to do it so quietly that nobody will catch on. And I can't do it to-morrow night, either," he continued, as though just recalling something. "I've got an engagement that I can't break. But I'll make it the night after that, if you're willing."

"Sure!" assented Andy. "That suits me fine."

But there was a reluctance to look into Morton's eyes as Andy spoke, that convinced the joker that his plans would work out as he expected. He knew Andy Shanks pretty well, and he was sure that Andy would not wait till the appointed time to hunt for the treasure. He guessed that Andy would endeavor to cheat him out of his share of the fictitious treasure by getting in before the time agreed upon. And he made no mistake in reckoning on the mean nature of Andy Shanks.

The two arranged the details of the expedition, such as securing shovels and picks and candles. Then they parted, after Morton had exacted an oath of secrecy from the other.

The latter was no sooner left to himself, however, than he began revolving in his mind plans to outwit the friend, who, he thought, had confided in him so completely.

"It's a lucky thing for me," thought Andy, "that he can't be there to-morrow night. I'll get a pick and shovel somewhere and beat him to it. If he's such a fool as to tell all he knows, he deserves to lose his share."

In the meantime, Morton was hugging himself in anticipation. He confided the matter to a few of his friends, who were delighted at the chance of playing a joke on Shanks, who was anything but popular in the town. All volunteered to help Morton, and having secured an old trunk, they armed themselves with spades and sallied forth in the direction of Totten's old shack.

After shoveling the sand away from before the door, they entered and started to "plant the treasure," as one of them expressed it. They dug a hole four feet deep and wide enough to contain the trunk. Then they filled the trunk with sand and lowered it into the excavation. This done, they filled the hole up again, replaced the rotting boards that formed the floor and surveyed the completed job with satisfaction.

"I guess that will keep him busy for a while," remarked Morton, "especially as he won't know where to look and will have to dig the whole place up, more or less. It's going to be more fun than a circus."

"But we want to see him while he's at it," objected one of his followers. "How are we going to manage it?"

"That's so," agreed Morton. "Guess we'll have to clear the sand away from the little window there."

The lads set to work with a will and soon had enough of the sand shoveled away to permit a clear view of the interior of the shack. This accomplished, they closed the door and heaped sand against it, leaving everything as they had found it.

"Well," declared Morton, "that was considerable work, but it will be worth it. We'll hustle back to town now and tell the other fellows that everything's all right. Then we'll have nothing to do but wait for the fun. I'm as sure as I am that I'm alive that that sneak will try to circumvent me. I could see it in his eye."

Andy spent a restless night, his mind busied with plans to get the best of Morton. He rose early the next morning and roamed restlessly about town. The great problem confronting him was how to get the pick and shovel without Morton's getting wind of it. He finally concluded that it would be taking too much of a risk to buy the implements in the village, so he made a trip to a town five miles distant and got the necessary tools.

Night came at last, and the sneak sallied forth and set out for the old cabin, the location of which Morton had been careful to give to him. Throwing down his tools, Andy carefully reconnoitred the surroundings. The jokers had done their work so carefully that he saw nothing amiss, and after satisfying himself that the coast was clear, he started digging in the sand in front of the door.

It did not take him long to gain an entrance, and after getting in he lit two of his candles and took a careful survey of the surroundings. There was nothing in sight to give him a clue. The sole furniture consisted of an old table and a couple of rickety chairs.

Somewhat at a loss where to begin, Andy finally started sounding the rough planking of the floor. When he came to the place where the planks had been ripped up the preceding evening, he saw that they were loose and resolved to take a chance there. He removed the boards, took off his coat and began to dig in earnest.

He made rapid progress at first, but soon his muscles, flabby and unused to such strenuous exercise, began to protest and he was forced to take a breathing spell.

Had he chanced to glance at the little window, his labors might have come to a premature conclusion. Grouped outside were Morton and his friends, almost bursting with smothered laughter. The sight of Andy, whose antipathy to work was well known, sweating away over the hardest kind of labor, amused them immensely.

Wholly unconscious of the amusement he was providing, Andy resumed his task and worked with such good will that it was not long before his spade struck on the edge of the buried trunk. He uttered a shout of delight and scattered the remaining sand in every direction. Before long he had uncovered the top of the trunk. This he tried to lift out of the hole. Finding it too heavy for this, however, and not able to restrain his impatience to see what it contained, he seized the pickax and smashed in the top.

His chagrin may be imagined when instead of the treasure he expected he found that the trunk was filled with sand. On top of this was a sheet of paper which Morton had placed there the previous evening. It contained one word done in heavy capitals:

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."