Kitabı oku: «The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove: or, The Missing Chest of Gold», sayfa 5
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?”
“It wasn’t a matter of security, so much as it was of friendship and gratitude,” was the answer. “James Montgomery was one of the most upright men I ever met. His word was his bond, and when he borrowed money it was his character that was the best collateral.
“He had lent me money when I was struggling to get ahead in the world. I had expanded too rapidly in my desire to get ahead, and I was so tied up and so in need of ready cash that I was right on the brink of failure. I couldn’t get a loan from the banks, and I was almost in despair when I applied to James Montgomery. He went over my affairs with me, saw that I was really solvent, and that the trouble was only that immediate cash was needed to pull me through.
“He was doing well in business then, and he lent me the money and gave me all the time I needed to pay it back. It wasn’t long before I was on my feet again, and the first thing I did was to pay him back the full amount with interest.
“I vowed to myself then, that if the chance ever offered, I’d do the same by him as he had done by me. And it wasn’t a meaningless vow, for I’ve never felt more warmly toward any one outside my own people before or since.
“It was some years, though, before I got my chance. Then I learned that he was in straits. He had built up a big business, but hard times came and squeezed him, and a big bank failure put the finishing touch to his ruin.
“I didn’t know of his predicament until it was too late to save him. But after he had recovered from the illness that followed his failure, I went to him and offered him as much money as he needed to start over again. His wife had a little property on the coast of Canada and with enough money to develop it, it promised to yield big returns. All told, I lent him about twelve thousand dollars.
“He paid the interest promptly every six months, and I never worried about the principal. I was sure if he lived that I’d get it back, and if he died, I’d charge it up to profit and loss.”
“I notice that Teddy says in his letter you refused to take the property he left as payment for your debt,” said Mrs. Rushton. “I think that was fine of you, Aaron.”
“I don’t prey on widows and orphans,” replied Aaron, dismissing the matter with a curt wave of the hand. “Least of all, on the widow and orphan of James Montgomery.”
“But didn’t you hear of this chest of gold at the time Mrs. Montgomery wrote to you?” asked Mrs. Rushton.
“Only in a vague and jumbled way,” answered Aaron. “She was so much upset and distressed that I couldn’t make much of her letter. I gathered that he had taken a box containing a large amount of money aboard a coastwise craft, and that he had been found later drifting in an open boat. He had been wounded, and the presumption was, of course, that he had been assaulted and robbed of the money. But, of course, I concluded, as I suppose every one else did, that the money had been divided and spent. At any rate, I gave it up for gone from that moment.”
“Did you follow the matter up in any way?” asked his brother.
“Not to any great extent,” was the answer. “I sent a specialist up to Canada to see if he could do anything toward getting back poor Montgomery’s reason, and I offered a reward for the discovery and arrest of the thieves. But nothing came of it, and after Montgomery died a year or so later, I gave the matter up. I haven’t thought of it for a long time, until this letter came to-day.”
“Well, it looks as though there is a chance at least of getting the gold,” commented Mansfield Rushton.
“After all these years!” added Mrs. Rushton, whose imagination had been captured by the romance and tragedy of the story.
“Of course, it’s only a chance,” said Aaron, on whom doubts began to crowd after the first exhilaration. “They’re a long way off from finding it yet. They have only the most slender kind of clues.”
“I believe they’ll do it,” said Mansfield, buoyantly. “Those boys seem to have a knack of getting what they go after.”
“Yes,” chimed in his wife, her face lighting up, “look at the way they exposed that masquerade of the ghost out on the Garwood ranch this summer. And think how cleverly they got on the trail of the tramps who stole your watch.”
“Ye-es,” assented Aaron slowly, as though the concession was wrenched from him. “They do seem to get there one way or the other. I don’t know whether it’s because they’re smart or lucky.”
“They’re both,” said Mrs. Rushton proudly.
