Chapter 12

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!"