Chapter 21

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.