Chapter 25

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."