Chapter 26

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."