CHAPTER X
THE CASTAWAY
For the next few minutes there was not much talking, and the boysdevoted themselves to making a wreck of the good things heaped beforethem. Their morning in the salt air on the open sea had put them in finefettle and they had enormous appetites.
"Well," said Fred, when at last they were satisfied, "we have to hand itto you as a cook, Mr. Lee. You certainly know how to make things tastegood."
"Lester comes rightly by his talent in fixing up the eats," declaredBill.
"A sailor has to learn to turn his hand to anything," laughed theirhost. "He gets into lots of places where he has to depend on himselfalone or go hungry. I've been shipwrecked twice in the course of mylife, and I've had to learn to eat all sorts of things and to cook themin a way that would help me get them down."
"Talking about shipwrecks," he went on, as he filled and lighted hispipe and settled down for an after-dinner smoke, "reminds me of thefellow you say you picked up yesterday. How did he come there? Go aheadand spin your yarn."
"It wasn't exactly a shipwreck," explained Lester. "The boat wasn'tsmashed, and as a matter of fact we found it for Ross again to-day. Itwas a motor boat----"
"A motor boat!" interrupted Mr. Lee, with a sniff. He had the distrustfelt by most deep-water sailors, of what he called "these pesky moderncontraptions."
"Ross was tinkering with some part of the machinery that had gonewrong," continued Lester, "when a big wave caught him and carried himoverboard. We were near by at the time and we made for him and got him."
"Yanked him in with a boathook, I suppose," said his father.
"We were too late for that," answered Lester. "He had gone down, butFred grabbed a rope and dived over after him. It was a close call, buthe got him, and then we dragged them both in."
"A plucky thing to do in a storm like that," commented Mr. Lee, lookingapprovingly at Fred.
"Ross came to after a while, and we found that the only hurt he had wasthe water he had swallowed," went on Lester. "We couldn't do anythingwith the motor boat just then, so we made straight for Sentinel Cove.This morning, Montgomery was as good as ever."
Mr. Lee started slightly as he heard this name.
"Montgomery, did you say?" he asked. "I thought you called him Ross."
"Yes, Ross Montgomery. Why?"
"Nothing," was the reply. "Go ahead with your story."
"There isn't very much more to tell, as far as we're concerned. Weanchored at the cove for the night, and got away bright and early thismorning. But Ross himself had a story to tell that has got us all workedup. You'd never guess what it was, Dad, in a thousand years."
"I never was much good at guessing," smiled Mr. Lee, "so let's have itjust as he told it."
Lester started at the beginning and told the story as he had received itfrom Ross, with frequent suggestions from the other boys to remind himof some slight detail he had overlooked.
Mr. Lee listened intently, but he asked no questions, and for someminutes after Lester had finished he continued to smoke in silence,while the boys looked at him eagerly, anxious to know what he made ofit.
"Well, Dad," said Lester, a little impatiently, "what do you think ofthe story? Is there anything in it?"
"There's a great deal in it," replied Mr. Lee gravely, removing his pipefrom his mouth. "I believe every word of it is true."
The boys were delighted at this confirmation of their own feeling by amind more mature than theirs. They had been afraid that Mr. Lee wouldridicule the story, or throw cold water on their plan to go ahead andtry to find the treasure.
"I was perfectly sure that Ross was telling us the truth," jubilatedTeddy.
"I never doubted that for a minute," put in Bill, "but I thought hemight be building hope on a very slight foundation. After all, he has solittle to go on."
"Then you really think that there was a chest of gold and that smugglerstook it from Mr. Montgomery and buried it?" asked Fred.
"I think they took it from him, but I don't think they buried it,"answered Mr. Lee.
"What do you think they did with it; spent it?" asked Teddy in quickalarm.
"I don't think that either," was the reply. "I think they hid itsomewhere and that it's there yet."
"Oh!" said Fred, with a sigh of relief. "Then we still have a chance."
"Now, look here, Dad!" exclaimed Lester, "I can see by what you'resaying that you know more about this thing than we do. Don't tease us byacting in such a mysterious way. Come right out with it."
Mr. Lee laughed good-naturedly.
"You boys are always in a hurry," he remarked as he refilled his pipewith a deliberation that was maddening to his hearers. "But just let meget my pipe drawing well, and I'll tell you all I know. It isn't so muchafter all as maybe you think, but it may help to piece out a bit hereand there."
He settled himself comfortably in his seat and began:
"It was about nine or ten years ago--I don't remember the exactdate--that Mark Taylor was out fishing at a point about twenty milesfrom here."
"The Mark Taylor who lives in Milton?" inquired Lester.
"That was the one. He wasn't having very good luck, and had about madeup his mind to pull up and go home, when he caught sight of a littleboat tossing up and down on the waves. It didn't seem to be goinganywhere, and Mark could see that there was no one rowing or steeringit. He thought that was strange and made up his mind he'd look into thematter. So he ran up his sail and ran over to what he thought was theempty boat. He told me afterwards he was knocked all in a heap, when hesaw a man lying in the bottom of it.
"At first Mark thought the man was either dead or drunk. But therewasn't any smell of liquor on him, and he moved when Mark touched him.Mark saw that something serious was the matter, and he tried to get theman into his sailboat. But Mark didn't weigh more than a hundred andtwenty pounds, and this man was so big and so heavily built that he hadto give it up.
"So, leaving the man in it, he tied the small boat to the stern of his,and made a quick run for home. He took the man into his cabin and sentfor the doctor. The doctor examined the man carefully and found a biggash in his head that looked as though it had been made with a hatchet.He saw it hadn't reached a vital point, though, so he sewed it up andleft some medicine, promising to come again the next day.
"Mark said that the doctor had no sooner gone than the man began to raveand toss about. After a while he became violent, and Mark, being a smallman as I have said, had to call in some of the neighbors to hold himdown. He seemed to imagine that he was in a fight and that a crowd waspiling on him. And he kept talking about 'the gold' and 'the chest,' andvowing that they would never get it away from him."
A murmur ran around the listening circle.
"Mark didn't pay much attention to what he said," resumed Mr. Lee,"because he thought it was only the raving of a crazy man.
"Mark and the neighbors searched his clothes and found some papers thatshowed them the man's name was Montgomery. They found out, too, that helived in a place on the coast of Canada. They wrote to his folks rightaway, and a couple of men came down to take him home as soon as he wasable to travel.
"That wasn't for a good while, though, for Montgomery had come down withan attack of brain fever that kept him on his back for weeks. He gotover that at last, but his mind wasn't right. He wasn't violent anylonger but was melancholy. Went around all the time in a daze. Couldn'tget anything out of him, except that he kept muttering to himself about'the gold.' Sometimes, though, he'd speak of debts that seemed to worryhim. He couldn't carry on any connected conversation, and he'd get soexcited when any one tried to question him, that the doctor said theymust let him alone.
"He was taken away as soon as he was strong enough, and that's the lastMark ever saw of him. A little while later, the man's wife sent a littlemoney to Mark to cover his expenses in caring for her husband, and shesaid in her letter that he was no better. And from what you boys tell meto-day, he must have died soon after."
"Didn't he give any hint of where this fight and robbery had takenplace?" asked Fred.
"No, except that Mark says the man often spoke of Bartanet Shoals. Ofcourse, that may have meant something and it may have meant nothing.Still, judging from where the boat was found, it probably was somewherewithin fifty miles of here."
"Fifty miles," murmured Bill. "That's an awful lot of territory tocover."
"Wasn't there anything in the little boat to give a clue?" asked Teddy.
"Not a thing except that it had the name '_Ranger_' painted on thestern. That showed that it must have come from a large boat of thatname."
"Are you sure that Mark didn't tell you anything else that might give usa hint?" asked Lester. "Try to remember, Dad."
"Well," mused his father, "I didn't question him very much at the time,because I felt as he did, that it was just the foolish raving of a manwho was out of his head."
"How far is Milton from here?" questioned Bill.
"Only a matter of twenty-five miles or so," was the answer.
"We'll go over and see Mark the first chance we get," said Lesterdecidedly. "He may drop something when we put him through the thirddegree that may put us on the trail."
"That's a good idea," commented his father. "Mark's growing pretty oldnow and his memory isn't as good as it was, but he may remembersomething that will be of use. At any rate there's no harm in trying."
"We have something to work with now," said Fred cheerily. "We've beenable to check up Ross' story and know that he wasn't dreaming. Then,too, we have the name of the man who actually found Mr. Montgomery whenhe was set adrift, if that's the way he came into the open boat."
"But there must be more," persisted Lester. "What did you mean, Dad,when you said that the gold wasn't buried but that it was hidden?"
"You're right," admitted his father, "there is more that happened sometime later."
The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove; Or, The Missing Chest of Gold Page 10