XX
The night seemed to afford counsel, for the next day Cap'n Sproul walked into the dooryard of Colonel Gideon Ward with features composed to an almost startling expression of amiability. The Colonel, haunted by memories and stung by a guilty conscience, appeared at the door, and his mien indicated that he was prepared for instant and desperate combat.
At the end of a half-hour's discourse, wholly by the Cap'n, his face had lost a measure of its belligerency, but sullen fear had taken its place. For Cap'n Sproul's theme had been the need of peace and mutual confidence in families, forbearance and forgetfulness of injuries that had been mutual. The Cap'n explained that almost always property troubles were the root of family evils, and that as soon as property disputes were eliminated in his case, he at once had come to a realizing sense of his own mistakes and unfair attitude, and had come to make frank and manly confession, and to shake hands. Would the Colonel shake hands?
The Colonel shook hands apprehensively, bending back and ready to duck a blow. Would the Colonel consent to mutual forgiveness, and to dwell thereafter in bonds of brotherly affection? The Colonel had only voiceless stammerings for reply, which the Cap'n translated to his own satisfaction, and went away, casting the radiance of that startling amiability over his shoulder as he departed. Colonel Ward stared after the pudgy figure as long as it remained in sight, muttering his boding thoughts.
It required daily visits for a week to make satisfactory impress on the Colonel's mistrustful fears, but the Cap'n was patient. In the end, Colonel Ward, having carefully viewed this astonishing conversion from all points, accepted the amity as proof of the guileless nature of a simple seaman, and on his own part reciprocated with warmth—laying up treasures of friendship against that possible day of discovery and wrath that his guilty conscience suggested.
If Colonel Ward, striving to reciprocate, had not been so anxious to please Cap'n Sproul in all his vagaries he would have barked derisive laughter at the mere suggestion of the Captain Kidd treasure, to the subject of which the simple seaman aforesaid led by easy stages. The Colonel admitted that Mr. Bodge had located a well for him by use of a witch-hazel rod, but allowed that the buried-treasure proposition was too stiff batter for him to swallow. He did come at last to accept Cap'n Sproul's dictum that there was once a Captain Kidd, and that he had buried vast wealth somewhere—for Cap'n Sproul as a sailorman seemed to be entitled to the possession of authority on that subject. But beyond that point there was reservation that didn't fit with Cap'n Sproul's calculations.
"Blast his old pork rind!" confided the Cap'n to Hiram. "I can circle him round and round the pen easy enough, but when I try to head him through the gate, he just sets back and blinks them hog eyes at me and grunts. To get near him at all I had to act simple, and I reckon I've overdone it. Now he thinks I don't know enough to know that old Bodge is mostly whiskers and guesses. He's known Bodge longer'n I have, and Bodge don't seem to be right bait. I can't get into his wallet by first plan."
"It wasn't no kind of a plan, anyway," said Hiram, bluntly. "It wouldn't be stickin' him good and plenty enough to have Bodge unloaded onto him, just Bodge and northin' else done. 'Twasn't complicated enough."
"I ain't no good on complicated plots," mourned Cap'n Sproul.
"You see," insisted Hiram, "you don't understand dealin' with jay nature the same as I do. Takes the circus business to post you on jays. Once in a while they'll bite a bare hook, but not often. Jays don't get hungry till they see sure things. Your plain word of old Cap Kidd and buried treasure sounds good, and that's all. In the shell-game the best operator lets the edge of the shell rest on the pea carelesslike, as though he didn't notice it, and then joggles it down over as if by accident; and, honest, the jay hates to take the money, it looks so easy! In the candy-game there's nothing doin' until the jay thinks he catches you puttin' a twenty-dollar bill into the package. Then look troubled, and try to stop him from buyin' that package! You ain't done anything to show your brother-in-law that Bodge ain't a blank."
The Cap'n turned discouraged gaze on his friend. "I've got to give it up," he complained. "I ain't crook enough. He's done me, and I'll have to stay done."
Hiram tapped the ashes from his cigar, musingly surveyed his diamond ring, and at last said: "I ain't a butter-in. But any time you get ready to holler for advice from friends, just holler."
"I holler," said the Cap'n, dispiritedly.
"Holler heard by friends," snapped Hiram, briskly. "Friends all ready with results of considerable meditation. You go right over and tell your esteemed relative that you're organizin' an expedition to discover Cap Kidd's treasure, and invite him to go along as member of your family, free gratis for nothin', all bills paid, and much obleeged to him for pleasant company."
"Me pay the bills?" demanded the Cap'n.
"Money advanced for development work on Bodge, that's all! To be taken care of when Bodge is watered ready for sale. Have thorough understandin' with esteemed relative that no shares in Bodge are for sale. Esteemed relative to be told that any attempt on the trip to buy into Bodge will be considered fightin' talk. Bodge and all results from Bodge are yours, and you need him along—esteemed relative—to see that you have a square deal. That removes suspicion, and teases at the same time."
"Will he go?" asked Cap'n Sproul, anxiously.
"He will," declared Hiram, with conviction. "A free trip combined with a chance of perhaps doin' over again such an easy thing as you seem to be won't ever be turned down by Colonel Gideon Ward."
At nine o'clock that evening Cap'n Sproul knocked at Hiram Look's front door and stumped in eagerly. "He'll go!" he reported. "Now let me in on full details of plan."
"Details of plan will be handed to you from time to time as you need 'em in your business," said Hiram, firmly. "I don't dare to load you. Your trigger acts too quick."
"For a man that is handlin' Bodge, and is payin' all the bills, I don't seem to have much to do with this thing," grunted the Cap'n, sullenly.
"I'll give you something to do. To-morrow you go round town and hire half a dozen men—say, Jackson Denslow, Zeburee Nute, Brad Wade, Seth Swanton, Ferd Parrott, and Ludelphus Murray. Be sure they're all members of the Ancient and Honorable Firemen's Association."
"Hire 'em for what?"
"Treasure-huntin' crew. I'll go with you. I'm their foreman, and I can make them keep their mouths shut. I'll show you later why we'll need just those kind of men."
The Cap'n took these orders with dogged resignation.
"Next day you'll start with Bodge and charter a packet in Portland for a pleasure cruise—you needin' a sniff of salt air after bein' cooped up on shore for so long. Report when ready, and I'll come along with men and esteemed relative."
"It sounds almighty complicated for a plot," said the Cap'n. In his heart he resented Hiram's masterfulness and his secretiveness.
"This ain't no timber-land deal," retorted Hiram, smartly, and with cutting sarcasm. "You may know how to sail a ship and lick Portygee sailors, but there's some things that you can afford to take advice in."
On the second day Cap'n Sproul departed unobtrusively from Smyrna, with the radiant Mr. Bodge in a new suit of ready-made clothes as his seat-mate in the train.
Smyrna perked up and goggled its astonishment when Hiram Look shipped his pet elephant, Imogene, by freight in a cattle-car, and followed by next train accompanied by various tight-mouthed members of the Smyrna fire department and Colonel Gideon Ward.
Cap'n Sproul had the topmast schooner Aurilla P. Dobson handily docked at Commercial Wharf, and received his crew and brother-in-law with cordiality that changed to lowering gloom when Hiram followed ten minutes later towing the placid Imogene, and followed by a wondering concourse of men and boys whom his triumphal parade through the streets from the freight-station had attracted. With a nimbleness acquired in years of touring the elephant came on board.
Cap'n Sproul gazed for a time on this unwieldy passenger, surveying the arrival of various drays laden with tackle, shovels, mysterious boxes, and baled hay, and then took Hiram aside, deep discontent wrinkling his forehead.
"I know pretty well why you wanted Gid Ward along on the trip. I've got sort of a dim idea why you invited the Hecly fire department; and perhaps you know what we're goin' to do with all that dunnage on them trucks. But what in the devil you're goin' to do with that cust-fired old elephant—and she advertisin' this thing to the four corners of God's creation—well, it's got my top-riggin' snarled."
"Sooner you get your crew to work loadin', sooner you'll get away from sassy questions," replied Hiram, serenely, wagging his head at the intrusive crowd massing along the dock's edge. And the Cap'n, impressed by the logic of the advice, and stung by the manner in which Hiram had emphasized "sassy questions," pulled the peak of his cap over his eyes, and became for once more in his life the autocrat of the quarter-deck.
An hour later the packet was sluggishly butting waves with her blunt bows in the lower harbor, Cap'n Sproul hanging to the weather-worn wheel, and roaring perfectly awful profanity at the clumsy attempts of his makeshift crew.
"I've gone to sea with most everything in the line of cat-meat on two legs," he snarled to Hiram, who leaned against the rail puffing at a long cigar with deep content, "but I'll be billy-hooed if I ever saw six men before who pulled on the wrong rope every time, and pulled the wrong way on every wrong rope. You take them and—and that elephant," he added, grimly returning to that point of dispute, "and we've got an outfit that I'm ashamed to have the Atlantic Ocean see me in company with."
"Don't let that elephant fuss you up," said Hiram, complacently regarding Imogene couched in the waist.
"But there ain't northin' sensible you can do with her."
Hiram cocked his cigar pertly.
"A remark, Cap'n Sproul, that shows you need a general manager with foresight like me. When you get to hoistin' dirt in buckets she'll be worth a hundred dollars an hour, and beat any steam-winch ever operated."
Again the Cap'n felt resentment boil sourly within him. This doling of plans and plot to him seemed to be a reflection on his intelligence.
"Reckon it's buried deep, do you?" inquired Colonel Ward, a flavor of satiric skepticism in his voice. He was gazing quizzically forward to where Mr. Bodge sat on the capstan's drumhead, his nose elevated with wistful eagerness, his whiskers flapping about his ears, his eyes straight ahead.
"It's buried deep," said Hiram, with conviction. "It's buried deep, because there's a lot of it, and it was worth while to bury it deep. A man like Cap Kidd wa'n't scoopin' out a ten-foot hole and buryin' a million dollars and goin' off and leavin' it to be pulled like a pa'snip by the first comer."
"A million dollars!" echoed the Colonel.
"Northin' less! History says it. There was a lot of money flyin' around the world in them days, and Cap Kidd knew how to get holt of it. The trouble is with people, Colonel, they forget that there was a lot of gold in the world before the 'Forty-niners' got busy."
"But Bodge," snorted the Colonel. "He—"
"Certain men for certain things," declared Hiram, firmly. "Most every genius is more or less a lunatic. It needed capital to develop Bodge. It's takin' capital to make Bodge and his idea worth anything. This is straight business run on business principles! Bodge is like one of them dirt buckets, like a piece of tackle, like Imogene there. He's capitalized."
"Well, he gets his share, don't he?" asked Colonel Ward, his business instinct at the fore.
"Not by a blame sight," declared Hiram, to the Cap'n's astonished alarm. "It would be like givin' a dirt bucket or that elephant a share."
When the Cap'n was about to expostulate, Hiram kicked him unobserved and went on: "I'm bein' confidential with you, Colonel, because you're one of the family, and of course are interested in seein' your brother-in-law make good. Who is takin' all the resks? The Cap'n. Bodge is only a hired man. The Cap'n takes all profits. That's business. But of course it's between us."
When Colonel Ward strolled away in meditative mood the Cap'n made indignant remonstrance.
"Ain't I got trouble enough on my hands with them six Durham steers forrads to manage without gettin' into a free fight with old Bodge?" he demanded. "There ain't any treasure, anyway. You don't believe it any more'n I do."
"You're right!" assented Hiram.
"But Bodge believes it, and when it gets to him that' we're goin' to do him, you can't handle him any more'n you could a wild hyeny!"
"When you hollered for my help in this thing," said the old showman, boring the Cap'n with inexorable eye, "you admitted that you were no good on complicated plots, and put everything into my hands. It will stay in my hands, and I don't want any advice. Any time you want to operate by yourself put me and Imogene ashore and operate."
For the next twenty-four hours the affairs of the Aurilla P. Dobson were administered without unnecessary conversations between the principals.
On the afternoon of the second day Mr. Bodge, whom no solicitation could coax from his vigil on the capstan, broke his trance.
"That's the island," he shouted, flapping both hands to mark his choice. It wasn't an impressive islet. There were a few acres of sand, some scraggy spruces, and a thrusting of ledge.
Mr. Bodge was the first man into the yawl, sat in its bow, his head projected forward like a whiskered figurehead, and was the first on the beach.
"He's certainly the spryest peg-legger I ever saw," commented Hiram, admiringly, as the treasure-hunter started away, his cow's-horn divining-rod in position. The members of Hecla fire department, glad to feel land under their country feet once more, capered about on the beach, surveying the limited attractions with curious eyes. Zeburee Nute, gathering seaweed to carry home to his wife, stripped the surface of a bowlder, and called excited attention to an anchor and a cross rudely hacked into the stone.
"It's old Cap Kidd's mark," whispered Hiram to Colonel Ward. And with keen gaze he noted the Colonel's tongue lick his blue lips, and saw the gold lust beginning to gleam in his eyes.
Hiram was the only one who noted this fact: that, concealed under more seaweed, there was a date whose modernity hinted that the inscription was the work of some loafing yachtsman.
As he rose from his knees he saw Mr. Bodge pause on a hillock, arms rigidly akimbo, the point of the cow's horn directed straight down.
"I've found it!" he squealed. "It's here! Come on, come one, come all and dig, for God sakes!"
The excitement of those first few hours was too much for the self-control of Colonel Gideon Ward's avaricious nature. He hesitated a long time, blinking hard as each shovelful of dirt sprayed against the breeze. Then he grasped an opportunity when he could talk with Cap'n Sproul apart, and said, huskily:
"It's still all guesswork and uncertain, and you stand to lose a lot of expense. I know I promised not to talk business with you, but couldn't you consider a proposition to stand in even?"
The Cap'n glared on him severely.
"Do you think it's a decent proposition to step up to me and ask me to sell you gold dollars for a cent apiece? When you came on this trip you understood that Bodge was mine, and that he and this scheme wa'n't for sale. Don't ever mention it again or you and me'll have trouble."
And Colonel Ward went back to watch the digging, angry, lusting, and disheartened.
The next day the hole was far enough advanced to require the services of Imogene as bucket-lifter. That docile animal obligingly swam ashore, to the great admiration of all spectators.
On that day it was noted first that gloom was settling on the spirits of Mr. Bodge. The gloom dated from a conversation held very privately the evening before between Mr. Bodge and Colonel Ward.
Mr. Bodge, pivoting on his peg-leg, stood at the edge of the deepening hole with a doleful air that did not accord with his enthusiastic claims as a treasure-hunter. That night he had another conference with Colonel Ward, and the next day he stood beside the hole and muttered constantly in the confidential retirement of his whiskers. On the third day he had a murderous look in his eyes every time he turned them in the direction of Cap'n Sproul. On the night of the fourth day Hiram detected him hopping softly on bare foot across the cabin of the Dobson toward the stateroom of Cap'n Sproul. He carried his unstrapped peg-leg in his hand, holding it as he would a weapon. Detected, he explained to Hiram with guilty confusion that he was walking in his sleep. The next night, at his own request, he was left alone on the island, where he might indulge in the frailty of somnambulism without danger to any one.
Colonel Ward, having missed his usual private conference with Mr. Bodge that night, and betraying a certain uneasiness on that account, gobbled a hurried breakfast, took the dingy, and went ashore alone.
Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look, stepping from the yawl upon the beach a half-hour later, saw the Colonel's gaunt frame outlined against the morning sun. He was leaning over the hole, hands on his knees, and appeared to be very intently engaged.
"There's something underhanded going on here, and I propose to find out what it is," growled the Cap'n.
"Noticed it, have you?" inquired Hiram, cheerfully.
"I notice some things that I don't talk a whole lot about."
"I'm glad you have," went on Hiram, serenely overlooking a possible taunt regarding his own reticence. "It's a part of the plot, and plot aforesaid is now ripe enough to be picked. Or, to put it another way, I figger that the esteemed relative has bit and has swallered the hook."
"Ain't it about time I got let in on this?" demanded the Cap'n, with heat.
With an air as though about to impart a vital secret, Hiram grasped the Cap'n's arm and whispered: "I'll tell you just what you've got to do to make the thing go. You say 'Yes' when I tell you to."
Then he hurried up the hill, Cap'n Sproul puffing at his heels and revolving venomous thoughts.
It was a deep hole and a gloomy hole, but when the two arrived at the edge they could see Mr. Bodge at the bottom. His peg-leg was unstrapped, and he held it clutched in both hands and brandished it at them the moment their heads appeared over the edge.
"And there you be, you robber!" he squalled. "You would pick cents off'm, a dead man's eyes, and bread out of the mouths of infants." He stopped his tirade long enough to suck at the neck of a black bottle.
"Come on! Come one, come all!" he screamed. "I'll split every head open. I'll stay here till I starve. Ye'll have to walk over my dead body to get it."
"Well, he's good and drunk, and gone crazy into the bargain," snorted the Cap'n, disgustedly.
"It's a sad thing," remarked Colonel Ward, his little, hard eyes gleaming with singular fires, and trying to compose his features. "I'm afraid of what may happen if any one tries to go down there."
"I'll come pretty near to goin' down into my own hole if I want to," blurted the Cap'n.
"I'll kill ye jest so sure's hell's a good place to thaw plumbin'," cried Mr. Bodge. "I've got ye placed. You was goin' to steal my brains. You was goin' to suck Bodge dry and laugh behind his back. You're an old thief and liar."
"There's no bald-headed old sosh that can call me names—not when I can stop it by droppin' a rock on his head," stated the Cap'n with vigor.
"You don't mean to say you'd hurt that unfortunate man?" inquired Colonel Ward. "He has gone insane, I think. He ought to be treated gently. I probably feel different about it than either of you, who are comparative strangers in Smyrna. But I've always known Eleazar Bodge, and I should hate to see any harm come to him. As it is, his brain has been turned by this folly over buried treasure." The Colonel tried to speak with calmness and dignity, but his tones were husky and his voice trembled. "Perhaps I can handle him better than any of the rest of you. I was talkin' with him when you came up."
"You all go away and leave me with Colonel Gid Ward," bawled Bodge. "He's the only friend I've got in the world. He'll be good to me."
"It's pretty bad business," commented Hiram, peering down into the pit with much apprehension.
"It's apt to be worse before it's over with," returned the Colonel.
And, catching a look in Hiram's eyes that seemed to hint at something, he called the showman aside.
"I can't talk with my brother-in-law," he began. "He seems to get very impatient with me when we try to talk business. But I've got a proposition to make, and perhaps I can make it through you."
Then, seeing that the Cap'n was bending malevolent gaze on them, he drew Hiram farther away, and they entered into spirited colloquy.
"It's this way," reported the showman, returning at last to the Cap'n, and holding him firmly by the coat lapel. "As you and I have talked it, you've sort of got cold feet on this treasure proposition." This was news to the Cap'n, but his eyelids did not so much as quiver. "Here you are now up against a man that's gone crazy and that's threatenin' to kill you, and may do so if you try to do more business with him. Colonel Ward says he's known him a good many years, and pities him in his present state, and, more than that, has got sort of interested in this Cap Kidd treasure business himself, and has a little money he'd like to spend on it—and to help Mr. Bodge. Proposition by Colonel Ward is that if you'll step out and turn over Mr. Bodge and this hole to him just as it stands he'll hand you his check now for fifteen thousand dollars, and"—the showman hastened to stop the Cap'n's amazed gasping by adding decisively—"as your friend and general manager of this expedition, and knowin' your feelin's pretty well, I've accepted and herewith hand you check. Members of Hecla fire company will please take notice of trade. Do I state it right, Colonel Ward?"
The Colonel, with high color mantling his thin cheeks, affirmed hoarsely.
"And, bein' induced to do this mostly out of regard for Mr. Bodge, he thinks it's best for us to sail away so that Mr. Bodge can calm himself. We'll send a packet from Portland to take 'em off. They would like to stay here and prospect for a few days. Right, Colonel Ward?"
The Colonel affirmed once more.
Casting one more look into the hole, another at his inexplicable brother-in-law, and almost incredulous gaze at the check in his hand, Cap'n Sproul turned and marched off down the hill. He promptly went on board, eager to get that check as far away from its maker as possible.
It was an hour later before he had opportunity of a word with Hiram, who had just finished the embarkation of Imogene.
"My Gawd, Hiram!" he gasped, "how did you skin this out of him?"
"I could have got twenty-five thousand just as quick," replied the showman. "You take a complicated plot like that, and when it does get ripe it's easy pickin'. When old Dot-and-carry got to pokin' around in that hole this mornin' and come upon the chist bound with iron, after scrapin' away about a foot of dirt, he jest naturally concluded he'd rather be equal partners with Colonel Gid Ward than be with you what I explained he was to the Colonel."
"Chist bound with iron?" demanded the Cap'n.
"Cover of old planks that Ludelphus and I patched up with strap iron down in the hold and planted after dark last night. Yes, sir, with old Bodge standin' there as he was to-day, and reportin' to Ward what he had under foot, I could have got ten thousand more out of esteemed relative. But I reckoned that fifteen thousand stood for quite a lot of profit on timber lands."
The Cap'n gazed aloft to see that the dingy canvas of the Dobson was drawing, and again surveyed the check.
"I reckon I'll cash it in before makin' any arrangements to send a packet out after 'em," he remarked.
After a few moments of blissful contemplation he said, with a little note of regret in his voice: "I wish you had let me know about that plankin'. I'd have liked to put a little writin' under it—something sarcastic, that they could sort of meditate on when they sit there in that hole and look at each other.
"It was certainly a complicated plot," he went on. "And it had to be. When you sell a bunch of whiskers and a hole in the ground for fifteen thousand dollars, it means more brain-work than would be needed in selling enough gold bricks to build a meetin'-house."
And with such and similar gratulatory communings they found their setting forth across the sunlit sea that day an adventuring full of rich contentment.