CHAPTER XXXVII—THAT MYSTERIOUS PAPER AGAIN
We started away from that reunion at about five o’clock at night and everybody was sorry to see us go. Those scouts, and the Uncle Tom’s Cabin people, and a lot of old veterans, all crowded around us to say good-by. They said we were a wide-awake bunch, but if they could have seen us about four hours later they wouldn’t have said so.
We made a camp alongside the road, and I cooked supper, and then most of us slept in the van. While we were sitting around our camp-fire, Brent took out that mysterious paper that he had found in the scarecrow’s pocket, and he kind of winked at Harry as if he was going to spring a great surprise on us. He looked awful funny in the light of the fire; just like a real live scarecrow—I mean a dead one.
He said, “Scouts of the victorious legion, while we are resting after the bloody battle of Grumpy’s Cross-roads, I have a dark communication to make to you. Excuse me while I get in a better light.”
“I thought you said it was a dark communication,” Pee-wee shouted.
Brent said, “Well, it’s a kind of a dim communication. Only two scouts and our trusty leader know about it. They have kept their lips sealed. I wish now, by the light of this camp-fire, to ask you one and all, if you are ready to undertake an enterprise that is fraught with mortal peril?”
“Is it fraught with anything to eat?” Will Dawson wanted to know.
“Isn’t mortal peril good enough for you?” Pee-wee shouted.
Gee whiz, some fellows are never satisfied.
Brent said, “Comrades, when I put an end to the career of that miserable scarecrow and, with a single stroke, made millions of crows happy, I found in the pocket of his frock-coat a mysterious paper. More than that, I know who that frock-coat belonged to before he had it. It belonged to Deacon Snookbeck of Barrow’s Homestead! Ha, ha,—and a couple of he, he’s!”
“Read the paper!” they all began shouting,
He said, “Silence. While traveling with Scout Harris, and patrol leader Blakeley, I met a stranger who told us that several years ago Deacon Snookbeck had two mysterious visitors in his house. Whether this paper that I am about to read to you has any connection with those strangers, I cannot say. I am not skilled in high grade mysteries, being only a plain, ordinary burglar and thug——”
“You larcenied!” Pee-wee shouted.
Brent put his hand on his forehead and said, awful funny, “Don’t remind me of my crimes.”
“Read the paper,” Rossie Bent said.
So then Brent read the paper, and I have to admit that it sounded pretty mysterious and I guess, after all his fooling, that he thought so himself.
Snake Creek, North shore from Ohio R. to Skeleton Cove. Top of S Cove. Follow line due north from willow. Cons to west. Stake. Measure ninety-two feet along north line, then follow line due NW through T.W. Stake. Treasure at HW limit, indicated at AN Stake. Follow S line south to pie.
Good night, you should have heard the fellows when he finished reading. I mean you couldn’t have heard them, because nobody said anything; they all just sat there gaping.
Then Brent said, awful funny, he said, “It seems, scouts, that by following S line south we shall come to a pie. Whether it is a pumpkin pie or a mince pie I cannot say——”
Harry kind of cut him off short and said, “Brent, putting all fooling aside, now that you read that paper over, it sounds pretty good to me.”
“I was always fond of pie,” Brent said.
Harry said, “Well, I was always fond of buried treasure and that paper has the true ring to me, hanged if it hasn’t. Skeleton Cove sounds as if it meant business. So does ‘treasure at HW limit’ I like the sound of that. I never gave two thoughts to that paper until just now when you read it, but I’m hanged if I don’t think it means something. What do you say, Tom Slade?”
Tom said in that slow way of his, “It’s got the word treasure in, that’s sure.”
Then Brent said with a sober face, “As an expert, Pee-wee, what would you say? Is a pie a treasure?”
“Good night,” I said, “he’s buried enough pies, he ought to know.”
“It means buried treasure, that’s what it means!” Pee-wee shouted. “And I’m with Harry; I say let’s go and find it.”
“Where?” Brent said.
“You said we could get a map,” the kid shouted.
All the fellows were with Harry; they were just crazy to go after that treasure. Tom Slade didn’t say much, but he never does. I went around to the side of the fire where he was sitting and I said, “You were always so crazy about adventures; what do you think it means if it doesn’t mean buried treasure?”
“I haven’t got anything to say,” he said; “it’s got the word treasure in it, and that settles it. I say let’s go, if we can find the place.”
I shouted, “Tom Slade is with us, he believes in it. I say let’s go after it.”
Harry was sitting on the back end of the van, swinging his legs and looking in the fire. I knew his thoughts were kind of serious, all right. He’s crazy about adventures, that fellow is. Brent took my scout knife and held it between his teeth and glared into the fire, very fierce and savage, just like a pirate. He did it to make Harry mad. But all the fellows were with Harry, anyway, and they were all crazy about the thing—even I was crazy.
Harry said, all the while looking into the fire kind of dreamy like, he said, “Brent, why may not this be true?”
Brent said, “You mean the Pirates’ Secret or the Mystery of the Hidden Pie?”
“Don’t you mind him,” Pee-wee shouted to Harry; “he’s a Philippine!”
“That’s just what you are, Brent,” Harry said; “you’re a Philistine. You have no romance. Just because you live in the twentieth century you think nothing can happen. But the world war happened, didn’t it? You have it from a man you met that two mysterious strangers visited the old gent who once owned that coat. You found this paper; in that coat—didn’t you?”
Brent said, “Alas, yes.”
Harry said, “Well, you can laugh——”
Brent said, “I’m not laughing, I’m weeping and gnashing my teeth; that’s true sixteenth century stuff, isn’t it?”
“Well, how do you explain the writing on that paper, then?” Harry wanted to know.
“Sure, how do you explain it, then?” Westy piped up.
“He can’t explain it,” Tom Warner shouted.
“Sure he can’t!” Pee-wee yelled.
Brent said, “I seem to have an overwhelming minority.”
Harry said, “You’re always shouting about real adventures, but when we stumble on the real thing, when we’re told on black and white to follow a line due north from willow—what does that say?”
“It says follow a line due north from willow,” Brent said, all the while reading the paper. “It says cons to the west. It says stake; I don’t know whether it’s a porterhouse or a sirloin. It may be a Hamburger. It says by following the S line south we’ll come to the pie.”
Harry jumped down and looked over Brent’s shoulder and he said, “What does it say about the treasure? We’ll find it at HW limit—there it is on black and white. Boys, we’ll get a map in Indianapolis and find out where Snake Creek is if we have to study that map all night. We’re on the track of pirates’ gold, by thunder! Here’s a real adventure handed to us by fate! If old Grouch Gaylong isn’t with us, we’ll send him home in a baby carriage, that’s what!”
Brent said—gee whiz, I had to laugh the way he said it; he said, “Comrades, I will follow where you lead. Take me to the treasure and I will dig it up. But if that scarecrow has deceived me, I will never trust man again. As a criminal I have been a failure. I wanted to escape from cruel jailers, I escaped from two boy scouts. I wanted to plunge from the window of a dry goods van. I wanted to kill a fellow being; I murdered a scarecrow. My life has been a failure.”
Gee whiz; honest I almost felt sorry for him.
He said, “But I have not lost hope. Boys, I will go with you. I will follow the line north from the willow. I will measure ninety-two feet along something-or-other. I will follow the S line south to the pie, be it pumpkin, apple or mince. I will eat the stake. But if I am deceived, if my hopes are again dashed——”
“We’ll send you to the insane asylum,” Harry said; “that’s where you belong.”
Brent said, “I have always longed to be thrown into a mad-house.”
Gee whiz, you can’t help laughing at that fellow.