XXIX—THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
Brent said, “Well, as long as you like my little mystery, we might as well take a peep into it. We may have a couple of hairbreadth escapes, you never can tell. By rights, we ought to quarrel over the treasure after we have found it, and all kill each other. That’s the way they usually do.”
“They don’t do that way any more,” Pee-wee said; “they divide it up.”
Brent said, “No, I insist on quarreling over it.”
He folded the paper and put it back in his pocket. It seemed funny for a paper like that to be in an old black frock coat like ministers wear. I had to laugh at Brent on account of the sober way he tucked it back into the pocket.
I said, “It’s got me interested, that’s one sure thing. But how are we going to find out where that place is?”
He said, “Well, the proper way would be for us just to fit out an expedition and go in search of it like old what’s-his-name who hunted for the soda fountain down in Florida.”
Pee-wee said, “Ponce de Leon, he hunted for the Fountain of Youth.”
“But the best way,” Brent said, “if you’re really interested, is for us to get hold of a map of the Ohio River when we hit Indianapolis. We cross the Ohio at Wheeling and if that old creek is anywhere in our neighborhood we’ll see if we can hoe up a few nuggets. That’s the proper thing, isn’t it—nuggets?”
“Nuggets and pieces of eight,” Pee-wee said, very serious.
Brent said that we had enough on our minds then, with the Uncle Tom’s Cabin people and the Veterans’ Reunion, and that we’d better get along, especially as Harry with the van had almost caught up to us.
But one more thing happened before we got very far from Barrow’s Homestead, and it threw some light on the mystery—that’s what Pee-wee said. A man in a pair of overalls came along the road and Brent stopped to ask him a couple of questions. While the machine was standing there, the van passed us. Gee, there were a lot of people in it and on it and all over.
Harry said, “Do you want us to tow you? Come on, hurry up, you’ll be late for the show. We’ve got Sherman’s march through Georgia beat a hundred ways.”
Brent said, “Don’t bother us, we’re chasing after nuggets.” Then he said to the man, “You don’t happen to know who owns that land beyond the marsh down at the other end of town, do you? Before you get to the Post Office? There’s a big cornfield there.”
I whispered to Pee-wee, “Keep your mouth shut, now, and don’t tell him about good turns.”
The man said, “Yer mean swamp acres? That’s part o’ th’ old Deacon Snookbeck place.”
Brent said, “Yes. Who’s he?”
“Wa’l, he ain’t,” the man said, “but he was. Th’ best thing I can say abaout that ole codger is, he’s dead.”
Brent rested his arms on the steering wheel and talked kind of careless, sort of. He said, “I was just wondering if the place was for sale. So he was a queer ole codger, the deacon, hey?”
The man said, “Yes, en’ more’n that as I’ve heared tell. I guess young Snookbeck ain’t calc’latin’ on sellln’ th’ place. I reckon nobody raound these parts is wantin’ ter buy it, neither. Yer see thar was a kind of a mystery ’baout ole Ebenezer. Some folks even say his haouse is haunted by a chap he murdered. But I reckon he wasn’ as bad as all that.”
Oh, boy, you should have seen Pee-wee! He just sat there staring, his eyes as big as dinner plates. He didn’t say a word, only just stared.
Brent said, “House of mystery, hey? The Frock-coated Villyan! That would be a good name for a photoplay, huh?”
That man leaned his elbow on the side of the car and said, kind of friendly like, as if we were special friends of his, he said, “Wa’l, ’baout, let’s see, nigh onter ten year ago, thar was a couple of young chaps wearin’ khaki like you chaps, come out this way en they wuz rootin’ raound on th’ deacon’s farm. They weren’t plantin’, that was sure; and they weren’t no farm hands. Nobody seemed jest able ter find out ezactly what they were, ’cause they never talked ter nobody. Aunt Josie Anne, daown th’ road a piece, asked one uv ’em who he thought he was. He said he thought he was Santa Claus, but he wasn’ sure. They wuz kind o’ comics, both uv ’em. Wa’l, I ain’t ashamed ter tell no man who I am.”
Brent said, “You’re right,” just sort of to encourage him to talk.
The man said, “Wa’l, they stayed at th’ deacon’s house ’n’ one night they wuz out with a lantern in the middle of the night, under the big tree near th’ deacon’s haouse. Steub Berry, he ’laowed they wuz buryin’ treasure thar. Some folks had it them two strangers wuz Mexican spies ’n’ others reckoned they wuz army deserters. Th’ ole deacon, he jes’ laughed and said we couldn’ guess. He wouldn’ deny nuthin’. All of a sudden, ker-bang, they disappeared jes’ like that ’n’ some folks said th’ deacon murdered both uv ’em ter git th’ treasure. My wife, she allus had it, they come off some ranch or other with a lot uv stealin’s. Wa’l, ’twas a nine days’ wonder ’n arter that folks kinder fought shy of th’ deacon.”
Brent said, “And he’s dead now?”
“Oh, deader’n a mummy,” the man said. “When the world war come some folks said as haow that pair might a been German spies all th’ while, kind uv studying ’raound. But young Snookbeck he says if old Ebenezer had anything hid it would be in his Bible, en’ ’s long ’s ’tain’t thar, ’tain’t nowhere. But that’s treasure hid somewhere, I say, ’cause them wuz mighty funny doin’s of them strangers. Yer goin’ ter th’ reunion over t’ ’he Cross-roads?”