“How?” says I.
“I’ll tell you when the time comes,” he says, “and that’ll be when it’s good and dark, and there’s just one man on guard.”
“Young man,” says Mr. Dunn, “you’re talking through your hat.”
“Maybe,” says Catty, “but you can hear my voice coming through it, can’t you?”
“What if the mutineers find the treasure before dark?” says I.
“Then,” says Catty, “we’re out of luck, and we’ll have to think up some plan to get it away from them.”
“Huh,” says Mr. Dunn, “I’ll say you’re not easily discouraged, anyhow. How do you think you could get a treasure away from that gang if they got their hands on it?”
“There’d be a way,” says Catty. “There’s always a way.”
We spent a mighty long day in that tent, and about as uncomfortable as I ever heard of. But it did get dark after a year or two. Of course we didn’t know what was going on outside, but we could tell one thing, and that was that the mutineers hadn’t found the treasure. If they had found it we should have heard all the hollering. Every little while during the day our guard came in to look us over, but he didn’t take much interest in it, because we were tied to the tent pole, and there wasn’t any chance of our getting away. After dark he came in once, and we all pretended to be trying to sleep, so he went outside and sat down with his back to the tent-flap. He acted like he was settled for half an hour, anyhow.
“Now’s the time,” says Catty.