“Hold on, Cap’n Jack! In the map the zig-zag line stops at the tree. This one goes ever so much beyond.”
The Captain glared round upon the audacious Cornwallis, who dared gibe at his assertions. Then standing as upright as he could, he shouted:
“Now face that way—North, ain’t it? Right about—South! Yonder’s East, an’ t’other side’s West. I allows I knows the p’ints of the compass if I don’t know nothin’ else. I tell you, this is the spot. Right below our feet lies—lies—”
“The treasures of Golconda!” suggested the irreverent Corny. In the past he had held faith in this same “buried treasure,” but now to see so many other people so earnestly interested in it, changed the whole aspect for him.
But the doughty Captain, self-constituted master of ceremonies disdained to notice the “Ne’er-do-well” of the countryside and in stentorian tones, with his hands trumpet-wise before his mouth, he bellowed:
“Now, my hearties, dig! DIG!”
Each was armed with something to use, Jim had brought some of the engineering tools from the “Pad” and had distributed these among the boys. Ephraim had borrowed an old hoe from a farmer near by, Wicky had caught up a pick-axe from his own wagon—he had meant to leave it at his brother’s cabin but forgot; Chloe had seized a carving knife, and the others had spoons, table knives, or whatever came handiest. Only the Colonel and the Captain were without implements of some sort. Even the jesting Corny had seized the fallen branch of a tree and broken its end into the semblance of a tool. It was he who first observed the idleness of the two men most interested, and slapping Cap’n Jack upon the shoulder, ordered:
“Dig, my hearty! DIG!”
“I—I’m a—a cripple!” answered the sailor, with offended dignity; “and don’t you know, you Simple Simon, ’t they always has to be a head to everything? Well, I ’low as how I’m the head to this here v’yage, an’ I’ll spend my energy officerin’ this trip!”
Corny laughed. Now that all was well at his home in the fields he found the world the jolliest sort of place, and the “Lilies” the most interesting people in it. Then he turned upon the Colonel, sitting upon a soft hummock of weeds as near in shape to Billy’s restful back as possible.