“Were you spying on us, Bobby Blake?” he inquired in a hard voice. “I know you were!” he exclaimed, before Bobby could say a word in his own defense. “How much did you hear? Come now, out with it!”
“Well, I heard about everything you said,” admitted Bobby, with no attempt to wriggle out of his unpleasant position. “I heard you talking about some kind of a treasure ship. But that’s no more than Takyak hinted to us himself a long time ago. I wasn’t spying on you, anyway. I was dozing here, and your voices woke me up. How could I know that you two would be talking over a secret in this part of the ship?”
The captain seemed half convinced, but he still regarded Bobby with a look of sullen suspicion.
“The damage is done, now, and there’s no use crying over it,” he said at length. “How much of this do your friends suspect?”
“Pretty near the whole thing,” said Bobby, frankly. “Although, of course, it’s only been guesswork up to now,” he added.
“Well, I don’t want a word of this to get to the crew,” went on the captain. “If they once got the idea in their heads that we were after treasure, there’s no telling what they might do. Tell your friends to keep their own counsel, and see that you do the same. If word of it gets about, I’ll know where to place the blame.”
“You can be sure we won’t say anything about it,” answered Bobby. “Don’t forget we’re not on this boat because we want to be. We’d be only too happy if you’d put us on some homeward-bound vessel.”
“Well, maybe I will,” said Captain Garrish, but in his heart he had now no such intention. He had meant to before, as he was anxious to have the boys off his vessel, but now he resolved to keep them aboard at all costs. If he let them go, they might tell others of the treasure, and he knew how quickly such news flies about. When Bobby learned the secret, the last chance that he and his friends had of getting back home disappeared, although neither he nor they realized it at the time.
The old Eskimo, now that they had learned something of his secret, became more friendly and even gave them details of the information that he claimed to possess. He told them that there was a vessel stranded on the shore of his northland country and that from it his people got gold for ornaments and for use at the trading stations.
They had no idea of its real value, however, nor had he had until he ventured into the land of the white man. Here he had come to learn the immense value of the gold that lay practically useless in his far northern homeland, and he had conceived the idea of getting up an expedition and going in search of it.