He was holding a second coin in his hand, the exact duplicate, so far as they could see, of the first one.
"Must grow here in flocks!" exclaimed Phil; "let's see if we can dig up a whole bunch of 'em, boys!" But although they all started digging with the toes of their shoes, no more shining coins came to light; and it began to look as if Bobolink had been fortunate enough to pick up all there were.
Paul closely examined the two bright quarters.
"If those are queer ones then they'd fool me all right, let me tell you!" declared Bobolink.
"I never saw better in my life," Paul admitted.
The boys were looking pretty serious by now. It began to seem as though that guess made by one of their number could not have been so wide of the mark as at the time some of them believed. Here was pretty strong evidence that these men were engaged in manufacturing spurious coins.
Ought they to consider they had gone far enough, and give up the exploration of the island, returning home to sound the alarm, and send word to the authorities, so that these men might be trapped as they worked?
Paul was tempted to consider that his duty lay that way. Still, there were some things that puzzled him, and made him hesitate before concluding to follow that idea.
Why should they keep the forge out here in the open, when some shelter would seem to be the proper thing, if, as the scouts now believed, they were using the fire to smelt metals, and blend them to the proper consistency for the bad coins?
That was something that puzzled Paul greatly. It caused him to look around in the neighborhood of the forge, in the hope that he might pick up some other clue.