“Oh, it’s a cigar box with a candle in it,” said Sammy. “It’s a dandy. I’ll get it.”
He hurried out of the cellar, and Tess and Dot waited for him up in the open, for the little girls did not like to stay in the gloomy place when they were not busy with their treasure hunting.
Sammy’s lantern, manufactured as he had said, out of a cigar box, with a hole cut in the lid and a square of glass set in, was not a half-bad illuminant. It gave fitful gleams down in the cellar, and, not much to the amusement of the children, cast fantastic shadows on the whitewashed walls.
“Now we’ll go away back where the dirt is soft and get the buried treasure,” said Tess.
And into the gloomy depths the children advanced, rather hesitatingly and with more than one glance back over their shoulders, it is true.
Meanwhile the older Corner House girls and Nally and their boy friends were enjoying themselves on the automobile trip. They went to a summer resort where there was a small lake, and soon were floating about in idle pleasure, a couple in each of three boats.
“Beautiful here, isn’t it?” asked Luke of Ruth. The boat was slowly drifting, beneath an overhanging arch of green branches.
“Very,” she agreed. “But——”
“But me no buts,” he quoted, laughingly. And then, as he noticed that she was rather serious he added: “I’ll double the proverbial penny.”
“For what?” she asked, hardly comprehending.