Before his mother could interpose further objections, Bob immediately began a long description of the advantages of an outing on the shores of Perdido Bay.
“You know what the doctor told us,” he added. “He said exercise was no good unless it comes in the form of pleasure—something you want to do. I never had a chance to get this sort of fun, with boys. And everything we’ll do is something I’ve wanted to do all my life.”
Then he explained the natural wonders of the bay on which the Anclote Club had its house. Next followed the tales of pirates who had infested the wide silver sheet. There, only in the preceding century, the buccaneers of the gulf had made rendezvous and thereabout lurked the legends of buried gold and lost treasure. Never an ancient oak upon Perdido’s shores but what had, in Bob’s fervid imagination, tangled within its gnarled roots, the possibilities of iron crusted strong boxes.
“I’m not really going to look for old Spanish pieces-of-eight or gold doubloons,” explained Bob, “but I’d like to go where people have looked for them. I can imagine the rest,” he added laughing.
“This is where we get off,” smiled Mrs. Balfour. But Bob had made his point. After luncheon when his mother again revived the subject of the club, Bob tempered her objections to it with an account of Jerry Blossom. But he did not remind her that at three o’clock, he was to meet the boys to hear the verdict as to his eligibility.
When the hour for Mrs. Balfour’s afternoon nap approached, she suggested to Bob that he write a letter to his father. His room adjoined hers. When the dutiful son heard breathing indicating that his mother was asleep, the letter came to a sudden termination. As soon as Bob knew that his mother was asleep, he concluded:
“But it is too hot to write more to-day. Please send me another five dollars. Your obedient son, Robert.”
Then, eager to be at Tom Allen’s home on time, he made his way quietly downstairs and was off for Zaragossa Street. When he found it was only a little after two o’clock, he idled along in front of the main shops. Within the window of a book store, he saw a map of the gulf coast. Examining a map wasn’t reading, so he went in, purchased a copy of the chart, and, finding a dusty chair in a half lighted corner of the shop, he fell to studying the bays, sounds, islands and river mouths of the coast round about Pensacola.
The scene of all his present dreams, Perdido Bay, was about as regular as a splash of gravy on a hot plate. To reach it by sea, one had to sail across the corner of Pensacola Bay, around the point of Santa Rosa Island, and then, about ten miles to the twisting mouth of the bay. Bob’s heart throbbed with excitement at the thought of the possibilities in store for him. Then he recalled himself—he remembered Mac Gregory.