“Hardly; and to prove it to you, I will tell you a little circumstance. You perhaps remember that during the war the steamer Ruth was burned, having on board about four and a half millions of dollars, intended for the payment of the troops stationed along the river. She was supposed to have been set on fire by some members of the rebel secret service; but when it got abroad that the money was all lost, people began to accuse the paymasters who had charge of it with being in some way mixed up with its disappearance. Everybody knows that when a Mississippi river steamer gets on fire she burns like so much paper; but still there were those who thought that the money might have been brought off. Why didn’t the paymasters—there were four of them, and that would have been just about a million apiece—save it while they were saving themselves? There were plenty of soldiers to guard it, and why didn’t some of them catch it up and swim ashore with it? It could have been easily done, so people said, and the fact that it was not done started the story that the money was not on board the Ruth at all—the paymasters had pocketed it, and burned the boat to cover its loss.
“About this time it so happened that our chief went to St. Louis alone after money; but having forgotten the draft, he telegraphed to me to bring it up to him. I left Cairo on Sunday afternoon, and not being able to make connections at Odin, was obliged to stop over until the next morning. The only hotel in the town being full, the proprietor put me into a room with a gentleman in citizen’s clothes, who had in his possession a cigar box which he handled as carefully as if it had been a torpedo. Having so valuable a piece of paper about me, I was, of course, somewhat particular as to the company I kept. I was naturally anxious to know something about my room-mate, and a reference to the hotel register showed me that he was an army paymaster. Of course, I felt perfectly safe in his presence after I found that out. I scraped an acquaintance with him, and he turned out to be one of the paymasters who was on board the Ruth when she was burned. Before we retired he showed me the contents of his box. It was the charred remains of a package of greenbacks which he had recovered from the wreck, and which he was taking to Washington to prove to the authorities there that the money had really been destroyed.”
“Did he tell you why it was not saved?” asked Eugene.
“He did, and the reason was this: The money was packed away in four iron-bound boxes, each of which was so large and heavy that it took eight men to carry it from the forecastle up the stairs to the boiler deck where the money was kept under guard. Wouldn’t a paymaster have looked nice swimming ashore with one of those boxes under his arm?”
The two boys gazed at Archie a moment in mute surprise, and then faced about with a common impulse and looked at the wagon behind them in which the emigrant said his treasure was stowed away. Whatever it was, it must have been something that did not weigh much, for the mules walked along easily and rapidly, and their traces were slack more than half of the time. The boys had learned something. Their curiosity had been aroused too, and they were impatient for the camping hour to arrive in order that they might, if possible, obtain a glimpse of the box containing the emigrant’s wealth. What could it be? And with this inquiry arose another. Since the emigrant had been so very imprudent as to tell Zack and Silas that he had something with him worth a million dollars, was not the vicinity of that wagon-train a dangerous place for them? The boys began to think so, and to wish most heartily that they had never seen it.
[A] There may be those who will be as surprised to read this as Fred and Eugene were to hear it. If they doubt the accuracy of Archie’s statement, and will go to the trouble to make a calculation, taking as a basis the weight of a gold eagle, which is about 11 pwts. and 6 grs., and bearing in mind that a pound Troy contains 5760 grains and a pound avoirdupois 7000 grains, they will find that he spoke within bounds.