"I don't care so much for boats as I do for breech-loading bird-guns and j'inted fish-poles," observed Dan. "Them's the things that make a feller look nobby when summer comes. Say, pap, what be we follering the beach for? The rope that leads to the cave is way up there in the hills."
"Look a-here, Dannie," said Silas, stopping short, and bestowing a very knowing wink upon the boy at his side. "We ain't nobody's fools, if we be poor and ragged. As I told you yesterday, we don't want to slide down that there rope, 'cause why, it'll dump us right down in front of that hant, and he'll bounce us before we can get our guns ready. See the p'int? If we go up the gorge, easy like, and keep our eyes open all the time, we shall see him as soon as he sees us. Understand? But I don't reckon he's up here. I'm a thinking that he's down the road somewhere, watching for the feller that finds that letter."
"I hope he is," said Dan, "for then we won't have no trouble in getting hold of the money. Looks powerful dark and lonesome in there; it does for a fact."
They had now reached the brook, and were standing in full view of the mouth of the gorge. It did, indeed, look dark and lonely in there; so much so, in fact, that if Dan had shown the least sign of fear, Silas would have faced about at once, and made the best of his way back to the cabin, leaving the treasure to stay where it was until the mildew and rust had eaten it up.
"Them thick bushes shuts out all the light of the sun, don't they?" said Silas. "And it's so ridiculous crooked, that we might run right on to the hant in going around some sharp bend, and never see him till we was clost to him. The brook is plumb full of rocks and such, and the cave must be as much as five miles away, I reckon—mebbe more. It'll be hard work to go up there after that money."
"But it would be harder to get it by chopping wood for it," said Dan; "so here goes, hant or no hant."
"You're the most amazing gritty feller I ever seen," declared Silas, who was really astonished at the boy's hardihood. "You go on ahead, for you ain't as old as I be, and your eyes are sharper, and I'll stick clost to your heels."
For a wonder, Dan did not object to this arrangement.