“Oh, yes, I made sure you were in the cabin before I went away,” was the disheartening reply. “I wasn’t going to leave the boat, not with all our money in it, alone for a minute,” he went on.
Case opened his lips to speak, but Clay gave his arm such a pinch of warning that he immediately closed them again without speaking a word of the hot sentence that was in his mind. The blow had fallen. There was nothing more to say!
Jule had mistaken some thief for Clay, had left the boat in his care, and the money had been stolen! There was nothing more to do except never to let the boy know what the mistake had cost—and to go about earning more!
The three boys took the matter calmly. Up to this minute they had all hoped and half believed that Jule had either taken the money away with him or hidden it in another spot. Now the last hope was gone. They gathered about the table, glad of something to engage their thoughts, exhibited the diamonds, and told how they came to be in their possession. Jule was enthusiastic over the find, as he called it.
“And now,” Clay said, after the story had been told and the boys had expressed various opinions as to the ownership of the stones, “we may as well hide the diamonds away and make more coffee. Where shall I put them?”
“Why, with the money, of course!” exclaimed Jule.
“Not if you——”
Alex stepped on Case’s toe and the remark was never completed.
“All right,” Clay grinned, “I’ll put them in the square box with the red cover, and put that into the round box. That is where the money was put, eh, Jule? You handled it last.”
“That’s where you’ll find it!” the boy answered, and again the three turned away their faces.