“One of those old Peruvian sun-dollars from the wreck that took place here between sixty an’ seventy years ago, when I was a small boy!” he exclaimed again. “It’s a handsome coin, all right! But if you dig till all’s blue, I’ll warrant you’ll never find another of ’em, or if you should, ’twould be only one at a time an’ far between; the river isn’t giving back enough of them together to make anybody rich; an’ the river only got one bag of those coins when the old brig went to pieces!”
“Sun-dollar! Wreck! Brig! What wreck?” The challenging cries were hurled at him by two stiffening, defiant boys and one clucking, scratching girl. “Come to think of it, that old clam-hunter did mumble something about a wreck!” added Stack in crestfallen reflection.
“Yes, it’s goin’ on for seventy years ago, now, that a sailing vessel, a brig from South Peru, which had many bags of these an’ other Peruvian coins, both gold an’ silver, aboard—was rich in specie, as they say—was wrecked in the bay, outside the bar. The gale drove her up the river; I’ve often heard about it; my father was one o’ the men who put off in rowboats to rescue the crew an’ they did save ’em all, though ’twas night, and saved most o’ the money-bags, too. But one bag of coins fell into the river, when they were lowering it in the dark into a boat. Folks dragged the channel with nets for it afterward, but that river-channel,” pointing out toward the middle of the heaving tide where his motor-boat rocked, moored to a stump-buoy, “is so ‘studdled’ up with hollows an’ gullies that you never can recover anything from it that it doesn’t give up of its own accord, when wind and tide make it.”
Captain Andy looked from the sunburst coin to the three young faces—sorry at heart that with his cruel crowbar of truth he must shatter their castles—and at Toiney digging still, digging patiently on.
“Storm-wind and tide did make the river-bed give up a few of those coins, three or four, maybe; they were picked up near this spot by a man I know a long time after the wreck took place. Now! you’ve found another, but I guess that’s all you’ll find if you dig till Doomsday. This is a pretty souvenir, though! Who’s to keep it?” Captain Andy turned the coin over in his hand and looked at Jessica who had hopelessly given up scratching and was ready to accompany him to the rowboat, thence out to the waiting motor-boat and from there, in a quick run, back to the Sugarloaf, her Camp Fire Sisters and Camp Morning-Glory.
“I saw it first,” proclaimed the girl, eagerly eyeing the sun-dollar.
“I picked it up,” said the boy, with greed in his claiming eye—in spite of the fact that he was eighteen years old and an Eagle Scout.
He had risked his life for the girl by dashing out among the quicksands at her cry. He had come very near giving it by sinking altogether when he refused to be rescued first. And yet he was unwilling that she should have the treasure trove, the sunburst coin. He took it from Captain Andy’s hand, from Captain Andy whose code of chivalry, now and always, might be summed up in three words: “Skirts go ahead;” in land speech, “Ladies have the preference!”
“I don’t care! He can keep it if he wants to!”
Jessica tossed her head with its loose tangle of wet hair.