“I can’t say as to that until after making inquiries, but I’ll let you know at the first convenient opportunity. Breakfast is ready, if the boarders will please arrange themselves on the ground in proper attitudes.”
“I’ll start the thing,” Ned said as he seated himself near the stove, “an’ after we’ve eaten our full I’ll show you fellows something that’ll make your eyes stick out more’n they ever did before.”
“Something connected with the island?” Vance asked.
“Yes.”
“Then tell us now, or I shall spoil my breakfast trying to guess what it is.”
“It would spoil your breakfast for a certainty if I should even hint at it, and this grub is too good to be wasted.”
Neither Roy nor Vance fancied for a moment that their companion could have any very important secret, but they bantered him to reveal it until the last fish and slice of bacon had disappeared, when he said with an air of seriousness which surprised them:
“Put the dishes away while I go aboard the steamer for a shovel, an’ when I come back you’ll get the biggest kind of a surprise.”
The boys understood from the tone in which Ned had spoken that he was not trying to make sport of them, and both watched him earnestly as he returned with the necessary tools for unearthing his treasure.
“Now keep your eyes peeled,” he said as he began the work, “an’ tell me what you see.”