The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam

by John Henry Goldfrap

With fingers that trembled Rob drew out the solution of the cryptogram and read it over.

Then he held his head in his hands a moment to keep it from whirling round.

Could it be possible that this was the island where the hoard of century-old ivory was buried? Had he stumbled by a complete accident upon the cache that had sent one man to his death?

Then he recalled that on his trip of exploration he had noticed a big dead cypress on the other side of the island. But if this was the veritable island where the whalers had buried their ivory, why was the boat lying there mouldering on the beach? Why had they not left again?

The more the boy thought of it, the more mysterious and inexplicable the whole thing became. He resolved to go back to the dead cypress and follow the directions of the cryptic message of the captain of the Good Hope.

As has been said, the island was not a large one, and he was not long in reaching the gaunt, dead tree. Somehow he felt a chill go through him as he stood beneath its leafless gray limbs. It reminded him oddly of that skeleton in the deck house of the derelict.

But he pulled himself together and struck off into the woods in a direction that, by using his watch as a compass, he knew to be the west. The undergrowth was thick, but after going a few paces, he reached an open space.

In the centre of this was a sight that made his heart jump and then beat wildly. Strewn in every direction were big tusks of yellow ivory, evidently lying just as they had been dug from the ground.

Rob was still contemplating them when his eye caught the flutter of a rag of cloth at the edge of the open space. Attracted by a curiosity he could not account for, he made his way toward it. If the sight of the ivory had made him jump, what he now saw sent a chill of horror down his spine. The rag that had fluttered had been part of the clothing of what had once been two men.

Both lay close together, their bones showing where the cloth had worn away under Time's finger. A pair of rusty pistols lying by each showed how they had come to their death. The whole tragedy was as clear to Rob as if he had seen it:—the quarrel between the two ivory stealers, the duel with the pistols, and the death of both combatants beside the treasure pile they had done so much wickedness to acquire.