“A long way off, then! We must be a mile and more from the Point. It’s some one blasting, I think.”
“It wasn’t sufficiently muffled,” Croyden answered.
They waited a few moments: hearing no further noises, they proceeded—a trifle cautiously, however. A little further on, they came upon a wood cutter.
“He doesn’t appear at all alarmed,” Croyden observed. “What were the explosions, a minute ago?” he called.
“They weren’t nothing,” said the man, leaning on his axe. “The Navy’s got a ’speriment house 110 over here. They’re trying things. Yer don’t need be skeered. If yer goin’ to the station, it’s just a little ways, now,” he added, with the country-man’s curiosity—which they did not satisfy.
They passed the buildings of the Experiment Station and continued on, amid pine and dogwood, elms and beeches. They were travelling parallel with the Severn, and not very distant, as occasional glimpses of blue water, through the trees, revealed. Gradually, the timber thinned. The river became plainly visible with the Bay itself shimmering to the fore. Then the trees ended abruptly, and they came out on Greenberry Point: a long, flat, triangular-shaped piece of ground, possibly two hundred yards across the base, and three hundred from base to point.
The two men halted, and looked around.
“Somewhere near here, possibly just where your horse is standing, is the treasure,” said Macloud. “Can’t you feel its presence?”
“No, I can’t!” laughed Croyden, “and that appears to be my only chance, for I can’t see a trace of the trees which formed the square.”
“Be not cast down!” Macloud admonished. “Remember, you didn’t expect to find things marked off for you.”