“Huh!”
“I wanted to be here to help you. So I coaxed Mrs. Kelly to bring me to town. She’s at the house.”
“You haven’t helped us any by scaring us,” [[189]]grunted Scoop. Then he sort of cooled off and told the newcomer, in better manners, where the soap man was.
“We’ve got to hurry,” he concluded, “if we expect to find the hidden fortune before the spy gets back to town.”
“Let me help you,” the girl offered quickly.
“It will be a big help to us,” Scoop told her, “if you’ll go below and watch for the enemy. If he comes before we’re through up here, yell ‘jiggers.’ ”
Well, we kept on smashing the bricks. And pretty soon we disclosed a metal box.
“The money!” I cried, excited.
The box was about a foot long by four inches wide and three inches deep. Its padlock was so rusted that we knew no key would ever unlock it. The only way to get the box open would be to break the padlock with a hammer.
Scoop shook the box, rattling its contents.