“The beach is littered with washed-up debris,” Brad observed. “This game is getting tougher.”
Other Cubs now began to appear on the water front. However, as each clue was different, the treasure hunters remained widely separated.
Brad and Dan turned up perhaps twenty pieces of driftwood before they found their third clue. The scrambled message required a long time to decipher. On a ragged piece of cardboard had been printed:
“Kloo denur a toab dna ouy amy dinf a hsoelv.”
“Look under a boat and you may find a shovel!” Dan finally figured it out. “A shovel! Yipee! That means we’re getting close to the treasure chest. Maybe our next clue will lead us to it.”
“And we’re miles ahead of the other Cubs,” chuckled Brad. “The question is, where’s the boat?”
Neither boy could recall having seen one on the beach that day. Because their clue had directed them to search beneath the craft, they were convinced that the boat must be an old one, probably overturned or abandoned somewhere on the sands.
“Let’s look on that stretch that extends out toward the lighthouse,” Brad proposed. “It’s a lonely spot—just the type of place you’d expect the Den Dads to select for the big treasure chest pay-off.”
Scanning every inch of the sand, the boys dog-trotted toward the lighthouse. As its bright beam swept across the water, Dan noticed a dark outline on the beach some distance ahead.
“That looks like a boat!” he exclaimed.