“I have a hunch! there’s something planted around here,” Fuller said. “There’s no mysterious paper with figures and crazy directions on it and death’s head designs and four paces in the light of the moon stuff, and that’s too bad. But that chap had a reason for coming here. The only mark of identification anywhere around that I can see is that old rusty nail in the tree. Anyway, the rusty nail seems to have the laugh on him. Come on, let’s go in and get some sleep.”
Fuller and Ray slept peacefully enough for the balance of the night, but Pee-wee did not sleep. Skimper’s was transformed into a desert island where he had come to search for buried treasure. He would stay six months if necessary. So far as he was concerned he had voyaged a thousand miles to the desolate haunt of pirates, all for thirty-one cents. Once again his spirit rallied to the standard of Ray and Fuller. “Gee whiz, they’re right,” he said. “One place is as good as another if not better.”
Great was the excitement at the Snailsdale House in the morning. “It’s thrilling,” Hope said, as she examined the excavation with several curious old ladies. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Those fellers—they always have adventures,” Pee-wee told her. “You can even find treasure on—you can even find it on fire escapes—sometimes. Gee whiz, you should never go hunting for something like you did, because you never find it, that’s sure.”
CHAPTER XXXV
PEE-WEE, SCOUT
Before the morning was very old the family secret of the Skimpers was out. Mrs. Skimper told one of the boarders, and presently it was all about like wild-fire. Many years before, Mr. Skimper’s brother had stolen money from him (the affair was connected with their joint ownership of a store) and had disappeared.
At the time there had been some suspicion that in desperation caused by the fear of quick capture, he had secreted the money somewhere on the farm. But that suspicion had died away as the whole unhappy episode had passed into history and become a distant memory. It was known that the brother had lately died in a western prison with many a subsequent crime upon his head. Who, then, was this stranger digging in the dead of night?
“It’s very simple,” said Fuller; “he was told where the money was buried, that’s all. He was a fellow convict. He has done us a good turn. All we have to do is to dig.”
“But where?” asked Ray.