“It is really something that I never dreamed of,” said Mrs. Stillmore.
“I’ve read of such things,” said Miss Gaunt, an elderly spinster; “I believe Stevenson wrote of them, but I have never attended a treasure hunt. Really my nerves are on edge.”
She did not have to suffer long from this racking suspense. In a very few minutes, if you will believe it, a tin box stood upon the edge of the excavation the boys had made.
“There you are, Mr. Skimper,” said Fuller; “all things come round to him that waits—and digs. Mrs. Alison, you and I will have to fit up a schooner and take a flyer down to the Spanish Main. They used to plant gold down there like Farmer Goodale plants crops. What do you say, Mrs. Stillmore? Are you willing for Hope to be kidnapped by pirates? Then Scout Harris will come and save her life.”
“He saved my life already,” said Hope soberly.
“I tell you what we’ll do!” Pee-wee shouted. “It’s an inspiration, because buried treasure and kidnapping go together, you can ask anybody—”
“Positively,” said Fuller.
“We’ll—we’ll—kidnap you and take you back to the farm just like a real adventure as long as they’re going to close up here anyway, and I tell you how we’ll do. (He paused for breath.) Your mother will be playing cards in the parlor and you’ll be on the lawn or maybe you’ll be in the window, hey? And we’ll sneak up and get you and make you go back to the farm with us and you’ll make believe you don’t want to go—”
“I do want to go,” she said; “and mother and I are going, so there. And I don’t care anything about the people there at all. I just want to have adventures with you and go tramping in the woods.”
“Would it—would it be all right if we kidnapped you to-morrow morning?” Pee-wee asked, greatly enthused.