“Same old Brent,” Harry said; “well, here we are, ready to search for the treasure.”
“It’s all over except the shouting,” Brent said.
“You don’t mean you’ve found it?” Pee-wee piped up.
“Take a good look at this tree,” Brent said; “come off here a little distance where you can see it.”
We all went about twenty feet from the tree and took a good look at it.
“What do you say?” Brent said.
Oh, boy, I had never seen another tree like that in all my life. Most of the trees around there were birches, and it stood there among them just like a great big giant. I guess the trunk of that tree was four or five feet thick. Away up high, oh, about a hundred feet I guess, it went to a point. There weren’t any other trees around there anything like it, or anywhere near as big. Away up high near its top it was all kind of gold color, because the sun was beginning to go down. It seemed sort of, as if it paid attention to that great big tree first of all, because it was so grand.
“It’s a poplar, all right,” Harry said, sort of low, because I guess we all felt kind of serious to see it standing there. We knew we were going to hunt for such a tree, and we thought there was a pretty fair chance of there being one somewhere around there. But now that we all stood there looking at it, we just couldn’t speak, exactly. I noticed even Pee-wee, just standing there gaping. One thing sure, that great big tree was a stranger in those woods. It seemed proud, but kind of lonely there. Especially when you looked away up high at it, it seemed lonely.
Harry just stood there looking at it, and shaking his head. “Some—old—giant,” that’s all he said.
“It’s got plenty of gold up on top,” Brent-said; “now it remains to be seen if there’s any gold down underneath—real, honest to goodness, gold. Anyhow, this is where the desperate deed was did. Come over here till I show you something.”