“That’s different,” I said. “Do you like pirate stories about them? Because there is buried treasure hidden in Black Lake. That’s no joke, it’s true—absolutely, posilutely. There’s a tin box at the bottom of Black Lake containing about three hundred dollars. The people that started Temple Camp sank a lot of money in the enterprise. We have buried treasure and everything else at Temple Camp.”
“You’re fooling,” Stella Wingate said.
I said, “A scout’s honor is to be toasted; it’s positively true. There’s a diagram in Administration Shack telling where it is—or isn’t, I don’t know which.”
Just then Brent Gaylong kind of touched me on the shoulder and I could see that he winked at Pee-wee and Warde. He kind of put his arm over my shoulder and led me away and said, “For goodness’ sake, don’t start that buried treasure stuff, Roy. You’ll have Hervey diving in the middle of the lake for it. You know how he is.”
“He must know about it,” I said.
“I don’t think he does,” Brent said. “Anyway, you know Tom Slade and Uncle Jeb and the trustees want the fellows to forget about it. Whatever you do don’t get Hervey started on that, whether he knows about it or not. You know he can’t obey instructions, he just can’t, he’s built that way.
“The first thing you know he’ll be drowning himself or getting himself dismissed from camp and we’ll be to blame. It’s like waving a red flag in front of him. Nix on the buried treasure stuff; there’s plenty of fun without that. I’m sorry you mentioned the diagram.”
“All right,” I said, “let it go at that. I was just trying to get the girls interested.”
He said, “Well, let’s get them started on something else.”
“Suits me,” I said; “one subject is as good as another if not better. I’m sorry I put my foot in it.”