“Listen to the young banker!” Westy teased. “I bet you’ll never let your money get rusty in the ground!”
“Not while there’s banks to put it in,” Artie retorted. “Believe me, I’m no believer in this Captain Kidd stuff anyway. It always causes a lot of trouble; people even killing one another trying to find it. You always read that in books and in the end no one finds it after all.”
“Who can tell but what Ol’ Pop will die some day without having the chance to tell any one where it is,” Westy cheerfully added.
“’Tain’t likely Ol’ Pop will die for a long time yit,” Uncle Jeb said, touched with the evident concern of the boys for his old friend. “Barrin’ accident he’s good fer twenty year at least, so thar’s no need to worry. I spec when he gets ready he’ll tell me.”
“Let’s hope so, anyway,” Westy said as if quite willing to consign the subject to the mercy of Fate for a while.
CHAPTER XXIII—THE OBJECT ON THE CLIFF
The days seemed to merge themselves one into the other, and, as Westy remarked, “Night did not seem to be a dividing factor in the present scheme of things at all.”
Uncle Jeb built them a canoe, showing them how it was done in true Indian fashion. They launched it in Eagle Lake, with all the ceremony one would accord some palatial yacht.
One morning quite early, they set out for a swim, leaving Uncle Jeb behind whittling some wood with which to make a new bench for the cabin.
It promised to be a very warm day and Artie and Westy had no sooner arrived on the shores of the lake than they were into its cooling waters. They shouted in pure exultation, trying to outdo one another in aquatic prowess. Finally tiring of this, they clambered upon the banks to rest.