“That’s safe, I think.”
“All right. But that tree didn’t grow from a seed, fellows; it sprang up from the trunk of an older tree that was broken off or died down to the ground. The old tree looks to have been about a foot across. If you look you’ll find the stump of it yet. Now what I claim is that the old tree was either planted by Verny or else sprang up from a seed he dropped there.”
“But why Verny?” asked Hal skeptically. “Why not anyone else? Lots of people have camped out here before us, Bee.”
“Because the older tree must have been at least thirty years old before it died, and I don’t believe many people came to this island that long ago. What do you say, Jack?”
“I don’t believe they did. You think, then, that Old Verny—”
“Planted that tree, or the seed of it, forty years or more ago, and that he planted it near his cabin! And just as soon as it gets a little cooler, fellows, that’s where we’re going to dig!”