“That’s just about it,” agreed Hal. “Whenever Old Verny found a chest on a boat he just loaded it with this sort of truck and sunk it in the ground somewhere and I suppose Bill has been digging them up for years! It’s a bit of a sell on us, isn’t it?”
“No,” answered Bee, who, having reached the bottom of the chest without discovering anything more valuable than the gold knob from a cane, was now returning the articles. “We set out to look for a treasure chest and we found it. I’m satisfied. Of course, it would have been more interesting to have found diamonds and gold, but we did what we set out to do. And Bill’s richer by twenty dollars—to say nothing of more spoons and sugar bowls and such things than he will ever be able to use!”
“He has probably been doing that for years,” mused Jack. “Maybe that’s the way he’s lived. Whenever he got hard-up he took a shovel, dug up a treasure chest and sold the contents! If that watch-case and the cane head and the other thing are really gold Bill ought to make about—about fifty or sixty dollars out of this lot. And that isn’t so bad!”
“It must have kept Old Verny pretty busy burying things here,” said Bee. “I wonder—” He paused and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully—“I wonder, fellows, if this is the treasure chest, the one he buried when the officers came after him. I don’t believe it is! I believe that chest is still here!”
Hal groaned. “For the love of mud, Bee, don’t tell me you’re going to start all over again!”
Bee shook his head with a smile. “Not this summer, anyway, old Hal. But—next year—perhaps! It’s pretty good sport, this treasure hunting, but I’ve had enough for now and I’m ready to return to town and read about it in stories for awhile. Come on; let’s get this down to the launch and take it to Bill.”
When, twenty minutes later, they laid their find in front of the half-open door of Bill Glass’s cabin and knocked, there was no response. Jack pushed the door wide and they looked in. The cabin was empty save for Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin sat amidst the dinner dishes, blinking benignly in the sunlight. On the walls the fourteen clocks tick-ticked noisily and the stuffed parrot studied them with beady eyes. They laid the chest on a chair and Bee found a piece of paper and wrote on it: “For Honest Bill Glass, with best wishes from The Treasure Hunters Company, Ltd.” This he placed on the old chest and they started out. Then—
“Ding, dong!” said a ship’s clock with a tenor voice.
“Ting, tang,” piped a clock with a soprano voice.
And then came all the others in a weird jumble of sound, and the boys hurried out laughing, Bee with his hands over his ears.