“It isn’t very—very romantic looking, is it?” he asked. “It ought to be more rugged and—and forbidding.”
“You’re hard to suit,” laughed Jack. “We’ll anchor in the river, Hal; there used to be an old pier there.”
The pier hardly deserved the name any longer, for all that remained of it were a few rotting spiles. But after the launch had negotiated the sand-bar at the entrance to the little stream Jack worked it in between the spiles and passed the line around one of them and over a rusty spike. Then they pushed the stern of the launch to within a few feet of the shore and managed to jump ashore. The place of disembarkation was some fifty yards up the river and on the southwestern side of the island. Bee declared, though, that it was poppycock to call the place an island, since it was surrounded by water on but three sides. What it really amounted to was a hill rising from a sandy floor that was some six feet above high tide, with the ocean on two sides of it and Clam River on the third. On the fourth side, inland, nothing remained to show that at one time the river had flowed there too, although, as Jack pointed out, only some two hundred feet of sand, sprinkled with beach-grass, separated ocean and stream.
“Some day when there’s a good big northeaster and a high tide the ocean will eat through there again, as like as not, and then it will be a real island once more.”
“Let’s go to the top,” suggested Bee. “One of the first things to do is to make a map of it.”
“What do you want a map for?” asked Hal.
“What for?” Bee viewed him with disgust. “Don’t you know you always have to have a map of a place where you’re going to search for buried treasure? Honestly, Hal, sometimes I look at you in wonder! Don’t you know nothing, scarcely?”
They climbed the hill and reached the grove on top. The trees—oak, maple, wild cherry and hemlock—were small, but vigorous. Bee pointed to one disgustedly.
“That’s a nice thing to find on a treasure island,” he said. “A lot of names and initials cut in a tree trunk! It’s almost enough to discourage a fellow right at the start! I dare say as soon as we get nicely settled and begin to dig for that gold a lot of folks will come here and have a picnic!”
“Well, you needn’t be surprised if someone comes here to camp,” said Jack. “There’s usually a camp or so here every summer, although since the bridge across the river up there fell down it isn’t quite so handy to get to.”