“Was it as easy as that?” I gasped.
“It was as easy as that!” said Edgar.
I sank back into my chair and let the magazines slide to the floor. What fiction story was there in any one of them so enthralling as the actual possibilities that lay before me? In two hours I might be bending over a pot of gold, a sea chest stuffed with pearls and rubies!
I began to recall all the stories I had heard as a boy of treasure buried along the coast by Kidd on his return voyage from the Indies. Where along the Jersey sea-line were there safe harbors? The train on which we were racing south had its rail head at Barnegat Bay. And between Barnegat and Red Bank there now was but one other inlet, that of the Manasquan River. It might be Barnegat; it might be Manasquan. It could not be a great distance from either; for sailors would not have carried their burden far from the ship. I glanced appealingly at Edgar. He was smiling happily over “Pickings from Puck.” We passed Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, halted at Sea Girt, and again at Manasquan; but Egdar did not move. The next station was Point Pleasant, and as the train drew to a stop, Edgar rose calmly and grasped his suit-case.
“We get out here,” he said.
Drawn up at the station were three open-work hacks with fringe around the top. From each a small boy waved at us with his whip.
“Curtis House? The Gladstone? The Cottage in the Pines?” they chanted invitingly.
“Take me to a hardware store,” said Edgar, “where one can buy a spade.” When we stopped I made a move to get down; but Edgar stopped me.
I protested indignantly, “I haven’t much to say about this expedition;” I exclaimed, “but, as I have to do the digging, I intend to choose my own spade.”
Edgar’s eye-glasses flashed defiance. “You have given your word to obey me,” he said sternly. “If you do not intend to obey me, you can return in ten minutes by the next train.”