“I guess you are,” agreed John. “How much do you suppose they’re worth?”
“Well,” said Grant, “they look to me about the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece. They ought to be worth thirty-five or forty dollars easily enough.”
“Just imagine finding a whole chest full of them,” exclaimed Fred, his eyes shining. “Why, we’d never have to do any work as long as we lived.”
“We’d soon get tired of doing nothing, I’m afraid,” said Grant. “Anyway we haven’t found them yet.”
“Don’t talk about it,” exclaimed John. “That code is the most maddening thing I ever saw.”
The three boys now were walking down towards the shore. Their favorite spot in which to swim was the little ledge from which they had watched the many colored fish and the various forms of sea-life the first day they had landed on the island. Here the water was deep and the ledge made an excellent place from which to dive.
A few moments later the three friends were puffing and blowing about in the water enjoying themselves immensely. Their bodies from long exposure to the rays of the tropical sun were tanned until they might have been easily mistaken for South Sea islanders or some other natives of the hot climates. Their hair, too, had grown long, for it had been many weeks since they had seen a barber. What few clothes they wore were beginning to hang in rags so that altogether they presented a strange appearance. Any chance visitor to their island might have thought he had run across the remnants of some wild race of savages.
“Well, that was pretty good, I should say,” said John luxuriously as he stretched himself out on the rocks alongside his two companions.
“It surely was,” agreed Fred. “This is about the best part of it, though.”
“What is?”