“A barrel of gold!” Florence sat down suddenly. She sat in a puddle of water on the concave side of a rock and did not know it.
A barrel of gold it was—no less. The head of the steel barrel had been removed. A great number of gold coins, wrapped in paper, had been packed inside, then the head had been sealed up by steel welding. When the barrel had been painted it looked just like any other.
Three hours later when the little fishing boat pulled away she carried a considerable treasure all in gold coins.
“Of course,” Swen warned, “it’s not our gold. But there’s something in it for us all the same. Salvage, I guess you would call it.”
The mystery of that barrel of gold was not solved at once. Little by little it became known that a very rich and stubborn man had refused to give up his hoarded gold when the United States Government, for the good of all its people, demanded that he should. Thinking to evade the law, he had packed his gold in a metal barrel and had attempted to ship it to Canada, and, as we know, had failed.
Just who the men were on the schooner, with the diver on board, will probably never be revealed. Were they hired by the rich man to retrieve the treasure? Were they plain thieves who, having got some knowledge of the gold, proposed to take it for themselves? Who can say?
Before the girls left the island a rumor was set afloat that there were bears to be found on the island. It was traced to the mainland. It was discovered there that a certain man of doubtful character had started the rumor. As proof of his story he displayed scratched hands and tattered clothing. He had met the bear, he said, by the old lighthouse at the end of Rock Harbor.
“That,” Jeanne laughed, “must have been the head hunter. It was my bear he met. I’m glad, though,” she added, “that he escaped with his life. It is too terrible to die. The bear punished him quite enough.”
The three girls were back in their city homes when the salvage on their barrel of gold arrived. Finding it to be quite a tidy sum, they promptly divided it in two parts and sent one part to Swen to be used for the best interests of his fisherfolk. That which remained they placed in the bank, a treasure hoard to be spent, in part at least, on some further adventure. If you care to know what those adventures might be you are invited to read the book called Gypsy Flight.