“That’s so,” assented Harvey. “Well, what do you make of it all?”
“Why, that’s what puzzles me,” said Henry Burns. “But you know how we came by the boat, in the first place. Supposing the men that owned her, and who committed that robbery up at Benton, had hidden something valuable aboard her, and that Mr. Carleton had heard of it. Naturally, he would try to get hold of it, wouldn’t he?”
“Whew!” ejaculated Harvey. “But how could he hear of it? The men that committed the robbery are in prison.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Henry Burns. “But persons can visit them on certain days, in certain hours. There are ways in which Mr. Carleton could have got the information.”
Jack Harvey was by this time wrought up to a high pitch of excitement.
“We’ll overhaul her this very night,” he cried. “We’ll light the lanterns and go over her from one end to the other. Say, do you know, it might be hidden in the ballast—in a hollow piece of the pig-iron, I mean. Of course the ballast was taken out of her last fall.”
Henry Burns gave a quiet smile.
“It might be,” he said, “but more likely somewhere about the cabin. We better wait till morning, though, and do the job thoroughly. We’ll get Tom and Bob out then, to help—especially if you want to go through the ballast.”
“I’ll turn her upside down, if necessary,” cried Harvey, who was fired with the novelty of the adventure. “Well, perhaps we better wait till morning. But I don’t feel as though I could go to sleep.”
“I can,” said Henry Burns, and he set the example, shortly.