“I don’t see how they can do it,” sighed Ben. “We could drill and drill forever, and never get anything like that. Don’t tell me that sandpipers haven’t brains.”
“You bet your boots they have,” said David. “Fine little fellows! I don’t see how anybody can possibly want to shoot them.”
The little fellows rose again and went soaring off against the sunset sky.
Tuckerman drew a long breath. “You boys who live by the seashore have much to be thankful for. The pioneers who pushed inland must have been awfully homesick for just such sights as that. Gee whillikins! What a gorgeous sky! I could look at it for hours.”
His companions, however, had other things to do. They wanted to locate the two pines that stood between the two rocks. A short search discovered them. The trees, old and gnarled, twisted of branches on the eastern side, where the winter winds had lashed them, still stood like sentinels between the lichen-covered boulders, where Christopher Cotterell and doubtless others before him back to the days of Peter had surveyed them.
“They’re here all right,” said Ben. “What was it the notebook said? ‘I have dug at this place, but found only sand.’ Well, there’s plenty of sand—oodles of it. But if you ask my opinion, this isn’t the place to dig.”
“You’re lazy,” scoffed David. “Tell me, Mr. Man, why in your learned opinion isn’t this the right place to dig?”
“I’ve a hunch it isn’t,” answered Ben.
Tuckerman looked at the serious-faced small fellow, and suddenly gave a laugh. “I’ve got the same sort of a hunch myself. My uncle Christopher dug here and didn’t find anything. I don’t want to do his work all over again.”
They let it go at that, and slowly, with an eye to the sunset, which every moment grew more like a vast palette on which many colors were mixed, went back by the path through the woods that skirted the western shore. They reached the old house, and were passing it on their way to the camp when Tom abruptly halted. “I say, I saw something moving at that corner window on the second floor! Something white—yes, sir, it moved. I’ll take my word to that!”