"But suppose it is?" insists Vee, her gray eyes bigger than ever.
"I can't," says I. "It's too much of a strain. Honest, from what I've seen of the country down here, it would be a miracle to run across a single loose dollar, while as for uncoverin' it in bunches— Say, Vee, how much of this pirate guff do you stand for, anyway?"
"Why, you silly," says she. "Of course there were pirates—Lafitte and José Gaspar and—and a lot of others. They robbed ships right off here and naturally they buried their treasure when they came ashore."
"What simps!" says I. "Then they went off and forgot, eh?"
"Some were caught and hanged," says she, "and I suppose some were killed fighting. No one can tell. It was all so long ago, you see. They're all gone. But the islands are still here, aren't they?"
"I don't miss any," says I. "There's the mound, too. It's big enough to hold forty truckloads."
"Oh, there won't be that much," says she. "A few chests, perhaps. But think, Torchy, of digging up gold that has been lying there for a hundred years or more!"
"I don't care how old it is," says I, "if it's the kind you can shove in at the receivin' teller and get credit for. What you plannin' to blow your share against?"
"I hadn't thought much about that," says Vee. "Only that I once saw the loveliest girdle made of old coins."
Isn't that the girl of it!