212CHAPTER XXVII
A FIGHTING CHANCE
“Only one week more now before we have to go back to Rally Hall,” sighed Teddy one morning, just after they had risen from the breakfast table.
“And nothing done yet in the way of finding that chest of gold,” groaned Fred.
“It’s now or never,” declared Lester with decision.
“I’m afraid it’s never, then,” put in Bill, the skeptical. “Here for days we’ve been blistering our hands and breaking our backs, to say nothing of racking what brains we have, and we’re no nearer finding it than we were at the beginning.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” protested Fred. “We’ve at least explored a lot of places where there were no signs of the peculiar trees and rock shown in that map that Ross told us about. That leaves just so many fewer places to waste our time on, and makes it more likely that the next will be the right one.”
“Not much nourishment in that,” persisted Bill. “I’ll admit that we’ve found plenty of places where the gold isn’t, but that doesn’t get us anywhere. 213 And we’ll be gray-headed before we can explore the whole coast of Maine.”
“Oh, stop your grouching, you old sinner,” exhorted Teddy, clapping him on the back. “This is like football or baseball. The game isn’t over till after the last minute of play.”
“That’s the talk,” cried Lester emphatically. “If we go down, we’ll do it with the guns shotted and the band playing and the flag flying.”
It was not to be wondered at that the lads were all assailed at times by the doubt and discouragement that troubled Bill acutely that morning. They had taken advantage of every day when the sea permitted, and, as Teddy phrased it, had “raked the coast fore and aft.” Their main reliance had been the map that had appeared in the story of the old sailor to Ross, and the first thing they did after entering any bay or cove was to look about them for the clump of two and three trees, with the big rock standing at the right. Once or twice they had found conditions that nearly answered this description, and they had dug and hunted near by, wherever the lay of the land held out any hope of success.