In the absence of anything better, this supposed map was their strongest clue. Yet even this was only supposition. It might not have been anything more than the fanciful sketch of an idle sailor. Or if it indeed were a map of any given locality, it 214 might not refer in the slightest degree to the robbery by the crew of the smuggler.
The knowledge that this might be so had at times a paralyzing effect on the boys. They felt the lack of solid ground beneath their feet. Like the coffin of Mahomet, they were as though suspended between earth and sky.
Still, it was the only clue they had, and there was something in the make-up of these sturdy young Americans that made them desperately unwilling to confess defeat. It was the “die-in-the-last-ditch” spirit that has made America great. Even Bill, although he relieved himself sometimes by grumbling, would not really have given up the search and when the pinch came he dug and hunted as eagerly as the rest.
This morning, they had arranged to set off for a final cruise that might take up all the remaining time of their vacation, which was now drawing rapidly to a close. Their party was complete, with the exception of Ross. He had gone up to Oakland to spend a few days with his mother, who had arrived from Canada, but he had arranged to meet the boys that day at a point agreed on, about fifteen miles up the coast.
As their cruise was expected to be longer than usual, it took them some time before they had everything on board the Ariel and were ready to cast off from the little pier below the lighthouse.
215“Well,” said Mr. Lee, who had come down to see them off, “good-by, boys, and luck go with you.”
“Watch us come back with that chest of gold,” called out Teddy gaily.
“I’ll be watching, all right,” grinned the lighthouse keeper, “and I have a sort of hunch that you boys will get there this time. You certainly have earned it, if you do lay your hands on it.”
“And that’s no merry jest, either,” remarked Bill, as he looked at the callous spots on his hands.
“Bill wasn’t made to work,” scoffed Teddy. “He’s made to sit on the box and crack the whip, while we common trash pull and strain in the shafts.”