“A chest of gold!” repeated Fred, as though he could not believe his ears.
“Where do you think it’s hidden?” questioned Teddy eagerly.
“How much money is in the chest?” asked Bill.
“Perhaps it isn’t money,” corrected Lester. “It may be gold dust, or it may be in bars. Have you any clue?” he asked, turning to Ross.
“What makes you think it’s on this coast?” put in Fred.
Ross raised his hand good-naturedly, as though to ward off the rain of questions.
“Easy there,” he smiled, “and I’ll tell you the whole thing from the beginning. Perhaps you’ll think I’m crazy. Perhaps you’ll say I have as good a chance of finding it as the fellow who looks for 31 the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And you may be right. Anyway, I’ll give you what facts I know, and you can figure out for yourselves whether I have a chance or not.”
Ross waited a moment to collect his thoughts, and the other boys disposed themselves to listen. Their blood was bounding and their eyes shining. The situation was romantic in itself. The firelight played over their eager faces, the waters of the cove lay shimmering before them, while, at the outlet, the surf thundered against the rocks. The boys might have been castaways on some desert island in the tropics. The great world outside seemed very far away.
“My father was in business in Boston about fifteen years ago,” Ross began. “I was just a baby then, and, of course, I don’t know anything about those days except what I’ve been told since by my mother.
“Father was a good business man and he had built up a fairly large trade. We had a home in a suburb near Boston and all the money we needed. The business had been expanding, and father had put into it not only all his own ready money, but a lot that he had borrowed from his friends. Then hard times came. Of course he had to retrench in every way he could. He took in his sails and worked hard to weather the storm. He’d have succeeded, too, but just as things were looking 32 brighter, a big bank failure knocked him out completely.”