“You fellows may think I’m foolish to go on hunting for the gold when I’ve got so little evidence to go on. It seems almost like hunting for a needle in a haystack. But there’s such a lot at stake that I can’t give it up.”
“I don’t think you’re foolish,” maintained Teddy stoutly. “It’s just what I’d do, if I were in your place.”
“So would I,” agreed Fred. “Of course you may never find it. But if you didn’t try for it, you’d feel restless and uneasy all the rest of your life.”
“It’s better to have tried and failed, than never to have tried at all,” declared Bill.
“You’re young enough yet to spare a year or two more at it anyway,” said Lester. “If nothing comes of it, you can settle down at something else.”
“Yes,” replied Ross, “it isn’t a matter of life and death anyway. Mother is still keeping the old place up in Canada and looking after the property that father left there. The income is small, but it is 42 enough to keep us going, and if I finally have to give up looking for the gold, I can go back there and do pretty well. But it would take me a long time to get enough together to pay father’s debts, and perhaps I could never do it. That’s the real reason why I’m so anxious to find the chest. It isn’t so much for what it would give me, though of course I’d be glad to have it. But I know how father felt, and I feel that I owe it to his memory to carry out his wishes, if I possibly can.”
“Do the debts mount up to a very large amount?” Bill ventured to ask.
“Larger than I care to think of,” answered Ross. “I should say that it would take about twenty thousand dollars if they were settled now. And, of course, there’s the interest creeping up with every day that passes.”
“I guess the creditors would be so glad to get back the principal, that they wouldn’t worry much about the interest,” remarked Lester.
“I suppose they would,” answered Ross. “But they ought to get both, and I shall never feel that I’m clear with the world until they do.”