“Now, look here, Dad!” exclaimed Lester, “I can see by what you’re saying that you know more about this thing than we do. Don’t tease us by acting in such a mysterious way. Come right out with it.”
Mr. Lee laughed good-naturedly.
“You boys are always in a hurry,” he remarked as he refilled his pipe with a deliberation that was 76 maddening to his hearers. “But just let me get my pipe drawing well, and I’ll tell you all I know. It isn’t so much after all as maybe you think, but it may help to piece out a bit here and there.”
He settled himself comfortably in his seat and began:
“It was about nine or ten years ago–I don’t remember the exact date–that Mark Taylor was out fishing at a point about twenty miles from here.”
“The Mark Taylor who lives in Milton?” inquired Lester.
“That was the one. He wasn’t having very good luck, and had about made up his mind to pull up and go home, when he caught sight of a little boat tossing up and down on the waves. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and Mark could see that there was no one rowing or steering it. He thought that was strange and made up his mind he’d look into the matter. So he ran up his sail and ran over to what he thought was the empty boat. He told me afterwards he was knocked all in a heap, when he saw a man lying in the bottom of it.
“At first Mark thought the man was either dead or drunk. But there wasn’t any smell of liquor on him, and he moved when Mark touched him. Mark saw that something serious was the matter, and he tried to get the man into his sailboat. But Mark didn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty 77 pounds, and this man was so big and so heavily built that he had to give it up.
“So, leaving the man in it, he tied the small boat to the stern of his, and made a quick run for home. He took the man into his cabin and sent for the doctor. The doctor examined the man carefully and found a big gash in his head that looked as though it had been made with a hatchet. He saw it hadn’t reached a vital point, though, so he sewed it up and left some medicine, promising to come again the next day.
“Mark said that the doctor had no sooner gone than the man began to rave and toss about. After a while he became violent, and Mark, being a small man as I have said, had to call in some of the neighbors to hold him down. He seemed to imagine that he was in a fight and that a crowd was piling on him. And he kept talking about ‘the gold’ and ‘the chest,’ and vowing that they would never get it away from him.”