90CHAPTER XII
UNCLE AARON REJOICES
“Well,” said Fred, drawing a long breath and looking around at his companions after Mr. Lee had left the room, “we’ve certainly got more than we expected from this after-dinner talk.”
“And we didn’t know at the start that we’d get a thing,” exulted Teddy.
“It’s queer that dad never mentioned the matter to me,” mused Lester. “Still I was a little chap when it all happened, and the whole thing has been almost forgotten.”
“But what’s the net result?” asked Bill. “We haven’t the least idea yet where the treasure really is.”
“No,” admitted Fred. “We haven’t. And yet we’ve made a long step forward. In the first place, we know that Ross was absolutely honest and truthful in all that he said. Then, too, we know from Tom’s story that the treasure wasn’t taken away by the smugglers then, and couldn’t have been afterwards, since they were all drowned. So we can be sure that it’s still where they left it unless some one else has stumbled on it, which isn’t at all likely. 91 Further than that, we know where the man lives who picked up Mr. Montgomery when he was adrift, and there’s no knowing what we may be able to get out of him. It seems to me that we’re already far ahead of where we were this morning.”
“There’s another point too, Fred,” broke in Teddy. “Dick told Tom that the chest wasn’t buried, but was hidden somewhere. That gives us a mighty good tip. If we didn’t know that, we might waste our time and break our backs in digging, when it wouldn’t do us a bit of good.”
“That’s funny, too,” remarked Lester. “You’d think that burying would have been the first thing they thought of. In all the stories one reads of pirate hoards, the treasure is buried deep down in the earth.”
“And the pirate usually shot the man who dug the hole and left his skeleton to guard the treasure,” said Bill.