The poor plebes realized then how hopeless was their search. Deep in the sand was the mark of a boat’s keel, and they knew that the work of trailing was at an end. Their treasure was gone forever, stolen during the few hours since they had left it last.
“There’s no use shedding any tears about it,” said Mark at last, when the state of affairs had had time to be realized. “We’ve simply got it to bear. Somebody probably saw us leave the camp last night and followed us up here. And when they saw that treasure they just helped themselves.”
There is little that will make most people madder than to be told “never mind” when they feel they have something to be very much worried over. The Seven did mind a great deal. They sat and stared at each other with looks of disgust. Even the Parson (who ought to have been happy) wore a funereal look, and the only one who had a natural expression was Indian, the fat boy from Indianapolis. That was because Indian looked horrified and lugubrious always.
They wandered disconsolately about the spot where the boat had landed for perhaps five minutes, gazing longingly at the trace of the boat in the sand and wishing they could see it in the water as well, before any new development came. But the development was a startling one when it came. It took no detective to read the secret; it was written plain as day to all eyes in an object that lay on the ground.
Mark was the first to notice it. He saw a gleam of metal in the sand, and he thought it was one of the coins. But a moment later he saw that it was not, and he sprang forward, trembling with eagerness and sudden hope.
A moment later he held up before his startled companions a handsome gold watch. They sprang forward to look at it. Crying out in surprise as they did so, and a moment later he turned it quickly over. Written upon the back were three letters in the shape of a monogram—a monogram they had seen before on clothing, worn by a yearling, and that yearling was——
“Bull Harris!”
The scene that followed then precludes description. The Seven danced about on the sand, fairly howled for what was joy at one moment, anger at another. There was joy that they had found a clew, that they knew where to hunt for their treasure; and anger at that latest of the many contemptible tricks that yearling had tried.
What Bull Harris had done scarcely needs to be mentioned here—at least, not to old readers of this series. He had tried every scheme that his revengeful cunning could suggest to even matters with that hated Mark Mallory. He had tried a dozen plans to get Mark expelled, a dozen to get him brutally hazed. And they had all been cowardly tricks in which the yearling took good care to run no danger. This was the last, the climax; he had stolen their treasure by night, and what was almost as bad had he found their secret cavern. And as Mark stood and stared at that watch he clutched in his hand he registered a vow that Bull Harris should be paid for his acts in a way that he would not forget if he lived a thousand years.
And then he turned to the others.