“There’s a gate, anyhow,” observed Ned, “or what’s left of one. And maybe the posts were painted red, once upon a time.”
This they found to be the case, though there was but a faint trace of red left on the weather-beaten wood now. But there was only one post which had any vestige of color on it, and this made their task simpler. The other post had long since rotted away.
With tape line and compass, the latter being one that Hiram Beegle always carried with him, a distance ten feet due east was measured off from the red gate post. Then the same distance was measured off due south. When this had been done, and stakes driven in at each of these points, Ned suddenly uttered an exclamation of disgust.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bob.
“Why, we’re as badly off as we were before,” declared Ned. “Look, we’ve got two places to dig. Which one contains the treasure?” and he indicated the south mark and the east.
“Maybe there’s treasure under each one,” suggested Harry.
“That’s it!” cried Bob. “I was waiting for one of you to suggest that, for it occurred to me as soon as I saw that the cipher gave us two points. It’s either that—treasure at both places, divided to make it less easily found, or else we’ve got to draw a line from the two points, making a triangle and then dig at the middle point of the longest line. But we’ll try the two points first.”
With beating hearts they began digging at the south point first. The ground was soft, the early frosts not yet having penetrated deeply, and as the brown soil was tossed out, shovelful after shovelful, each one was eagerly looked at.
They took turns, making an excavation large enough to stand in, and going deeper gradually. They had gone down five feet, and there was, as yet no indication of hidden wealth. Ned climbed out of the hole and dubiously shook his head.
“Looks like a hoax to me,” he said.