“Oh, yes, I started to tell you when that music came along. Well, the reason was that it was Hank Denby’s plan. Hank always had a better head on him than any of the rest of us—he was more business-like. Maybe that’s why the old pirate sailor picked him out to give him the map of the treasure.
“But after we’d located it and got it out—and a precious hard time we had of it to do it in secret so as not to let the natives and some of the worse whites on the island know about it—after that Hank talked to us.
“He reminded us what sailors were like—free spenders when they had anything—saving nothing against a rainy day, and he persuaded us to let him take charge of most of the money—that is the biggest parts of our three shares. He said he’d put it in a safe place and pay it out to us as we needed it. He first divided it all up fair and square—a quarter of the lot to each man—and then asked us to let him handle all of ours but a few thousands we wanted to spend right away.”
“Did you agree to that?” asked Bob, who, with his chums, was eagerly interested in the tale.
“Yes, we did. We knew Hank had a better head than the rest of us, so we turned our shares over to him.”
“And buried it back on that island?” asked Harry.
“Oh, no, we brought it away with us. That island was too far away and too hard to get at to leave any gold there. Hank said there was just as good hiding places in the town where he lived.”
“You mean here in Cliffside?” cried Ned.
“Cliffside’s the place!” announced Jolly Bill Hickey. “Hank said he could hide the money where nobody would ever find it without a map, and that’s just what he’s done. And now he’s dead and the map is in that brass-bound box and who’s got the box I don’t know! It’s fair maddening—that’s what it is!”
Jolly Bill seemed anything but like his name then.