CHAPTER XXI.
THE TREASURE.
"Nonsense, there are no such things as spirits," cried Charley, hotly. "That tolling is made by a big bell, and a remarkably sweet-toned one, too."
"It's over a hundred miles to the nearest settlement," said the captain gloomily, "do you reckon you could hear the biggest bell made that far?"
"No," the lad admitted, "but that bell is not over two miles away. Some Indian has traded for a bell and tolls it for his own amusement."
The captain lowered his voice to a superstitious whisper. "It's a mystery to the Indians," he declared, "and they avoid the sound like it were an evil spirit. Even the chief could not tell me what it was, although all his life he had heard its tolling. He wasn't so much afraid of it as are the other Indians an' he built this wigwam here so as to be within sound of it." The captain's voice dropped still lower as he added impressively, "It tolled all the night after he died."
"Have you tried to follow up the sound and discover where it comes from?" demanded Charley, sharply.
"Not me," declared the captain, solemnly, "I ain't got any call to interfere with the doings of the dead. I tell you, lad, this is a land of mystery, an' a man's got no call to fool with what he can't understand."
Charley checked the angry reply rising to his lips. He bethought himself that the captain had spent his life in a calling that often makes the strongest minded superstitious, while Chris inherited a belief in ghosts and spirits from his race. Though he lapsed into silence, Charley resolved that as soon as he was able to get around, the mystery should be solved.
For about an hour the air rang with the sweet chiming notes, then they ceased as suddenly as they had begun and the boys dropped off to sleep to dream of this strange incident in this mysterious swamp.