"Ah reckon I"d like best to jes" cook an" clean upon this here boat. She sure am a fine boat and Ah wouldn"t be in the way a littlest bit. Ah could sleep down in here by the engines or on deck."
"All right, Doright," answered Jack. "We"ll have to consider the matter a while. We"ll let you know later. You may go now."
After the negro"s disappearance toward the cabin, the boys again gathered about Jack, eager for the next development.
"After Doright"s lucid explanation, I think we have reduced our troubles to just one," he announced in a tone of finality.
"Just one trouble on earth," shouted Harry. "Oh my!"
"And what, pray, might that be?" queried Frank.
"That is just the question of whether or not there really is a treasure and if there is whether or not it is getatable, and whether Wyckoff and Lopez and their gang of rascals will make us the trouble they have been trying to make if we endeavor to get the chest."
"Well," speculated Charley, "if there isn"t a treasure, there might just as well be one for Wyckoff and Lopez and their gang believe there is one, and they"re ready to fight to the last breath to get it."
"They"re surely sc.r.a.ppers," Arnold announced. "We know that."
"Yes," agreed Harry, "they"re sc.r.a.ppers from the very word."
"Look at what we"ve had to contend with before we fairly start."
"What I"m worried about," Jack announced, "is that although Lawyer Geyer gives minute instructions about everything else he doesn"t give any information as to the site of the chest. The fort must have been an acre or so in extent, yet he doesn"t say whether it was buried in this corner or that, or out near the wood shed or what."
"We"ll have to dig it all up," laughingly declared Frank.
"I can fix that," boasted Harry. "I know exactly the spot where we should turn the first shovelful of earth."
CHAPTER XXI
A FRIEND AND AN ENEMY
"Yes, you know all about this business," scorned Arnold. "I"ll wager you were there when the stuff was buried."
"No I wasn"t there, but I know where to dig just the same. I can tell you within two feet of where the chest was planted."
"Harry," Jack said soberly, "this is getting to be almost too serious a matter to joke about. If you have any information that would be of help to us, let"s have it, but don"t joke us."
"I"m not joking," bridled Harry. "I"ve got some information that I believe to be pretty near the exact thing we"re looking for. I got it from a man who wouldn"t have parted with it for his right hand if he"d known about it, so I think it is all right."
"Where did you get it and what does it look like?"
"I got it in the cabin in the woods that was burned down. When Lopez left us that time to go for Wyckoff in order to have his captives appraised and disposed of, I remembered that I had seen him just before supper step over to a chest in the corner of the room. He unlocked the chest, took an envelope from his pocket, put it in the chest and dropped the lid. It was a spring lock for he didn"t lock it again, but tried it to see if it was fast."
"So, of course, you picked the lock and stole his time card."
"Wait, Tom," cautioned Jack. "Let Harry finish his story."
"So, of course," went on Harry, "when we were getting loose I forgot all about the paper until the place was afire. Arnold went out of the cabin and I was at his heels, but remembered the envelope. I wanted that badly just then, so I s.n.a.t.c.hed up a great piece of firewood and with a few blows shattered the top of the chest. It had a tray that was nearly empty except for the thing I sought. There it lay, ready for me to take.
So, of course, I took it. I stuffed it inside my jacket while we climbed out and then in the darkness I put it into an inside pocket where it has been ever since. Lopez forgot to search us very diligently or he would surely have discovered it."
"What does it look like and do you think it has any information we could use?" inquired Jack, intensely interested.
"I don"t know what the thing inside is made of," answered Harry producing the article. "It looks like leather of a peculiar kind and on it are black marks. If it were not for one thing, I"d have pa.s.sed it up entirely. Over in the corner are the words--"Biloxi Bayou." Then the rest was as clear as mud."
"Let"s take a look at it," requested Arnold. "We all want to see what it"s like. If it was left by a Spaniard, it"s no use to us, for we can"t read Spanish and when Harry says he read it, I can"t believe he knows what he"s talking about. He can"t read Spanish."
"I can read this all right," protested Harry, "and so can you. It"s very simple. Here"s a mark and there"s a mark and that"s all."
He now spread the chart open above the binnacle so that the boys all might look at it. As he had said, it was a piece of soft Spanish leather left white by the dyer but now yellowed and darkened somewhat with age.
In rather uneven lines were traced roughly the location of certain objects intended obviously to be trees. Certain of these were ranged in line like the range lights used by mariners when entering or leaving a harbor. At a spot where two lines of ranges crossed, which was evidently near the water"s edge, was a rough sketch of a box. Evidently no words were needed.
"I see it all as plain as day," declared Arnold. "This old chap selected a spot at the intersection of two ranges using big trees--maybe live oaks--then he dug a hole and buried the chest. It is right where the tide comes up so no one would think of looking there for it! He was a wise old chap."
"Then we"ll have to go there when the tide"s out."
"No, I don"t think so. I have another idea," Jack put in, "but it"s so foolish that we better forget it. Anyhow, I believe the fellow tried to say that the box was buried just at the high water mark."
"All right, let it go at that," returned Harry. "If the box is there and the trees are there, that"s all we want. We can get it."
"If Wyckoff and his gang don"t get there first."
"What I want to know," Charley spoke up, "is what makes this line and the others, too, so uneven. They are soaked right into the leather and looks as if the ink hadn"t run evenly."
"Frank," queried Jack, "what do you make of it?"
"I"d hate to say right out," Frank answered, "but it looks to me like the old Don had run out of ink and used a little red ink from the arm of one of his trusty followers. A little hot water would set it and turn it black so it would never fade."
"That"s horrible," shuddered Tom. "I don"t like to think of such a thing. It makes me shivery all over just to think of it."
"Well, we"ll get over to Biloxi as soon as we can and look over the ground. When we think we"ve located the treasure, we"ll just shove a spade into the sand and up"ll come the dollars."
"Sure, Tom, you"ve got it all doped out to a dot."
"Where are we now? Seems we ought to be nearly to Biloxi by this time.
We"ve been hitting up a pretty good pace."
"We"ve got a long ways to go yet. There"s Pascagoula over there on the starboard side now. We ran some little distance to the east."
"Sail ho," sung out Charley who was keeping a lookout from the top of the pilot house. "I see a man in a row boat."
"Where away?" asked Jack.