THE CASTAWAY
For the next few minutes there was not much talking, and the boys
devoted themselves to making a wreck of the good things heaped before
them. Their morning in the salt air on the open sea had put them in fine
fettle and they had enormous appetites.
"Well," said Fred, when at last they were satisfied, "we have to hand it
to you as a cook, Mr. Lee. You certainly know how to make things taste
good."
"Lester comes rightly by his talent in fixing up the eats," declared
Bill.
"A sailor has to learn to turn his hand to anything," laughed their
host. "He gets into lots of places where he has to depend on himself
alone or go hungry. I've been shipwrecked twice in the course of my
life, and I've had to learn to eat all sorts of things and to cook them
in a way that would help me get them down."
"Talking about shipwrecks," he went on, as he filled and lighted his
pipe and settled down for an after-dinner smoke, "reminds me of the
fellow you say you picked up yesterday. How did he come there? Go ahead
and spin your yarn."
"It wasn't exactly a shipwreck," explained Lester. "The boat wasn't
smashed, and as a matter of fact we found it for Ross again to-day. It
was a motor boat----"
"A motor boat!" interrupted Mr. Lee, with a sniff. He had the distrust
felt by most deep-water sailors, of what he called "these pesky modern
contraptions."
"Ross was tinkering with some part of the machinery that had gone
wrong," continued Lester, "when a big wave caught him and carried him
overboard. We were near by at the time and we made for him and got him."
"Yanked him in with a boathook, I suppose," said his father.
"We were too late for that," answered Lester. "He had gone down, but
Fred grabbed a rope and dived over after him. It was a close call, but
he got him, and then we dragged them both in."
"A plucky thing to do in a storm like that," commented Mr. Lee, looking
approvingly at Fred.
"Ross came to after a while, and we found that the only hurt he had was
the water he had swallowed," went on Lester. "We couldn't do anything
with the motor boat just then, so we made straight for Sentinel Cove.
This morning, Montgomery was as good as ever."
Mr. Lee started slightly as he heard this name.
"Montgomery, did you say?" he asked. "I thought you called him Ross."
"Yes, Ross Montgomery. Why?"
"Nothing," was the reply. "Go ahead with your story."
"There isn't very much more to tell, as far as we're concerned. We
anchored at the cove for the night, and got away bright and early this
morning. But Ross himself had a story to tell that has got us all worked
up. You'd never guess what it was, Dad, in a thousand years."
"I never was much good at guessing," smiled Mr. Lee, "so let's have it
just as he told it."
Lester started at the beginning and told the story as he had received it
from Ross, with frequent suggestions from the other boys to remind him
of some slight detail he had overlooked.
Mr. Lee listened intently, but he asked no questions, and for some
minutes after Lester had finished he continued to smoke in silence,
while the boys looked at him eagerly, anxious to know what he made of
it.
"Well, Dad," said Lester, a little impatiently, "what do you think of
the story? Is there anything in it?"
"There's a great deal in it," replied Mr. Lee gravely, removing his pipe
from his mouth. "I believe every word of it is true."
The boys were delighted at this confirmation of their own feeling by a
mind more mature than theirs. They had been afraid that Mr. Lee would
ridicule the story, or throw cold water on their plan to go ahead and
try to find the treasure.
"I was perfectly sure that Ross was telling us the truth," jubilated
Teddy.
"I never doubted that for a minute," put in Bill, "but I thought he
might be building hope on a very slight foundation. After all, he has so
little to go on."
"Then you really think that there was a chest of gold and that smugglers
took it from Mr. Montgomery and buried it?" asked Fred.
"I think they took it from him, but I don't think they buried it,"
answered Mr. Lee.
"What do you think they did with it; spent it?" asked Teddy in quick
alarm.
"I don't think that either," was the reply. "I think they hid it
somewhere and that it's there yet."
"Oh!" said Fred, with a sigh of relief. "Then we still have a chance."
"Now, look here, Dad!" exclaimed Lester, "I can see by what you're
saying that you know more about this thing than we do. Don't tease us by
acting in such a mysterious way. Come right out with it."
Mr. Lee laughed good-naturedly.
"You boys are always in a hurry," he remarked as he refilled his pipe
with a deliberation that was maddening to his hearers. "But just let me
get my pipe drawing well, and I'll tell you all I know. It isn't so much
after all as maybe you think, but it may help to piece out a bit here
and there."
He settled himself comfortably in his seat and began:
"It was about nine or ten years ago--I don't remember the exact
date--that Mark Taylor was out fishing at a point about twenty miles
from here."
"The Mark Taylor who lives in Milton?" inquired Lester.
"That was the one. He wasn't having very good luck, and had about made
up his mind to pull up and go home, when he caught sight of a little
boat tossing up and down on the waves. It didn't seem to be going
anywhere, and Mark could see that there was no one rowing or steering
it. He thought that was strange and made up his mind he'd look into the
matter. So he ran up his sail and ran over to what he thought was the
empty boat. He told me afterwards he was knocked all in a heap, when he
saw a man lying in the bottom of it.
"At first Mark thought the man was either dead or drunk. But there
wasn't any smell of liquor on him, and he moved when Mark touched him.
Mark saw that something serious was the matter, and he tried to get the
man into his sailboat. But Mark didn't weigh more than a hundred and
twenty pounds, and this man was so big and so heavily built that he had
to give it up.
"So, leaving the man in it, he tied the small boat to the stern of his,
and made a quick run for home. He took the man into his cabin and sent
for the doctor. The doctor examined the man carefully and found a big
gash in his head that looked as though it had been made with a hatchet.
He saw it hadn't reached a vital point, though, so he sewed it up and
left some medicine, promising to come again the next day.
"Mark said that the doctor had no sooner gone than the man began to rave
and toss about. After a while he became violent, and Mark, being a small
man as I have said, had to call in some of the neighbors to hold him
down. He seemed to imagine that he was in a fight and that a crowd was
piling on him. And he kept talking about 'the gold' and 'the chest,' and
vowing that they would never get it away from him."
A murmur ran around the listening circle.
"Mark didn't pay much attention to what he said," resumed Mr. Lee,
"because he thought it was only the raving of a crazy man.
"Mark and the neighbors searched his clothes and found some papers that
showed them the man's name was Montgomery. They found out, too, that he
lived in a place on the coast of Canada. They wrote to his folks right
away, and a couple of men came down to take him home as soon as he was
able to travel.
"That wasn't for a good while, though, for Montgomery had come down with
an attack of brain fever that kept him on his back for weeks. He got
over that at last, but his mind wasn't right. He wasn't violent any
longer but was melancholy. Went around all the time in a daze. Couldn't
get anything out of him, except that he kept muttering to himself about
'the gold.' Sometimes, though, he'd speak of debts that seemed to worry
him. He couldn't carry on any connected conversation, and he'd get so
excited when any one tried to question him, that the doctor said they
must let him alone.
"He was taken away as soon as he was strong enough, and that's the last
Mark ever saw of him. A little while later, the man's wife sent a little
money to Mark to cover his expenses in caring for her husband, and she
said in her letter that he was no better. And from what you boys tell me
to-day, he must have died soon after."
"Didn't he give any hint of where this fight and robbery had taken
place?" asked Fred.
"No, except that Mark says the man often spoke of Bartanet Shoals. Of
course, that may have meant something and it may have meant nothing.
Still, judging from where the boat was found, it probably was somewhere
within fifty miles of here."
"Fifty miles," murmured Bill. "That's an awful lot of territory to
cover."
"Wasn't there anything in the little boat to give a clue?" asked Teddy.
"Not a thing except that it had the name '_Ranger_' painted on the
stern. That showed that it must have come from a large boat of that
name."
"Are you sure that Mark didn't tell you anything else that might give us
a hint?" asked Lester. "Try to remember, Dad."
"Well," mused his father, "I didn't question him very much at the time,
because I felt as he did, that it was just the foolish raving of a man
who was out of his head."
"How far is Milton from here?" questioned Bill.
"Only a matter of twenty-five miles or so," was the answer.
"We'll go over and see Mark the first chance we get," said Lester
decidedly. "He may drop something when we put him through the third
degree that may put us on the trail."
"That's a good idea," commented his father. "Mark's growing pretty old
now and his memory isn't as good as it was, but he may remember
something that will be of use. At any rate there's no harm in trying."
"We have something to work with now," said Fred cheerily. "We've been
able to check up Ross' story and know that he wasn't dreaming. Then,
too, we have the name of the man who actually found Mr. Montgomery when
he was set adrift, if that's the way he came into the open boat."
"But there must be more," persisted Lester. "What did you mean, Dad,
when you said that the gold wasn't buried but that it was hidden?"
"You're right," admitted his father, "there is more that happened some
time later."