BITS OF EVIDENCE
If Mark had received a shock from a galvanic battery he would not have
been more startled.
"What's that you say?" he demanded, bringing his chair down from its
tilted position and looking around upon the group in a bewildered way.
"Lester is right," said Ross, who had risen to his feet and stretched
out his hand. "My name is Ross Montgomery, and I want to thank you with
all my heart for what you did for my father. I've never had the chance
to do it before."
His voice was shaken with emotion at this meeting with the man who had
played so large a part in the tragedy of his family so many years
before.
Mark grasped the extended hand and shook it warmly.
"So it was your pa that I picked up that day," he said. "I hed a sort of
feelin' to-day that I had seen you somewheres, an' I s'pose it's because
you favored him some. You have the same kind of hair an' eyes, as near
as I kin rec'lect."
"Of course I was only a little chap when it all happened," said Ross,
"but I've often heard mother tell how kind you were to him after you
found him adrift."
"Oh, pshaw! that was nothin'," replied Mark deprecatingly, as he resumed
his seat. "I only did fur him what any man would do fur an' unfo'tunit
feller-man. He was nearly all gone when I come across him. The doc said
he would 'a' died ef he'd floated around a few hours longer."
"Do you remember anything he said to you while you were taking care of
him?" asked Lester.
"Oh, he said a heap o' things, jest like any man does when he is out of
his head," was the answer. "I didn't pay much attention like. I was too
busy holdin' him down when he got vi'lent, as he did pretty often the
first few days. After that he kind of settled down an' only kep'
a-mutterin' to himself."
"Yes, but didn't he say anything that would give you a hint of what had
happened to him and how he came to be adrift?" asked Fred.
Mark ruminated for a full minute, evidently doing his best to tax his
memory.
"I ain't got the best memory in the world," he said apologetically, "an'
I couldn't make out fur certain all he said. But I got the idee thet
there'd been a fight of some kind an' thet he'd lost a pile of money. He
kep' a talkin' of 'gold' an' some 'debts' he owed. Course I thought it
was only the ravin's of a crazy man an' I didn't take much stock in it."
"Wasn't there anything else?" prodded Fred.
"N-no," replied Mark hesitatingly, "nothin' thet I remember on. Oh,
yes," he went on, as a sudden flash of memory came to him, "I do
rec'lect he kep' sayin': 'It's where the water's comin' in.' But of
course there wasn't no sense in that."
The boys sat up straight.
"Say that again, won't you?" asked Teddy.
"It's where the water's comin' in," repeated Mark. "He said that over
and over. I s'pose it was the feelin' of the spray thet came over him in
the boat. I don't rightly know what else it could have been."
As the boys themselves turned the phrase over in their minds, they could
not see how it bore on the object of their search. They filed it away in
their minds to think about later on.
For the next two hours they discussed the matter with Mark, trying to
get from him any little shred of evidence that would be of help, and yet
at the same time guarding carefully against revealing the real object of
their questioning. He, for his part, set it down to the natural
curiosity they felt in an event that touched the life of one of them so
nearly, and did his best to cudgel his memory. But nothing more came of
it than they had already learned, and it was with a sense of depression
and failure that they finally gave up the cross examination that they
had come so far to make.
"Well, Mark," said Lester at last, when several long yawns had shown
that the old man was tired and sleepy, "we can't tell you how much
obliged we are to you for all you've told us. But I guess we've tired
you out with all our questions."
"Not a bit of it," denied Mark valiantly, though his drooping eyelids
belied his words.
"I was just a-wonderin' where I was goin' to put all you boys for the
night," he went on. "There's only one bed in the cabin, but I kin spread
some blankets on the floor, ef that'll do yer."
"Don't worry at all about that," said Fred cheerily. "You go right in to
bed and we'll bunk out here on the beach. It's a warm night, and we'd as
soon do it as not."
As there was really nothing else to do, Mark, after making a feeble
protest, said good-night and went inside, while the boys moved down the
beach until they were out of earshot and prepared to camp out.
"We didn't get much out of the old chap after all, did we?" said Bill
rather despondently.
"After coming all this way too," added Teddy, even more dejectedly.
"The only thing we'll have to show for the trip will be the shark, I
guess," said Lester.
"Well, that would be enough if we hadn't gotten anything else," declared
Fred. "But I'm not so sure that we came on a fool's errand after all."
"What makes you think we didn't?" asked Bill. "What do we know that we
didn't know before?"
"Well," suggested Fred, "we hadn't heard before of that phrase Mr.
Montgomery used over and over. 'It's where the water's coming in.'"
"That's nothing at all," affirmed Bill decidedly.
"I have a hunch it does mean something," replied Fred, "and I'm going to
keep mulling it over in my mind until I find out what the meaning is.
"By the way, Ross," he went on, turning to their new-found friend where
he sat brooding a little way apart from the rest, "we've learned
something since we saw you first that may interest you. We'd have told
you earlier this afternoon, but we've been traveling in different boats,
and then when we got on shore we were so busy with cutting up the shark
that we didn't get a chance till now."
Ross looked up eagerly.
"What is it?" he cried, getting up and joining the group.
He listened breathlessly while Fred told him what they had learned
during their talk with Mr. Lee--the fight with the smugglers, their
flight to the south Pacific, the partial confession of Dick and the
going down of the ship with all on board.
When Fred had finished, Ross rose and paced the beach excitedly.
"You fellows found out in a few minutes what I've spent years trying to
learn," he cried. "All the time I've been hunting, I've been haunted by
the fear that even if I found where the gold had been hidden, the money
would long ago have been taken and spent by the robbers. I've felt like
all kinds of an idiot in keeping up the search on such a slender chance,
and again and again I've been tempted to give it up. But this puts new
life and hope in me. There's still a chance to find the gold and pay my
father's debts."
"It's practically certain that the money is still there," affirmed Fred.
"The fellows who took it are all drowned--unless they're living
somewhere on a desert island, and that's so unlikely after all this time
that it isn't worth giving it a second thought. The only living man,
outside of ourselves, who knows about the gold is Tom Bixby. He's just a
rough sailor knocking about all over the world, and he too may be dead
by this time. The whole secret lies with us, and if the gold's ever
found, we'll be the ones who will find it."
"You boys have been perfect bricks," declared Ross warmly, "and you make
me ashamed for having kept anything back from you from the start."
"You needn't feel that way at all," asserted Teddy. "For my part, I
think you've been very generous and outspoken in telling us as much as
you have. You'd never met us before that day of the storm and didn't
know anything about us."
"Well, I know all about you now," declared Ross, "and from now on,
everything I find out will be known to you as fast as I can get it to
you."
The boys said nothing but waited expectantly.
"There's one thing I didn't tell you that first night," Ross continued.
"I don't know how important it may prove to be, but at least it's a clue
that may lead to something.
"As you know, the _Ranger_ was taken to Halifax and abandoned there
by the smugglers. Ramsay, the captain who died on the trip, had owned
it, but he had no family and the authorities took charge of the boat and
sold it after a while, holding the money they got for it for the benefit
of the heirs, if any should ever turn up. The new owner used the boat
for a voyage or two, but he found it hard to get a crew. You know how
superstitious sailors are. The mysterious way it was found abandoned
gave sailor men the impression that there was a hoodoo of some kind
connected with it, and they wouldn't ship aboard her. So the new owner
sold it and the name was changed.
"One day in Canada I ran across a sailor who had made a trip in the ship
before the name was changed, and he told me a queer thing. He said he
had found a rough map cut out on the wood of the forecastle with a
jackknife. There were wavy lines to represent the water and a shaded
part that might stand for a beach. Then there was a clump of three trees
standing together, and a little way off were two more. One big rock rose
out of the water on the right-hand side.
"Of course I jumped to the conclusion that it might have something to do
with the place where the gold was hidden. I thought perhaps some of the
sailors had wanted to impress on their memory just how the place looked,
so that they could find it more easily when the time came. I pumped the
man for more details, but that was all he could remember. I've tried in
every way I knew to trace the old _Ranger_ but she has slipped out
of sight like a ghost. If I could only have one look at that old
forecastle, I think that the map might put me on the right trail."
"I'll bet it would," declared Fred with conviction, and his opinion was
eagerly echoed by the others.
For a long time they debated the matter from this new angle, and it was
very late when Lester urged that they should settle down for the night.
"We'll get an early start in the morning and get back to the Shoals
before noon," he suggested. "I want to get busy on the government maps
and plot out every mile of the coast so that we can start out in
earnest."
But Lester's plan miscarried in part. They got the early start after a
cordial good-bye to Mark. But the wind was baffling and they had to make
long tacks, so that dusk was drawing on when they at last reached
Bartanet Shoals.