Found Out
"I dreamed about that old pouch last night," said Richard in one of the
intervals of rest which they allowed themselves.
"I dreamed that it belonged to a Chinese man with crooked, yellow finger-
nails a foot long. He came and stood over my bed and said that because
there was important news in that letter and we buried it, and kept it
from going to where it ought to go, _we_ had to be buried alive. And
he picked me up like I was that nut and tossed me over his shoulder, and
said, 'Brother, go find your brother.' And I began sinking down in the
sand deeper and deeper until I began to smother."
Georgina made no answer. The dream did not impress her as being at all
terrifying. She had swung her prism around her neck that morning when she
dressed, and now while she rested she amused herself by flashing the bars
of color across Captain Kidd. Richard resented her lack of interest.
"Well, it may not sound very bad out here in the daylight, but you ought
to have _had_ it. I yelled until Daddy shook me and told me I'd wake
up the whole end of town with such a nightmare. If you'd have seen that
old Chinaman's face like a dragon's, you'd understand why I feel that
we've just got to find that pouch. It's going to get us into some kind of
trouble, certain sure, if we don't."
Georgina rose to begin digging again. "It's lucky nobody ever comes this
way to see all these holes," she began, but stopped with her shovel half
lifted. A familiar voice from the circle of bushes at the top of the dune
called down cheerily:
"Ship ahoy, mates. What port are you bound for now? Digging through to
China?"
"It's Uncle Darcy!" they exclaimed in the same breath. He came plunging
down the side of the dune before they could recover from their confusion.
There was a pail of blueberries in each hand. He had been down the state
road picking them, and was now on his way to the Gray Inn to sell them to
the housekeeper. Leaving the pails in a level spot under the shade of a
scrubby bush, he came on to where the children were standing, and eased
himself stiffly down to a seat on the sand. It amused him to see their
evident embarrassment, and his eyes twinkled as he inquired:
"What mischief are you up to now, digging all those gopher holes?"
Neither answered for a moment, then Georgina gulped and found her voice.
"It's--it's a secret," she managed to say.
"Oh," he answered, growing instantly grave at the sound of that word.
"Then I mustn't ask any questions. We must always keep our secrets.
Sometimes it's a pity though, when one has to promise to do so. I hope
yours isn't the burden to you that mine is to me."
This was the first time he had spoken to them of the promise they had
made to him and Belle. With a look all around as if to make certain the
coast was clear, he said:
"There's something I've been wanting to say to you children ever since
that day you had the rifle, and now's as good a chance as any. I want you
to know that I never would have promised what I did if it could have made
any possible difference to Mother. But lately she seems all confused
about Danny's trouble. She seems to have forgotten there was any trouble
except that he went away from home. For months she's been looking for him
to walk in most any day.
"Ever since I gave my word to Belle, I've been studying over the right
and wrong of it. I felt I wasn't acting fair to Danny. But now it's clear
in my mind that it _was_ the right thing to do. I argue it this way.
Danny cared so much about saving Emmett from disgrace and Belle from the
pain of finding it out, that he was willing to give up his home and good
name and everything. Now it wouldn't be fair to him to make that
sacrifice in vain by telling while it can still be such a death-blow to
Emmett's father and hurt Belle much as ever. She's gone on all these
years fairly worshiping Emmett's memory for being such a hero."
Uncle Darcy stopped suddenly and seemed to be drawn far away from them as
if he had gone inside of himself with his own thoughts and forgotten
their presence. Georgina sat and fanned herself with her shade hat.
Richard fumbled with the little compass, rolling it from one hand to the
other, without giving any thought to what he was doing. Presently it
rolled away from him and Captain Kidd darted after it, striking it with
his forepaws as he landed on it, and thus rolling it still farther till
it stopped at the old man's feet.
Recalled to his surroundings in this way, Uncle Darcy glanced at the
object indifferently, but something strangely familiar in its appearance
made him lean closer and give it another look. He picked it up, examining
it eagerly. Then he stood up and gazed all around as if it had dropped
from the sky and he expected to see the hand that had dropped it.
"Where did you get this?" he demanded huskily, in such a queer,
breathless way that Richard thought his day of reckoning had come. His
sin had found him out. He looked at Georgina helplessly.
"Yes, tell!" she exclaimed, answering his look.
"I--I--just _played_ it was mine," he began. "'Cause the initials on
it are the same as mine when we play pirate and I'm Dare-devil Dick. I
was only going to keep it till we dug up the pouch again. We were keeping
it to help find the pouch like Tom Sawyer did--"
It seemed to Richard that Uncle Darcy's hand, clutching his shoulder, was
even more threatening than the Chinaman's of his nightmare, and his voice
more imperative.
"Tell me! Where did you get it? _That's my compass!_ I scratched
those letters on that nut. 'D. D.' stands for Dan'l Darcy. I brought it
home from my last voyage. 'Twas a good-luck nut they told me in the last
port I sailed from. It was one of the first things Danny ever played
with. There's the marks of his first little tooth under those letters. I
gave it to him when he got old enough to claim it, for the letters were
his, too. He always carried it in his pocket and _he had it with him
when he went away_. For the love of heaven, child, tell me where you
found it?"
The hand which clutched Richard's shoulder was shaking as violently as it
had the day the old rifle gave up its secret, and Richard, feeling the
same unnamable terror he had felt in his nightmare, could only stammer,
"I--I don't know. Captain Kidd found it."
Then all three of them started violently, for a hearty voice just behind
them called out unexpectedly:
"Hullo, what's all the excitement about?"
It was Captain James Milford, who had strolled down from the bungalow,
his hat stuck jauntily on the back of his head, and his hands in his
pockets. A few moments before he had been scanning the harbor through a
long spy-glass, and happening to turn it towards the dunes had seen the
two children digging diligently with shovel and hoe.
"Looks as if they'd started to honey-comb the whole Cape with holes," he
thought. "Curious how many things kids of that age can think of. It might
be well to step down and see what they're about."
He put up the spy-glass and started down, approaching them on one side as
the Towncrier reached them on the other.
"Now for a yarn that'll make their eyes stand out," he thought with a
smile as he saw the old man sit down on the sand.
"Wonder if it would sound as thrilling now as it did when I was Dick's
age. I believe I'll just slip up and listen to one for old times' sake."
Uncle Darcy let go of Richard's shoulder and turned to the newcomer
appealingly.
"Jimmy," he said with a choke in his voice. "Look at this! The first
trace of my boy since he left me, and they can't tell me where they got
it."
He held out the compass and Mr. Milford took it from his trembling
fingers.
"Why, _I_ remember this old trinket, Uncle Dan'l!" exclaimed Mr.
Milford. "You let me carry it in my pocket one day when I was no bigger
than Dicky, here, when you took me fishing with you. I thought it was
responsible for my luck, for I made my first big catch that day. Got a
mackerel that I bragged about all season."
Uncle Darcy seized the man's arm with the same desperate grip which had
held the boy's.
"You don't seem to understand!" he exclaimed. "I'm trying to tell you
that _Danny_ is mixed up with this in some way. Either he's been
near here or somebody else has who's seen him. He had this with him when
he went away, I tell you. These children say they took it out of a pouch
that the dog found. Help me, Jimmy. I can't seem to think--"
He sat weakly down on the sand again, his head in his hands, and Mr.
Milford, deeply interested, turned to the children. His questions called
out a confusing and involved account, told piecemeal by Georgina and
Richard in turn.
"Hold on, now, let's get the straight of this," he interrupted, growing
more bewildered as the story proceeded. "What was in the pouch besides
the gold pieces, the other money and this compass?"
"A letter with a foreign stamp on it," answered Richard. "I noticed
specially, because I have a stamp almost like it in my album."
On being closely cross-questioned he could not say positively to what
country the stamp belonged. He thought it was Siam or China. Georgina
recalled several names of towns partially scratched out on the back of
the envelope, and the word Texas. She was sure of that and of "Mass." and
of "Mrs. Henry--" something or other.
"But the inside of the letter," persisted Mr. Milford. "Didn't you try to
read that?"
"Course not," said Georgina, her head indignantly high. "We only looked
at each end of it to see if the person's name was on it, but it began,
'Dear friend,' and ended, 'Your grateful friend Dave.'"
"So the letter was addressed '_Mrs_.'" began Mr. Milford, musingly,
"but was in a tobacco pouch. The first fact argues that a woman lost it,
the last that it was a man."
"But it didn't smell of tobacco," volunteered Georgina. "It was nice and
clean only where Captain Kidd chewed the string."
"I suppose it didn't have any smell at all," said Mr. Milford, not as if
he expected anyone to remember, but that he happened to think of it. A
slowly dawning recollection began to brighten in Georgina's eyes.
"But it did have a smell," she exclaimed. "I remember it perfectly well
now. Don't you know, Richard, when you were untying it at the top of the
steps I said 'Phew! that makes me think of the liniment I bought from the
wild-cat woman last night,' I had to hold the bottle in my lap all the
time we were at the moving picture show so I had a chance to get pretty
well acquainted with that smell. And afterwards when we were wrapping the
tin foil around the pouch, getting ready to bury it we both turned up our
noses at the way it smelled. It seemed stronger when the sun shone on
it."
"The wild-cat woman," repeated Mr. Milford, turning on Georgina. "Where
was she? What did you have to do with her? Was the dog with you?"
Little by little they began to recall the evening, how they had started
to the show with the Fayal family and turned aside to hear the patent
medicine man sing, how Richard and Georgina had dared each other to touch
the wild-cat's tail through the bars, and how Georgina in climbing down
from the wheel had stumbled over Captain Kidd whom they thought safely
shut up at home.
"I believe we've found a clue," said Mr. Milford at last. "If anybody in
town had lost it there'd have been a notice put up in the post-office or
the owner would have been around for you to cry it, Uncle Dan'l. But if
it's the wild-cat woman's she probably did not discover her loss till she
was well out of town, and maybe not until she reached her next stopping-
place."
"There's been nothing of the sort posted on the bulletin board at the
post-office," said the old man. "I always glance in at it every morning."
Mr. Milford looked at him thoughtfully as if considering something. Then
he said slowly:
"Uncle Dan'l, just how much would it mean to you to find the owner of
that pouch?"
"Why, Jimmy," was the tremulous answer, "if it led to any trace of my boy
it would be the one great hope of my life realized."
"You are quite sure that you _want_ to bring him back? That it would
be best for all concerned?" he continued meaningly.
There was a silence, then the old man answered with dignity:
"I know what you're thinking of, and considering all that's gone before,
I'm not blaming you, but I can tell you this, Jimmy Milford. If the town
could know all that I know it'd be glad and proud to have my boy brought
back to it."
He smote the fist of one hand into the palm of the other and looked about
like something trapped, seeking escape.
"It isn't fair!" he exclaimed. "It isn't fair! Him worthy to hold up his
head with the best of them, and me bound not to tell. But I've given my
promise," he added, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "I s'pose
it'll all work out for the best, somehow, in the Lord's own good time,
but I can't seem to see the justice in it now."
He sat staring dejectedly ahead of him with dim, appealing eyes.
The younger man took a step forward and laid an arm across the bent
shoulders.
"All right, Uncle Dan'l," he said heartily. "If there's anything under
the sun I can do to help you I'm going to do it, beginning right now.
Come on up to the house and I'll begin this Sherlock Holmes business by
telephoning down the Cape to every town on it till we locate this wild-
cat liniment wagon, and then we'll get after it as fast as the best
automobile in Provincetown can take us."