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[Illustration: DON AND BERT GORDON AND THE “CIRCUS-HOSSES.”]
_BOY TRAPPER SERIES._
THE
BURIED TREASURE;
OR,
OLD JORDAN’S “HAUNT.”
BY HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF “THE FRANK NELSON SERIES,” “THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB SERIES,”
“GUNBOAT SERIES,” &C.
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY T. COATES & CO.
FAMOUS CASTLEMON BOOKS.
=GUNBOAT SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 6 vols. 12mo.
FRANK THE YOUNG NATURALIST.
FRANK IN THE WOODS.
FRANK ON THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI.
FRANK ON A GUNBOAT.
FRANK BEFORE VICKSBURG.
FRANK ON THE PRAIRIE.
=ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo.
Cloth.
FRANK AMONG THE RANCHEROS.
FRANK IN THE MOUNTAINS.
FRANK AT DON CARLOS’ RANCH.
=SPORTSMAN’S CLUB SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo.
Cloth.
THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB IN THE SADDLE.
THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB AFLOAT.
THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB AMONG THE TRAPPERS.
=FRANK NELSON SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo.
Cloth.
SNOWED UP.
FRANK IN THE FORECASTLE.
THE BOY TRADERS.
=BOY TRAPPER SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
THE BURIED TREASURE.
THE BOY TRAPPER.
THE MAIL-CARRIER.
=ROUGHING IT SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
GEORGE IN CAMP.
GEORGE AT THE WHEEL.
GEORGE AT THE FORT.
=ROD AND GUN SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
DON GORDON’S SHOOTING BOX.
THE YOUNG WILD FOWLERS.
ROD AND GUN CLUB.
=GO-AHEAD SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
TOM NEWCOMBE.
GO-AHEAD.
NO MOSS.
=FOREST AND STREAM SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 3 vols. 12mo.
Cloth.
JOE WAYRING.
SNAGGED AND SUNK.
STEEL HORSE.
=WAR SERIES.= By HARRY CASTLEMON. 5 vols. 12mo. Cloth.
TRUE TO HIS COLORS.
RODNEY THE OVERSEER.
MARCY THE REFUGEE.
RODNEY THE PARTISAN.
MARCY THE BLOCKADE-RUNNER.
_Other Volumes in Preparation._
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by
PORTER & COATES,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Godfrey Evans Page 5
CHAPTER II.
Godfrey builds Air-castles 22
CHAPTER III.
Dan’s strategy 36
CHAPTER IV.
The Shooting match 54
CHAPTER V.
Godfrey finds something 72
CHAPTER VI.
Our friends, the Gordons 90
CHAPTER VII.
The new comers 105
CHAPTER VIII.
Dan makes a discovery 125
CHAPTER IX.
Old Jordan’s “haunt” 141
CHAPTER X.
What Godfrey’s visitor wanted 157
CHAPTER XI.
Old Jordan shows himself 176
CHAPTER XII.
Old Jordan in trouble 194
CHAPTER XIII.
How Clarence found it out 215
CHAPTER XIV.
Don’s experiment 231
CHAPTER XV.
A joke that was no joke 248
CHAPTER XVI.
Conclusion 268
THE BURIED TREASURE.
CHAPTER I.
GODFREY EVANS.
“Wal, of all the dinners that ever a white man sot down to, this yere
is the beat!”
The speaker was Godfrey Evans--a tall, raw-boned man, dressed in a
tattered, brown jean suit. He was barefooted, his toil-hardened hands
and weather-beaten face were sadly soiled and begrimed, and his hair
and whiskers looked as though they had never been made acquainted with
a comb. As he spoke he drew an empty nail-keg from its corner, placed
a board over the top of it, and seating himself, ran his eye over the
slender stock of viands his wife had just placed on the table.
The man’s appearance was in strict keeping with his surroundings. The
cabin in which he lived and everything it contained told of the most
abject poverty. The building, which was made of rough, unhewn logs,
could boast of but one room and a loft, to which access was gained by
a ladder fastened against the wall. It had no floor and no windows,
all the light being admitted through a dilapidated door, which every
gust of wind threatened to shake from its hinges, and the warmth being
supplied by an immense fire-place with a stick chimney, which occupied
nearly the whole of one end of the cabin. There were no chairs to be
seen--the places of these useful articles being supplied by empty
nail-kegs and blocks of wood; and neither were there any beds--a
miserable “shake-down” in one corner being the best in this line that
the cabin could afford. Everything looked as if it were about to fall
to pieces. Even the rough board table on which the dinner was placed
would have tumbled over, had it not been propped up against the wall.
Godfrey Evans had seen better days. He had once been comparatively well
off in the world; but he had lost all his property through no fault of
his own, and the loss so disheartened him that he would make no effort
to accumulate more. At his time of life it was too late to begin again
with empty hands, he said; so he accepted the situation, but with a
very bad grace, and spent the most of his time in roaming about the
woods with his gun on his shoulder, and the rest in bemoaning his
altered circumstances, and denouncing those of his neighbors who were
more fortunate than himself.
Godfrey’s family consisted of a wife and two sons--the latter aged
respectively seventeen and fifteen years. His wife was a meek-faced
woman who had seen a world of care and trouble, and who, while
submitting patiently to her hard lot, hoped for better things, and
placed unbounded confidence in her youngest son, David, who was
animated by an energetic, manly spirit, which contrasted strangely with
his father’s indolence and indifference. Godfrey seemed content to pass
the remainder of his days in that hovel, destitute of all the comforts,
and even suffering for many of the necessaries of life; but David was
not. He had high aspirations, had formed plans, and, better than that,
he had perseverance and pluck enough to carry them out. Of him and his
brother, Daniel, we shall have more to say as our story progresses. It
will be enough, now, to tell the reader that if they had been utter
strangers, they could not have been more unlike each other. David was
of a lively, cheerful disposition, and his entry into the comfortless
hovel he called home, was like a ray of sunshine bursting through a
storm cloud. Daniel, on the other hand, was like his father, morose and
sullen, and when he came home from the woods or the steamboat landing,
where he spent the most of his time, it seemed as if a thunder cloud
had suddenly settled down over the cabin.
Having drawn his nail-keg up to the table, Godfrey thrust his hand into
his pocket, pulled out his jack-knife, and picking up the fork that lay
beside his broken plate, held the two close together and looked at them
intently for several minutes. The fork was not such a fork as the most
of us use at our meals. It was simply a piece of cane sharpened at one
end; and perhaps this story will fall into the hands of some who can
remember, or who have heard it said, that there was a time, not so very
long ago, when a good many families in the South, who had all their
lives been accustomed to something better, had their choice between
employing their fingers at table, or using such an implement as this we
have just described.
“Look at this yere, now,” said Godfrey, “jest look at it, I say, the
hul on yer, an’ then ax yerselves if it aint a purty pass fur a man to
come to, who had a nice house, a fine plantation and four niggers of
his own, only twelve short years ago! Eh?”
“We can’t help it, father,” said Mrs. Evans, who knew that her angry
husband expected her to say something. “We had comforts once, and we
might have them now if--if----”
“Yes, in course we might, if them Yanks had stayed to hum, whar they
belonged,” Godfrey almost shouted. “We didn’t do nothin’ to them that
they should come down here an’ burn our houses an’ cotton gins, an’
steal our things, did we?”
“The Federals didn’t do it all, father,” said David. “They burned our
buildings, just as they burned the buildings of almost every man who
was in the rebel army; but we should have had enough left to get along
with, if Redburn’s guerillas had left us alone. They didn’t leave us a
bed to sleep on!”
“That’s what makes me so pizen savage agin everybody,” exclaimed
Godfrey, pounding with the handle of his knife on the table. “The men
what wore the same colored jacket as I did, came here and tuk what
the Yanks left us. Why didn’t they go up to Gordon’s an’ clean them
out too? Kase Gordon was a gen’ral, that’s why. That fuss was a rich
man’s war, an’ a poor man’s fight, that’s jest what that fuss was;
an’ everybody can see it now that it is done past. Men like me had to
stay in the ranks an’ carry a musket, an’ starve an’ freeze in the
trenches--that’s what we had to do; while rich planters, like Gordon,
lived high in their tents, rode their fine hosses, stole the sanitary
goods the Yanks sent to their fellers in Richmond, an’ thought they was
a fightin’ for the ’federacy.”
“Why, father, General Gordon was wounded no less than three times,”
said David.
“S’pose he was,” replied Godfrey.
“An’ while he was fighting the Feds in front of Richmond, some more of
them came here and burned down his splendid house, that ours wouldn’t
have made a woodshed to, and stole everything his family had.”
“No, they didn’t do nothing of the kind,” answered his father, almost
savagely. “They burned his house, I know, an’ sarved him right, too.
I’m glad of it; but as fur stealin’ everything the Gordons had, that
ain’t so. No ’taint. The gen’ral’s got heaps an’ stacks of money now.”
“I don’t believe it,” said David, bluntly.
“If you want me to lay that cowhide over yer shoulders right peart, you
jest conspute me that ar way onct more,” said Godfrey, setting down
his cup of buttermilk. “Whar did them speckled ponies come from that
Don and Bert ride around the country, I’d like to know, if the Gordons
hain’t got no money? I was up thar the other day when it rained so
hard, an’ the gen’ral, bein’ mighty perlite, axed me would I come in
an set till the storm was over. Wal, I went, an’ what did I see? The
fust thing I laid my eyes onto was a pianner that them gals thumps on
when they had oughter be workin’ in the kitchen. They was a settin’
the table fur dinner, too; an’ didn’t I see silver forks thar, an’
white-handled knives, an’ chiny, an’ all them things that would jest
set me onto my feet agin if I had the money they cost? I did, I bet ye.
Hain’t got no money, hey, the Gordons hain’t? I know better. They have,
an’ that’s what makes me so pizen savage. How have they got any more
right to have to nor I have? We both fit the Yanks, an’ I made a poor
man of myself by it, while the gen’ral is jest as well off as he ever
was. Things ain’t fixed right in this yere ’arth, no how!”
“Thar they come now,” said Dan, who sat where he could look out of the
door and up the road that led toward General Gordon’s plantation.
“Thar they come, ridin’ them circus-hosses, and talkin’ an’ laughin’ as
though they was the happiest fellers in the world. Everybody is happy
’ceptin’ us. If I had what one of them ponies is wuth, I wouldn’t have
to wear no sich clothes as these yere,” added Dan, raising his arm and
pulling his sleeve around so that he could see the gaping rent in the
elbow. “If I could run one of them hosses off an’ sell it without being
ketched, I’d do it to-night!”
“O, Daniel, don’t talk so,” said his mother quickly.
“An’ why not, I’d like to know?” retorted Dan. “Has them fellers any
right to go a gollopin’ about the country on horseback, while I’ve got
to hoof it all the while, an’ go barefoot too?”
“No, they hain’t,” said Godfrey. “They’ve got jest as much right to
hoof it as any of us; an’ we’ve got the same right to ride on horseback
that they has. We could do it onct, an’ we’ll do it agin! yes, we will,
fur times is goin’ to change with us, an’ purty soon too. Now, don’t
forget what I’m tellin’ ye; ye’ll see the eyes of the Gordons, an’ all
the rest of the folks about here, a stickin’ out as big as _that_,”
said Godfrey, flourishing his clenched hand over the table. “As big as
that, I say, an’ afore many days, too--p’rhaps next week!”
“Whats goin’ to happen, pop?” asked Dan.
“Something that’ll----”
Godfrey glanced out at the door, and seeing that the boys, whose
approach had started the family on this subject of conversation, were
near at hand, put on a very wise look and winked knowingly at his son,
who was obliged to restrain his curiosity for the present.
We must stop here long enough to say a word concerning the new-comers,
as it is possible that we shall often meet them hereafter. Their names
were Donald and Hubert Gordon, and they lived about a mile from the
cabin in which Godfrey Evans and his family lived. And in what part of
the world was that? It doesn’t much matter, for as there is more truth
than fiction in some of the incidents we are about to describe, we do
not care to go too much into details. It will be enough to say that the
scene of our story is laid, and that all the actors therein lived, in
one of our Southern States not very far from the Mississippi river. As
our tale progresses some attentive reader, who has paid close attention
to his history, may be able to locate the exact spot.
Two boys with more cheerful, happy dispositions than Don and Bert
Gordon possessed, it would be hard to find anywhere. Don was sixteen
years of age and his brother one year younger. The former was a
robust, manly youth, who took great delight in all out-of-doors sports,
and who, like many other healthy youngsters, had some glaring faults
that were the occasion of no little anxiety to his father and mother.
One was his great propensity for mischief. He was not fond of books or
school, but any wild scheme for “fun,” as he called it, particularly
if it involved some risk on the part of those who participated in it,
would enlist his hearty sympathy and cooperation. This led to the
most unpleasant episode in Don’s life. He was a student at a certain
high school in a neighboring city, and being thrown into the company
of uneasy spirits like himself, he very soon so far forgot the solemn
promises he had made his mother before leaving home, that he assisted
in laying plans for mischief which others carried into execution. After
that but little urging was necessary to induce him to take part in them
himself; and being at last detected in some act that had been strictly
forbidden, he was promptly expelled from the school.
It was wonderful what a change that made in Don Gordon. He began to
see that his conduct was not calculated to gain and hold the respect
of those whose respect was worth having, and thus far his resolution
to do better had been firmly adhered to. There is a turning point
in everybody’s existence--a time when a decision made affects one’s
whole after career--and who knows but this may have been the critical
period in Don’s life? It was not the disgrace attending his expulsion
from school that awoke him, for that had a different effect. It made
him spiteful and rebellious. It was the treatment he received after
he reached home. Fortunately his father and mother were the kindest
parents in the world, and the friendly talk they had with Don on the
evening of the day he arrived at home, opened the young man’s eyes; and
every promise he made then had been faithfully kept. He and his brother
were now prosecuting their studies at home under the direction of a
private tutor who lived in the house with them.
Bert Gordon was not like his brother in anything except his appearance.
His features resembled Don’s, but instead of the latter’s tough, wiry
body, he had a slender little figure that could endure but trifling
exposure and hardship, and a delicate constitution that had been badly
shattered by the plague of that south-western region--the fever and
ague. He took but little interest in the violent sports of which his
brother was so fond; and if he had consulted his own inclinations, he
would any day have chosen an easy-chair and a good book in preference
to a morning’s gallop. But the doctor insisted on daily exercise, and
that was one reason why General Gordon had purchased the “speckled
ponies” which were so obnoxious to Godfrey Evans and his son Dan.
The ponies were beauties, and Dan called them “circus hosses” because
their color was piebald, like that of a performing steed he had once
seen in a small show that stopped for a day at Rochdale, as the
steamboat-landing three miles distant was called. Their long, wavy
manes reached to their knees, their tails swept the ground as they
walked, and their favorite gait was an easy amble which scarcely moved
their riders in the saddles. They were not fiery or swift enough to
suit Don, who always went at a high-pressure rate, but they suited Bert
very well. They would stand fire like old cavalry horses, and many a
fine bunch of quails and squirrels had their owners shot from their
backs.
As the boys came ambling along, talking and laughing with each other
as though they felt at peace with themselves and all the world, the
inmates of the cabin turned to look at them.
“Another dog,” growled Godfrey, as his eyes rested on a splendid young
pointer that trotted along behind Don’s horse. “They’ve got a new dog
every day. What it takes to keep them wuthless curs would make me rich!”
“They are not worthless curs,” said David, in a low tone. “They are
fine hunting dogs, and the general has one that cost him a hundred
dollars!”
“An’ the Gordons hain’t got no money, I think I heared ye say,” sneered
his father. “How then can they buy dogs with a hundred dollars, I’d
like to know?”
“Don’t talk so loud,” interrupted David. “You don’t want them to hear
you, do you?”
“I don’t keer who hears me when I say----”
Just then there was a clatter of hoofs in front of the cabin, which
ceased suddenly as the new-comers drew rein before the open door.
“Is David at--O, I beg pardon,” exclaimed a cheery voice. “We did not
know you were at dinner. We will wait, as we are in no hurry.”
“I’m here, and ready to serve you any way I can,” said David, rising
from the block of wood which served him for a chair. “I have finished
my dinner.”
“All right,” said Don. “I’ve brought you a new dog to break for me.
Isn’t he a beauty? He is a present from a friend living in Memphis. He
is five months old, and as I found him standing the chickens in the
yard this morning, I think it high time he was taught something. I’ll
give you what I promised, and what we gave you for breaking the others.”
While Don was speaking, Godfrey, who sat within reach of his son,
turned about on his barrel and slily pulled David by the sleeve of his
coat; but the boy paid no attention to him--that is, he did not look
at him. But he did pull his sleeve out of his father’s grasp, and move
toward the other side of the door out of reach.
“I’ll do the best I can with him,” said David.
“And that will be as well as anybody can do,” returned Don. “We will
leave him in your charge and I hope the next time I see him, I can take
him to the field for a good day’s sport. Take the best of care of him,
for he is a valuable animal.”
David caught the pointer by a collar he wore around his neck, and led
him behind the cabin to a kennel he had there, while the brothers,
after lifting their hats to Mrs. Evans, turned about and galloped away.
“You’re a purty son, you are,” said Godfrey, as David, having secured
the pointer, came back and seated himself on his block of wood again.
“Didn’t yer feel me a pullin’ an’ a haulin’ at yer coat, an’ tryin’ to
tell yer not to promise to break that pup fur them ’ristocrats?”
“I did,” answered David.
“Then why didn’t ye pay some heed to it?”
“Because I want the ten dollars--that’s why.”
“Ten dollars!” repeated Godfrey, opening his eyes. “Is that what yer
goin’ to get fur it? It’s a heap of money fur a boy like you to make so
easy, an’ that’s just what makes me ’spise them Gordons so. They’ve got
ten dollars to pay fur breakin’ a pup that haint wuth his salt, an’ I
haint got ten cents to buy grub with. Just look at this yere!”
Godfrey went on moving his jack-knife over the table which was supplied
with nothing but corn bread, fat bacon and buttermilk in the way of
eatables and drinkables.
“Now aint this a purty mess for a white man an’ a gentleman to set
down to? If I couldn’t remember the time when things was different, it
wouldn’t be nigh so hard; but I can. ’Taint so very long ago that we
had fresh meat, an’ coffee, an’ pies, an’ cakes, an’ light bread fur
grub, an’ I had a pipe of store tobacker to smoke arter eatin’ it; but
now--dog-gone sich luck!” cried Godfrey, striking the table such a blow
with his open hand that the dishes jumped into the air, and the cracked
pitcher, which held what was left of the buttermilk, fell in pieces,
allowing its contents to run out among the plates.
“Thar’s something else gone up,” said Godfrey, his anger appeased for
the moment by the sight of the ruins of the pitcher. “An’ I haint got
no stamps to buy another. Dave, I don’t keer if ye be goin’ to get ten
dollars fur it, don’t ye tech that pinter pup ’ceptin’ to tote him back
where he belongs. Do ye hear?”
“I reckon I do,” replied David.
“Wal, be ye goin’ to mind what I say to ye?”
“No, I aint.”
“Ye haint? I say to ye, boy,” exclaimed Godfrey, raising his hand over
the table again, “boy, I say to ye----”
“Now, pop, don’t break no more dishes,” interrupted Dan, “’kase if ye
do, we’ll have to eat off’n bark plates purty soon, an’ drink out’n
gourds. Let Dave break the pinter pup if he wants to. What odds does it
make to you?”
“It makes a heap of odds, the fust thing ye know,” replied his father.
“Kase they’s ’ristocrats, an’ we’ve got just as good a right to have
ten dollars to pay somebody fur breakin’ our huntin’ dogs, as they
have. An’ ’sides, don’t they make things wuss fur poor folks like us
nor they’d oughter? They do, an’ this is the way they go about it: Look
at them pack of hound dogs they brought down from Kaintuck last summer!
I don’t say nothing about the money they throwed away when they bought
’em, an’ which was more’n enough to keep all our jaws a waggin’ fur one
good year, I bet ye, an’ on good grub too, but I jest axes ye, what’s
them hound dogs fur? Why just as soon as the leaves begin to fall,
them youngsters will take to the swamps, an’ them hound dogs will go a
tearin’ an’ a yelpin’ through these woods at sich a rate, that the fust
thing we know the game will all be done drove out of the country, an’
we can’t get nu deer nor bar meat fur grub. That’s what makes me ’spise
them hound dogs so.”
These remarks of his father’s recalled to Dan’s mind an incident that
had happened during the previous spring. He brightened up suddenly
as if he were thinking of something that afforded him infinite
satisfaction.