BURIED TREASURE
WHEN Georgina tiptoed up the walk to the front porch where Belle sat
waiting for her in the moonlight, Tippy called down that she wasn't
asleep, and they needn't stay out there on her account, whispering. It
did not seem an auspicious time to present the bottle of liniment, but
to Georgina's surprise Tippy seemed glad to try the new remedy. The
long-continued pain which refused to yield to treatment made her willing
to try anything which promised relief.
It was vile-smelling stuff, so pungent that whenever the cork was taken
out of the bottle the whole house knew it, but it burned with soothing
fire and Tippy rose up and called it blessed before the next day was
over. Before that happened, however, Georgina took advantage of Belle's
easy rule to leave home as soon as her little morning tasks were done.
Strolling down the board-walk with many stops she came at last to the
foot of the Green Stairs. Richard sat on the top step, tugging at a
knotted string.
"Come on up," he called. "See what I've taken away from Captain Kidd. He
was just starting to bury it. Looks like a tobacco pouch, but I haven't
got it untied yet. He made the string all wet, gnawing on it."
Georgina climbed to the top of the steps and sat down beside him,
watching in deep and silent interest. When the string finally gave way
she offered her lap to receive the contents of the pouch. Two
five-dollar gold pieces rolled out first, then a handful of small
change, a black ring evidently whittled out of a rubber button and
lastly a watch-fob ornament. It was a little compass, set in something
which looked like a nut.
"I believe that's a buckeye," said Richard. He examined it carefully on
all sides, then called excitedly:
"Aw, look here! See those letters scratched on the side--'D. D.'? That
stands for _my_ name, Dare-devil Dick. I'm going to keep it."
"That's the cunningest thing I ever saw," declared Georgina in a tone
both admiring and envious, which plainly showed that she wished the
initials were such as could be claimed by a Gory George. Then she picked
up the pouch and thrust in her hand. Something rustled. It was a letter.
Evidently it had been forwarded many times, for the envelope was
entirely criss-crossed with names that had been written and blotted out
that new ones might be added. All they could make out was "Mrs.
Henry"--"Texas" and "Mass."
"I'd like to have that stamp for my album," said Richard. "It's foreign.
Seems to me I've got one that looks something like it, but I'm not sure.
Maybe the letter will tell who the pouch belongs to."
"But we can't read other people's letters," objected Georgina.
"Well, who wants to? It won't be reading it just to look at the head and
tail, will it?"
"No," admitted Georgina, hesitatingly. "Though it does seem like
peeking."
"Well, if you lost something wouldn't you rather whoever found it should
peek and find out it was yours, than to have it stay lost forever?"
"Yes, I s'pose so."
"Let's look, then."
Two heads bent over the sheet spread out on Richard's knee. They read
slowly in unison, "Dear friend," then turned over the paper and sought
the last line. "Your grateful friend Dave."
"We don't know any more now than we did before," said Georgina,
virtuously folding up the letter and slipping it back into the envelope.
"Let's take it to Uncle Darcy. Then he'll let us go along and ring the
bell when he calls, 'Found.'"
Richard had two objections to this. "Who'd pay him for doing it?
Besides, it's gold money, and anybody who loses that much would
advertise for it in the papers. Let's keep it till this week's papers
come out, and then we'll have the fun of taking it to the person who
lost it."
"It wouldn't be safe for us to keep it," was Georgina's next objection.
"It's gold money and burglars might find out we had it."
"Then I'll tell you"----Richard's face shone as he made the
suggestion--"Let's _bury_ it. That will keep it safe till we can find
the owner, and when we dig it up we can play it's pirate gold and it'll
be like finding real treasure."
"Lets!" agreed Georgina. "We can keep out something, a nickel or a dime,
and when we go to dig up the pouch we can throw it over toward the place
where we buried the bag and say, 'Brother, go find your brother,' the
way Tom Sawyer did. Then we'll be certain to hit the spot."
Richard picked up the compass, and rubbed the polished sides of the nut
in which it was set.
"I'll keep this out instead of a nickel. I wonder what the fellow's name
was that this D. D. stands for?"
Half an hour later two bloody-minded sea-robbers slipped through the
back gate of the Milford place and took their stealthy way out into the
dunes. No fierce mustachios or hoop ear-rings marked them on this
occasion as the Dread Destroyer or the Menace of the Main. The time did
not seem favorable for donning their real costumes. So one went
disguised as a dainty maiden in a short pink frock and long brown
curls, and the other as a sturdy boy in a grass-stained linen suit with
a hole in the knee of his stocking. But their speech would have betrayed
their evil business had anyone been in earshot of it. One would have
thought it was
"_Wild Roger come again.
He spoke of forays and of frays upon the Spanish Main._"
Having real gold to bury made the whole affair seem a real adventure.
They were recounting to each other as they dug, the bloody fight it had
taken to secure this lot of treasure.
Down in a hollow where the surrounding sand-ridges sheltered them from
view, they crouched over a small basket they had brought with them and
performed certain ceremonies. First the pouch was wrapped in many sheets
of tin foil, which Richard had been long in collecting from various
tobacco-loving friends. When that was done it flashed in the sun like a
nugget of wrinkled silver. This was stuffed into a baking-powder can
from which the label had been carefully scraped, and on whose lid had
been scratched with a nail, the names Georgina Huntingdon and Richard
Moreland, with the date.
"We'd better put our everyday names on it instead of our pirate names,"
Gory George suggested. "For if anything should happen that some other
pirate dug it up first they wouldn't know who the Dread Destroyer and
the Menace of the Main were."
Lastly, from the basket was taken the end of a wax candle, several
matches and a stick of red sealing-wax, borrowed from Cousin James'
desk. Holding the end of the sealing-wax over the lighted candle until
it was soft and dripping, Richard daubed it around the edge of the can
lid, as he had seen the man in the express office seal packages. He had
always longed to try it himself. There was something peculiarly pleasing
in the smell of melted sealing-wax. Georgina found it equally alluring.
She took the stick away from him when it was about half used, and
finished it.
"There won't be any to put back in Cousin James' desk if you keep on
using it," he warned her.
"I'm not using any more than you did," she answered, and calmly
proceeded to smear on the remainder. "If you had let me seal with the
first end of the stick, you'd have had all the last end to save."
All this time Captain Kidd sat close beside them, an interested
spectator, but as they began digging the hole he rushed towards it and
pawed violently at each shovelful of sand thrown out.
"Aw, let him help!" Richard exclaimed when Georgina ordered him to stop.
"He ought to have a part in it because he found the pouch and was
starting to bury it his own self when I took it away from him and
spoiled his fun."
Georgina saw the justice of the claim and allowed Captain Kidd to join
in as he pleased, but no sooner did they stop digging to give him a
chance than he stopped also.
"Rats!" called Richard in a shrill whisper.
At that familiar word the dog began digging so frantically that the sand
flew in every direction. Each time he paused for breath Richard called
"Rats" again. It doubled the interest for both children to have the dog
take such frantic and earnest part in their game.
When the hole was pronounced deep enough the can was dropped in, the
sand shoveled over it and tramped down, and a marker made. A long,
forked stick, broken from a bayberry bush, was run into the ground so
that only the fork of it was visible. Then at twenty paces from the
stick, Richard stepping them off in four directions, consulting the
little compass in so doing, Georgina placed the markers, four sections
of a broken crock rescued from the ash-barrel and brought down in the
basket for that especial purpose.
"We'll let it stay buried for a week," said Richard when all was done.
"Unless somebody claims it sooner. If they don't come in a week, then
we'll know they're never coming, and the gold will be ours."