FINDING THE TREASURE
For a moment the boys thought they must have misunderstood him. Lost—on
an ocean filled with menacing blocks of ice! Lost—in a storm like this!
To the chorus of frantic questions flung at him the Eskimo merely
replied over and over again with stoic patience:
“We lost. Maybe find way again—maybe not. Bad storm. No can tell.”
Seeing that there was nothing to be gotten from their guide, the boys
finally relapsed into an anxious silence, their eyes straining to pierce
the curtain of snow that fell so thickly about them.
“Well, I’ve had enough snow in the last few days to last me the rest of
my life,” said Mouser, breaking a gloomy silence. “I’ll say this is the
limit!”
No one contradicted him and again they fell into a miserable silence.
The snow continued to fall, heavy, thick, smothering. The boys noticed,
too, that the ice that blocked the water was becoming more formidable.
They met with larger masses, and sometimes sinister shapes of baby
icebergs slipped by them, looming bulkily through the falling snow.
Once they became so tightly wedged between blocks of ice that it was
only by all working together with the spears, pushing at the surrounding
ice with all their might, that they succeeded in dragging the sturdy
little craft free of her prison, out into the more open waters.
Suddenly a guttural cry from the Eskimo warned them of danger. At the
same time the guide gave a sharp stroke of his paddle which turned the
boat quickly—but not an instant too quickly—to avoid the huge ice floe
that was bearing down upon them.
As it was, they scraped the side of it with a sharp, rending noise, and
then they saw, with a quickening of heartbeats, the animal on the floe.
A walrus! The boys recognized it at once, though this was not like any
walrus they had ever seen before. He was full thirteen feet long, huge
of tusk and fierce-eyed. He must have been very old, for his great body
was almost naked and marked all over with jagged scars of battle.
A walrus is, as a rule, a peaceful animal and is content to leave alone
the strange man creature as long as the man creature is content to leave
him alone. But when the walrus is startled or attacked suddenly, he is
remarkably ferocious and his great ivory tusks make him a formidable
enemy.
Now, this walrus had been surprised, and at sight of the spears which
the boys still held in their hands, his whole enormous bulk became
suddenly a wicked, charging fury.
Beside them and a little above their frail boat drifted the ice floe,
and upon it was that infuriated beast, roaring out its frightful
challenge.
No time to get away, no time even to think. Time only to act.
As the beast lumbered heavily toward them, the boys raised the spears,
which they still held, and lunged with all their might. At the same time
Mooloo, with a yell of rage, hurled his spear with all the force of his
body behind it.
The walrus stopped in its advance, gave one terrific bellow, and wavered
for an instant, its flappers turned in. Then slowly it fell to its side
and slid into the water with a terrific splash that nearly drowned them
in icy spray.
A moment more, and they had drifted past the ice floe, which was almost
immediately lost to sight in the whirling snowflakes.
“Whew!” gasped Bobby. “That was one close call, all right. Never knew a
walrus had that much fight in him.”
“Good thing he didn’t fall into the boat,” remarked Billy. “If he had,
there wouldn’t have been a square inch of us left to tell the tale.”
“Not bad sign—meet walrus,” said Mooloo suddenly, and the boys looked at
him quickly. It was the first time their guide had spoken since he had
told them they were lost and they thought they detected a more hopeful
note in his voice.
“Not a bad sign—what do you mean?” asked Bobby, his heart leaping with
hope.
“Walrus no go far from shore,” Mooloo explained. “We near shore—near
ship, maybe. We see.”
Although the boys tried not to hope too much from this encouragement,
they were encouraged, just the same. They knew that the Eskimo would
have said nothing if he had not been pretty sure of himself.
And then suddenly there arose, directly in front of them, another grim
shape and, thinking they had met with a real iceberg this time, they
called out to Mooloo to turn aside.
For answer the Eskimo gave a triumphant grunt and—kept right on.
Then the boys saw that it was not an iceberg after all, but the shadowy
hull of a ship—a wrecked ship—undoubtedly the treasure ship.
They felt a wild desire to shout aloud with joy, but somehow they
managed to sit quiet, keeping a tight grip upon themselves. To show too
much enthusiasm would be fatal. Mooloo might guess at their real
business there. If he did, what then?
As they came nearer the boys saw that it must be indeed their ship, the
ship which, wrecked on the treacherous shallows, had been left there to
rot by the indifferent natives. If they had known what treasure lurked
in that dilapidated hulk!
But right there doubt took hold of the boys. Suppose there was no
treasure after all? Suppose they had come on a wild-goose chase? Well,
they would at least know whether they had or not pretty soon. That
thought in itself was a thrill.
The vague outline of the ship, seen through the heavily falling snow,
looked enormous. One of the masts was gone entirely, but the other two
stood intact, rising gauntly, like skeleton fingers pointing toward the
sky.
Desolate, forsaken, coated with ice and snow, listing crazily to one
side, it was a forlorn enough object, but to the boys it was the most
beautiful and welcome sight they had ever seen. For, within that
battered derelict, what riches might be hidden, what promise of
adventure!
The boat scraped along the side of the wrecked ship, and with a loop of
rope Mooloo fastened the two together.
Lucky then for the boys that their muscles had been trained in outdoor
sports at Rockledge. If they had not been just as agile and strong as
they were, they would never have been able to scramble aboard the
ice-coated, slanting deck of the wrecked ship.
They finally managed it, however, and Mooloo, who had tied a rope about
the oilskin-covered package in the bow of the small boat, shouted to
them to hoist it aloft.
This they did and, seeing that Mooloo was about to join them, set to
work with their sharp-pointed spears to hack away the ice and snow that
covered the hatches.
It was hard work, and in the process the boys forgot that they had ever
been cold and by the time one of the ancient hatches was disclosed they
were perspiring with the effort.
Even harder work it was to pry loose the cover. But when this was at
last accomplished and they peered down into the dark interior of the
ship, something in the look of it made them draw back. Suddenly they
were not quite so anxious as they had been to descend into that yawning
hole.
But the voice of Mooloo roused them to the need for action.
“Snow harder all time,” said the Eskimo. “No stop to-night—maybe not
to-morrow. Inside ship, snow no get us. Let’s go! Hump yourselves!”
At this unexpected bit of slang the boys had all they could do to keep
their faces straight. Probably picked it up from the expressive
vocabulary of some stray trader or other and was proud to show his
knowledge of the English language!
“Right—let’s go,” agreed Bobby and, feeling with his feet for the
companionway steps, slowly let himself through the opening.
It was as dark as pitch, and although Bobby struck a match, the feeble
ray did little to dispel the darkness.
At last he felt firm ground beneath his feet and called out to the boys
to come ahead. They obeyed, and a moment later all of them, including
Mooloo, were gathered at the foot of the steps.
Mooloo directed Bobby to strike a match and throw its light on the
oilskin-covered package which he had never allowed to get out of his
sight, and after a moment of fumbling with the cord that bound it, the
Eskimo drew forth an oil lamp.
It took him only a moment to fill it and light it, and when this was
accomplished and the rays of the lamp illuminated their faces, the boys
thought that never had light looked so good to them before.
“Where are you going?” Fred asked of Bobby, as the latter began climbing
the companionway steps toward the open hatch.
“Going to put the lid on,” Bobby explained cheerfully. “When that’s done
we’ll be as snug as bugs in a rug.”
“Still snowing?” queried Billy, as Bobby once more joined them.
“Snowing!” repeated the latter. “I should say so. Looks as if it didn’t
intend to stop for the next year.”
“Well,” said Mouser, “if that’s the case, I’ll say we were lucky to find
this old boat all right.”
“Lucky!” cried Bobby, not able altogether to keep the jubilation from
his tone. “I’ll say lucky is no name for it.”
Feeling their way along, the light from the lantern, once out of its
circle of illumination, seeming only to make the darkness more
impenetrable, stumbling over rotting wood and other debris, the boys
finally found a cabin that seemed to be in pretty fair condition. Here
they decided to spend the night.
By the light of the lamp and with the help of a small oil stove—also
extracted from Mooloo’s store—they managed to make out a dinner. And,
after they had eaten, they were seized by an almost uncontrollable
desire to search for the treasure at once. Further delay seemed out of
the question.
And yet they knew that to show too much eagerness would be the surest
way to arouse Mooloo’s suspicion. Then, too, it was getting late and, if
the Eskimo’s prediction were right and there was a possibility of being
snowed in for several days, there was no real hurry about the search.
It was rather an uncanny business, staying in that derelict ship during
the wee small hours of the night, and the boys, keyed up with excitement
as they were, thought they would not be able to sleep a wink.
But, worn out with the thrilling adventures of the day, they were soon
unconscious of time and place and slept heavily until morning.
It was lucky for them that they soon found the opportunity they were
impatiently watching for, when they might search for the treasure
without being accompanied by Mooloo.
The latter settled the question himself by saying that, since the storm
was letting up a little, he would search the waters about the ship while
the boys attended to their business aboard the wreck. He said that seals
and walruses had been seen quite often and sometimes in considerable
numbers in the vicinity of the wrecked ship, and he would like to get
one, if possible.
“He can have his old walrus,” cried Bobby joyfully, when they were at
last alone, the great moment at hand. “Come on, fellows, we’ll make hay
while the sun shines. If there’s any treasure to be found, it will be a
good idea to find it before that old boy gets back.”
They did not waste any time. By the light of the lantern—the ice that
encoated the ship made it as dark in the light of morning as it was at
twelve o ’clock midnight—they made their way through the vessel,
searching cabins as they went, hacking away with an ax they found in one
of them at rotting debris that barred their way.
As the moments flew by and they had still found nothing, the boys began
to work with almost feverish eagerness. The fact that they must make the
most of Mooloo’s absence, drove them on to greater effort. They searched
beneath rotting mattresses, through chests of drawers, whose wood fairly
fell away beneath their hands.
In a cabin that had evidently belonged to one of the mates of the vessel
they found an iron-bound chest, and for a moment thought they had
discovered the treasure. But on forcing the lid of the chest they found
only rotting clothing, personal effects of the dead man who had once
occupied that cabin.
It was uncanny, this breaking into the secrets of the dead ship, and the
boys often found themselves listening nervously or glancing over their
shoulders into the mystery-filled shadows about them.
They came to the quarters of the men and it did not take them long to
make sure there was nothing there. Then on to the hold, where they found
nothing but empty boxes or barrels, or barrels containing cans of food
rusty and dingy with age.
They were about to give up the search in despair when Bobby spoke
suddenly out of the darkness.
“Fellows, I’m going back to the cabin we searched first. There was
something queer about it.”
The boys protested that they had searched that cabin thoroughly, that
there was nothing there, but Bobby was not listening to them. Carrying
the lantern, he was already making his way forward, and they had no
choice but to follow him.
Reaching the cabin, they stood around gloomily while Bobby picked up the
hatchet and went carefully about the place, tapping the walls as he did
so.
“It’s all off, I guess,” said Mouser, as the other boys followed Bobby’s
queer actions with little interest. “Takyak fooled us; or maybe he was
fooled himself. But—”
A sharp exclamation from Bobby cut him short.
“It’s hollow! The wall’s hollow here,” cried the latter, his voice low
and tense with excitement. “Hold the lantern close here, somebody!
That’s the way. Now, then!”
While the boys watched with an interest that revived in spite of
themselves, Bobby hacked madly at the wall of the cabin.
Three blows, four, and the rotten wood gave way. Bobby, putting all his
weight behind the blow, nearly pitched head first into the gaping hole
disclosed by the ruined wall.
There was a gasp of surprise from those behind him. Then a wild shout of
triumph. For at the same moment that Bobby saw it, they saw it, too.
A great chest, inclosed in the very body of the ship itself—a chest with
heavy brass hinges, an enormous padlock adorning the face of it.
Hardly knowing what they did, half mad with excitement, they tore at the
cover with their bare hands at imminent danger of losing a finger or
two, for Bobby was still wildly wielding the ax.
Then the cover fell away and what was left of the boy’s sanity fell away
with it. Before their unbelieving eyes lay a treasure of gold and silver
coins that glittered in the yellow lamp-light.
The next moment the boys were down on their knees before the chest,
shouting wildly, incoherently, to one another, burying their hands,
their arms in the glittering treasure.