DISCOVERY OF THE LOSS.
“This is where you wake up and find yourself rich; how do you like it?”
Mark, who asked the question, was yawning sleepily as he sat up from
his bed, a pile of blankets on the floor of his tent. It was about five
o’clock Sunday morning, and the booming echo of the réveille gun was
still upon the air. Down by the color line a drum was still rattling,
with a fife to keep it company. And throughout the camp cadets were
springing up to dress, just as were the four we noticed.
There is no tent room in West Point for the man who likes to lie in
bed and doze for half an hour in the morning; cadets have five minutes
to dress in, and they have to be out in the company street lined up
for roll call at the end of that time. And there is no danger of their
failing about it, either. They tell a good story up there about one
fond mother who introduced her young hopeful, a soon-to-be plebe, to
the commandant of cadets, and hoped that they wouldn’t have any trouble
getting “Montmorency dear” up in the morning; they never could get him
up at home.
But to return to the four A Company plebes who were meanwhile flinging
on their clothes and performing their hasty toilets.
The lad who propounded the question was Mark, as said before. The
one who answered it was Jeremiah Powers, and Texas vowed he liked
being rich mighty well. He got no chance to explain why or wherefore,
however, for by that time he was outside of the tent, and the
resplendent cadet officer was giving his stentorian order:
“’Tenshun, company!”
At which signal the merry groups of cadets changed into an immovable
line of figures stiff as ramrods.
The plebes had come back to camp late last night, or rather early this
same morning, scarcely able to realize what had happened. They were
still striving to realize it all as they sat whispering to each other
in mess hall. They were rich, all of them. How much they had none of
them had any idea. The learned Parson had informed them--and he didn’t
have to go to a book to find it out, either, that a pound of gold is
worth two hundred and fifty dollars. Allowing two hundred pounds to
that box, which was a modest guess indeed, left some seven thousand
dollars to each of them, a truly enormous fortune for a boy, especially
a West Point plebe who is supposed to have no use for money at all.
Cadets do their purchasing on “check-book,” as it is called, and their
bills are deducted from their salaries. And though they do smuggle
in some contraband bills occasionally they have no way of making use
of large sums. This was the problem the Banded Seven were discussing
through the meal and while they were busily sprucing up their tents for
“Sunday morning inspection.”
Texas was for quitting “the ole place” at a jump and making for the
plains where a fellow could have a little fun when he wanted to. The
fact that he had signed an “engagement for service,” or any such
trifle as that, made no difference to him, and in fact there is little
doubt that he would have skipped that morning had it not been for one
fact--he couldn’t leave Mark.
“Doggone his boots!” growled Texas, “ef he had any nerve he’d come
along! But ef he won’t, I s’pose I got to let that air money lie idle.”
After which disconsolate observation Texas fell to polishing the
mirror that hung on his tent pole and said nothing more.
“Think of Texas running away!” laughed Mark. “Think of him not having
Corporal Jasper to come in on Sunday mornings and lecture him for
talking too much instead of sprucing up his tent as a cadet should.
Think of his not having Captain Fisher to march him ’round to church
after that and civilize him! Think of the yearlings having nobody to
lick ’em any more! Think of Bull Harris, our beloved enemy, who hates
us worse than I do warm cod liver oil, having nobody to fool him every
once in a while and get him wild!”
Mark observed by that time from the twitching in his excitable friend’s
fingers and the light that danced in his eye that his last hit had
drawn blood. Texas was cured in a moment of all desire to leave West
Point. For was not Bull Harris, “that ole coyote of a yearlin’,” a low,
cowardly rascal who had tried every contemptible trick upon Mark that
his ingenuity could invent, and who hadn’t had half his malignity and
envy knocked out of him yet? And Texas go away? Not much!
Parson Stanard was heard from next. The Parson knew of a most
extraordinary collection of fossils from the Subcarboniferous period.
The Parson had been saving up for a year to buy those fossils, and now
he meant to do it. He swore it by Zeus, and by Apollo, and by each
one of the “Olympians” in turn. Also the Parson meant to do something
handsome by that wonderful Cyathophylloid coral found by him in a
sandstone of Tertiary origin. The Parson thought it would be a good
idea to get up a little pamphlet on that most marvelous specimen,
a pamphlet treating very learnedly upon the “distribution of the
Cyathophylloid according to previous geological investigations and the
probable revolutionary and monumental effects of the new modifications
thereof.” The Parson had an idea he’d have a high old time writing that
treatise.
Further discourse as to the probable uses of the treasure was cut short
by the entrance of the inspecting officer, who scattered slaughter
and trembling from his eye. Methusalem Z. Chilvers, “the farmer,”
alias Sleepy, the fourth occupant of the tent, was responsible for
disorder that week and the way he caught it was heartrending. He was so
disgusted that as usual he vowed he was going to take his money back to
Kansas and raise “craps.” After which the drum sounded and they all
marched down to chapel.
A delightful feeling of independence comes with knowing you are
rich. Perhaps you have never tried it, but the Seven were trying it
just then. They beamed down contentedly on irate cadet corporals and
unfriendly yearlings with an air of conscious superiority that seemed
to say, “If you only knew.” Of the Seven there were only two who were
at all used to the sensation of being wealthy. Texas’ “dad,” “the
Honorable Scrap Powers, o’ Hurricane County,” owned a few hundred
thousand head of cattle, and Chauncey, “the dude,” was a millionaire
from New York; but all the others were quite poor. Mark was calculating
just then what a satisfaction he meant to have in sending some of that
money to his widowed mother, to whom it would be a very welcome present
indeed.
He was thinking of that in the course of the afternoon, when church
and likewise dinner had passed, leaving the plebes at leisure. And
so he proposed to them that they take a walk to pass the time and
incidentally bring some of that buried wealth back with them. Nothing
could have suited the Seven better, as it happened. They were all
anxiety again to get up to that cave and hear those gold coins jingle
once more. To cut the story short, they went.
It was a merry party that set out through the woods that afternoon.
The Seven were usually merry, as we know, but they had extra causes
just then. Everything was going about as well for them as things in the
world could be expected to go. And besides this, Parson Stanard, who
was a wellspring of fun at all times, was in one of his most solemn and
therefore laughable moods at present.
The thought had occurred to the Parson, as his first sordid flush of
delight at having wealth had passed, that after all he was in a very
unscholarly condition indeed. The very idea of a man of learning being
rich! Why it was preposterous; where was all the starving in garrets of
genius and the pinching poverty that was always the fate of the true
patrons of Minerva. That worried the Parson more than you can imagine;
he felt himself a traitor to his chosen profession. And with much
solemn abjurgation and considerable classical circumlocution he called
the Seven’s attention to that deplorable state of affairs. Search the
records of history as he could, the Parson could not find a parallel
for his own unfortunate condition. And he wound up the afternoon’s
discussion by wishing, yea, by Zeus, that he could be poor and happy
once more.
Dewey suggested very solemnly that nobody was going to compel the
unfortunate Parson to claim his share, “b’gee”; that he (Dewey) would
be pleased to take it if he were only paid enough to make it worth
while. But somehow or other the Parson didn’t fall into that plan very
readily; perhaps he didn’t think Dewey really meant it.
Still chatting merrily, the Seven made their way through the mile or
two of woods that lay between the post and the cave.
As they drew near to the opening the plebes were startled to notice
that the ground at the foot of the rock was marked and torn with
footprints.
The Seven had not done that, they knew, for they had been of all things
most careful to leave not the least trace that should lead any one to
suspect the presence of their secret cavern. And consequently when
they saw the state of the ground there was but one thought, a horrible
thought that flashed over every one of them. Somebody had been in their
cave! And during the night!
Almost as one man, the Seven made a dash for the entrance, scrambling
up the rocks. There was never a thought of danger in the mind of any
one of them, never a thought that perhaps some accomplice of the
dead counterfeiters had come to get the gold, might now be inside,
armed against the intruders. They had time to think of but one thing.
Somebody had seen them go in last night, had seen them find the
treasure! And now--and now?
Texas was the first of them to get to the entrance, for Mark was still
lame with his injured arm. He flung his body through the hole, half
falling to the floor on the other side. The rest heard him stumbling
about and they halted, silent, every one of them, scarcely breathing
for anxiety and suspense. They heard Texas strike a match. They heard
him run across the floor----
And a moment later came a cry that struck them almost dumb with horror.
“Boys, the money’s all gone!”