The stranger shot a swift glance at the last speaker, as if he thought some hidden meaning might lurk behind the words.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m never happier than when I’m out on the open sea. Some of my ancestors must have been sailors I guess, and I have it in the blood. But that isn’t the only reason I’ve been cruising along this coast.”
“What is the reason then?” asked Teddy curiously. “That is,” he went on hastily, “if you care to tell us. We don’t want to pry into your affairs.”
The other seemed to debate with himself. It was as if a habit of secrecy were battling with a sudden desire for expression.
“I’ll tell you,” he burst out. “It’s a thing I’ve never told any one else. But you fellows have been so white to me, to say nothing of one of you having risked his life for mine, that I’m going to take a chance. Perhaps it will be a relief anyway. Brooding over it so long and not confiding in any one, I’ve been afraid some time I might go crazy over it.”
The boys were startled, but they gave no sign and the speaker went on:
“My name is Ross Montgomery. I’m looking for a chest of gold.”
The effect was electric. The thrilling phrase appealed to all that was most romantic in the listeners. Visions floated before their eyes of hidden treasures, of pirate hoards, of sunken galleons with their doubloons and “pieces of eight.” These things had seemed to belong to the misty past, to distant seas. Yet here in the prosaic twentieth century, in a civilized country, on a quiet beach along the coast of Maine, this boy of their own age was talking of a quest that might well stir the most sluggish blood.
“A chest of gold!” repeated Fred, as though he could not believe his ears.
“Where do you think it’s hidden?” questioned Teddy eagerly.
“How much money is in the chest?” asked Bill.
“Perhaps it isn’t money,” corrected Lester. “It may be gold dust, or it may be in bars. Have you any clue?” he asked, turning to Ross.
“What makes you think it’s on this coast?” put in Fred.
Ross raised his hand good-naturedly, as though to ward off the rain of questions.
“Easy there,” he smiled, “and I’ll tell you the whole thing from the beginning. Perhaps you’ll think I’m crazy. Perhaps you’ll say I have as good a chance of finding it as the fellow who looks for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And you may be right. Anyway, I’ll give you what facts I know, and you can figure out for yourselves whether I have a chance or not.”
Ross waited a moment to collect his thoughts, and the other boys disposed themselves to listen. Their blood was bounding and their eyes shining. The situation was romantic in itself. The firelight played over their eager faces, the waters of the cove lay shimmering before them, while, at the outlet, the surf thundered against the rocks. The boys might have been castaways on some desert island in the tropics. The great world outside seemed very far away.
“My father was in business in Boston about fifteen years ago,” Ross began. “I was just a baby then, and, of course, I don’t know anything about those days except what I’ve been told since by my mother.
“Father was a good business man and he had built up a fairly large trade. We had a home in a suburb near Boston and all the money we needed. The business had been expanding, and father had put into it not only all his own ready money, but a lot that he had borrowed from his friends. Then hard times came. Of course he had to retrench in every way he could. He took in his sails and worked hard to weather the storm. He’d have succeeded, too, but just as things were looking brighter, a big bank failure knocked him out completely.”
There was a murmur of sympathy from the boys.
“As if that wasn’t enough, he came down with brain fever,” went on Ross. “I suppose it was brought on by worry and overwork. Anyway, when he got on his feet again, everything had gone to smash and he didn’t have a cent left. Worse than that, he was in debt for a good many thousand dollars.
“Father was honest though,” and there was a touch of pride in the boy’s voice. “Everybody that knew him at all knew that. If his health had been good, he could have started in all over again, and even some of the men to whom he owed money would have lent him more to get him on his feet. But the doctor told him it would be simply suicide for him to go on under the circumstances, and that he’d have to go away somewhere and take a long rest.
“All of his property had gone to his creditors, but mother owned a small place up in Canada on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. She had inherited it from her father, and as it was free and clear, the whole family packed up and went out there.
“It was a complete change from the life we had lived before and my father’s health began to mend right away. There was a good deal of valuable lumber on the place and as there was a good demand for this, he sold it at a profit. Then, too, he traded a good deal with the trappers who came out of the forests every spring with their skins and furs.
“Money began to pile up and father was feeling fine. It wasn’t so much because he was getting the money, though of course that was a great thing, but he was fairly crazy to pay off every cent of the money he owed when he went into bankruptcy. He was a very proud man and couldn’t bear to be in any one’s debt. I’ve often heard him say to mother that the day he stood clear with the world again would be the happiest day of his life.
“He had kept a careful record of every cent he owed in a little memorandum book. Here it is now.”
Ross reached into his pocket and drew out a small morocco-covered book that gleamed red in the light of the fire.
CHAPTER V
THE CHEST OF GOLD
Ross Montgomery turned over the pages rapidly, and the boys could see a number of accounts in a precise, methodical script.
“The first two or three years were the hardest,” the strange boy went on, “but after that the money came in fast. Father made a number of investments in lumber and in fishing interests, and everything he touched seemed to bring him luck. By the time I was six years old, he had got enough together to pay all his debts and make him independent for life.
“There was one funny thing about it, though. He had burned his fingers so badly in that big bank failure that he never would trust a bank again. Every dollar he got above what he needed to use in business, he stored away in an oak chest that he kept in a secret place at home. He had no use for paper money either. He’d take it, of course, when he couldn’t get anything else, but the first chance he got he’d change it for gold. Of course it was just a whim of his, but somehow it made him feel safer. Maybe it was a little mental twist left from his siege of brain fever. At any rate that’s the way he felt, and he kept piling up the gold in that old chest. All sorts of money, too, English, Canadian, French and American coins. I was small then and didn’t know much of the value of money, but I can remember once how the pieces shone when father gathered up a handful and let the coins fall in a shower back into the chest–”
“Gee!” interrupted Teddy, “just think of it. A rain of gold!”
“I’d like to be caught out in such a shower,” laughed Fred.
“And I wouldn’t want any umbrella to ward it off either,” added Bill.
“Cork up, you money grabbers, and let Ross go on with his story,” Lester laughingly advised.
“It brought bad luck to father, though,” said Ross soberly. “If it hadn’t been for that gold he might be alive to-day.”
It was the first intimation the boys had had that the lad’s father was dead, and they kept a respectful silence during the moment that followed while Ross seemed struggling with painful memories.
“A