The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove Part 10

CHAPTER X

THE CASTAWAY

For the next few minutes there was not much talking, and the boys devoted themselves to making a wreck of the good things heaped before them. Their morning in the salt air on the open sea had put them in fine fettle and they had enormous appet.i.tes.

"Well," said Fred, when at last they were satisfied, "we have to hand it to you as a cook, Mr. Lee. You certainly know how to make things taste good."

"Lester comes rightly by his talent in fixing up the eats," declared Bill.

"A sailor has to learn to turn his hand to anything," laughed their host. "He gets into lots of places where he has to depend on himself alone or go hungry. I've been s.h.i.+pwrecked twice in the course of my life, and I've had to learn to eat all sorts of things and to cook them in a way that would help me get them down."

"Talking about s.h.i.+pwrecks," he went on, as he filled and lighted his pipe and settled down for an after-dinner smoke, "reminds me of the fellow you say you picked up yesterday. How did he come there? Go ahead and spin your yarn."

"It wasn't exactly a s.h.i.+pwreck," explained Lester. "The boat wasn't smashed, and as a matter of fact we found it for Ross again to-day. It was a motor boat----"

"A motor boat!" interrupted Mr. Lee, with a sniff. He had the distrust felt by most deep-water sailors, of what he called "these pesky modern contraptions."

"Ross was tinkering with some part of the machinery that had gone wrong," continued Lester, "when a big wave caught him and carried him overboard. We were near by at the time and we made for him and got him."

"Yanked him in with a boathook, I suppose," said his father.

"We were too late for that," answered Lester. "He had gone down, but Fred grabbed a rope and dived over after him. It was a close call, but he got him, and then we dragged them both in."

"A plucky thing to do in a storm like that," commented Mr. Lee, looking approvingly at Fred.

"Ross came to after a while, and we found that the only hurt he had was the water he had swallowed," went on Lester. "We couldn't do anything with the motor boat just then, so we made straight for Sentinel Cove.

This morning, Montgomery was as good as ever."

Mr. Lee started slightly as he heard this name.

"Montgomery, did you say?" he asked. "I thought you called him Ross."

"Yes, Ross Montgomery. Why?"

"Nothing," was the reply. "Go ahead with your story."

"There isn't very much more to tell, as far as we're concerned. We anch.o.r.ed at the cove for the night, and got away bright and early this morning. But Ross himself had a story to tell that has got us all worked up. You'd never guess what it was, Dad, in a thousand years."

"I never was much good at guessing," smiled Mr. Lee, "so let's have it just as he told it."

Lester started at the beginning and told the story as he had received it from Ross, with frequent suggestions from the other boys to remind him of some slight detail he had overlooked.

Mr. Lee listened intently, but he asked no questions, and for some minutes after Lester had finished he continued to smoke in silence, while the boys looked at him eagerly, anxious to know what he made of it.

"Well, Dad," said Lester, a little impatiently, "what do you think of the story? Is there anything in it?"

"There's a great deal in it," replied Mr. Lee gravely, removing his pipe from his mouth. "I believe every word of it is true."

The boys were delighted at this confirmation of their own feeling by a mind more mature than theirs. They had been afraid that Mr. Lee would ridicule the story, or throw cold water on their plan to go ahead and try to find the treasure.

"I was perfectly sure that Ross was telling us the truth," jubilated Teddy.

"I never doubted that for a minute," put in Bill, "but I thought he might be building hope on a very slight foundation. After all, he has so little to go on."

"Then you really think that there was a chest of gold and that smugglers took it from Mr. Montgomery and buried it?" asked Fred.

"I think they took it from him, but I don't think they buried it,"

answered Mr. Lee.

"What do you think they did with it; spent it?" asked Teddy in quick alarm.

"I don't think that either," was the reply. "I think they hid it somewhere and that it's there yet."

"Oh!" said Fred, with a sigh of relief. "Then we still have a chance."

"Now, look here, Dad!" exclaimed Lester, "I can see by what you're saying that you know more about this thing than we do. Don't tease us by acting in such a mysterious way. Come right out with it."

Mr. Lee laughed good-naturedly.

"You boys are always in a hurry," he remarked as he refilled his pipe with a deliberation that was maddening to his hearers. "But just let me get my pipe drawing well, and I'll tell you all I know. It isn't so much after all as maybe you think, but it may help to piece out a bit here and there."

He settled himself comfortably in his seat and began:

"It was about nine or ten years ago--I don't remember the exact date--that Mark Taylor was out fis.h.i.+ng at a point about twenty miles from here."

"The Mark Taylor who lives in Milton?" inquired Lester.

"That was the one. He wasn't having very good luck, and had about made up his mind to pull up and go home, when he caught sight of a little boat tossing up and down on the waves. It didn't seem to be going anywhere, and Mark could see that there was no one rowing or steering it. He thought that was strange and made up his mind he'd look into the matter. So he ran up his sail and ran over to what he thought was the empty boat. He told me afterwards he was knocked all in a heap, when he saw a man lying in the bottom of it.

"At first Mark thought the man was either dead or drunk. But there wasn't any smell of liquor on him, and he moved when Mark touched him.

Mark saw that something serious was the matter, and he tried to get the man into his sailboat. But Mark didn't weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and this man was so big and so heavily built that he had to give it up.

"So, leaving the man in it, he tied the small boat to the stern of his, and made a quick run for home. He took the man into his cabin and sent for the doctor. The doctor examined the man carefully and found a big gash in his head that looked as though it had been made with a hatchet.

He saw it hadn't reached a vital point, though, so he sewed it up and left some medicine, promising to come again the next day.

"Mark said that the doctor had no sooner gone than the man began to rave and toss about. After a while he became violent, and Mark, being a small man as I have said, had to call in some of the neighbors to hold him down. He seemed to imagine that he was in a fight and that a crowd was piling on him. And he kept talking about 'the gold' and 'the chest,' and vowing that they would never get it away from him."

A murmur ran around the listening circle.

"Mark didn't pay much attention to what he said," resumed Mr. Lee, "because he thought it was only the raving of a crazy man.

"Mark and the neighbors searched his clothes and found some papers that showed them the man's name was Montgomery. They found out, too, that he lived in a place on the coast of Canada. They wrote to his folks right away, and a couple of men came down to take him home as soon as he was able to travel.

"That wasn't for a good while, though, for Montgomery had come down with an attack of brain fever that kept him on his back for weeks. He got over that at last, but his mind wasn't right. He wasn't violent any longer but was melancholy. Went around all the time in a daze. Couldn't get anything out of him, except that he kept muttering to himself about 'the gold.' Sometimes, though, he'd speak of debts that seemed to worry him. He couldn't carry on any connected conversation, and he'd get so excited when any one tried to question him, that the doctor said they must let him alone.

"He was taken away as soon as he was strong enough, and that's the last Mark ever saw of him. A little while later, the man's wife sent a little money to Mark to cover his expenses in caring for her husband, and she said in her letter that he was no better. And from what you boys tell me to-day, he must have died soon after."