"And here we've been sitting, like so many cabbage heads on a bench, waiting for someone to come and tell us about it!" snorts Old Hickory.

"Excellent! Killam, do you think you can pilot us back without trying to cut new channels through the State of Florida?"

Rupert don't make any promises, but he gets busy; and pretty soon we're under way. It's about then that I springs this hunch of mine.

"Say, Mr. Ellins," says I, "was this island you were lookin' for a little one with a hump in the middle?"

"That tallies with Captain Killam's description," says he. "Why?"

"Well," I goes on, "a little while before we located you we pa.s.sed one like that. Don't you remember, Vee?"

"That's so," says Vee; "we did. I know right where it is, too."

"We might take a glance at it," says Old Hickory. "Killam, give Miss Verona the wheel."

I couldn't have said exactly which way to go, but Vee never hesitates a second. She steers straight back on the course we'd come, and inside of fifteen minutes we shoots past a point and opens up a whole clump of islands, with one tiny one tucked away in the middle.

"That's it!" shouts Rupert, jumpin' up and down. "That's Nunca Secos Key!"

"Maybe," says Old Hickory. "There does seem to be something of an elevation in the center. Let's run in as close as we can, Verona."

By this time we were all grouped in the bow, stretchin' our necks and gazin' interested.

"The mound!" suddenly sings out Rupert, pointin' excited. "The treasure mound! I told you I'd find it."

"Huh!" says Old Hickory. "You forgot to mention, however, that you would need Miss Verona and Torchy to do the finding for you."

Well, no need goin' into details, but that's how Vee and me happened to get counted in as reg'lar treasure hunters, to share and share alike.

We was elected right on the spot.

"And now," says Old Hickory, grabbin' up a spade from the bottom of the boat, "now we--"

"Now we will go back to the yacht and get some sleep," announces Auntie. "I've had treasure hunting enough for one night. So have you, Matthew Ellins, if you only knew it."

Old Hickory shrugs his shoulders. He drops the spade. Then he lets go of a yawn.

"Oh, well!" says he. "If that's the way you feel about it."

"What!" says Vee. "Go another whole day without knowing whether--"

"Certainly," cuts in Auntie. "I'm so sleepy I couldn't tell a doubloon from a doughnut. Ho-ho-hum! Let's be getting back."

It wasn't much after six when we made the yacht, but the whole crew seems to be up and stirrin' around. As we comes alongside they sort of groups themselves into a gawp committee forward, and I caught them pa.s.sin' the smile and nudge to each other. The two sailors that mans the landin' stairs are on the broad grin. It's well for them that neither Auntie nor Old Hickory seems to notice. I did, though, and trails behind the others gettin' out.

"What's all the comedy for?" I demands.

"Nothing at all, sir," says one.

Then the other breaks in with, "Any luck, sir?"

"Sure!" says I. "We saw a swell sunrise."

I'm wonderin', though, why all them hired hands should be givin' us the merry face.

CHAPTER XV

Pa.s.sING THE JOKE BUCK

I don't mind admittin' that this treasure-huntin' stuff does get you.

Course, while I was only an outsider, with no ticket even for a brokerage bite at the gate receipts, I wasn't runnin' any temperature over the prospects.

But now it was different. Vee and I had gone out and shown this poor prune of a Captain Killam where his bloomin' island was, we'd rescued Auntie and Old Hickory from bein' stuck in the mud, and we'd been officially counted in as possible prize winners. More'n that, we'd seen the treasure mound.

"Torchy," says Vee, the first chance we has for a few side remarks after lunch that day, "what do you think? Is it full of gold and jewels?"

"Well," says I, tryin' to look wise, "it might be, mightn't it? And then again you can't always tell."

"But suppose it is?" insists Vee, her gray eyes bigger than ever.

"I can't," says I. "It's too much of a strain. Honest, from what I've seen of the country down here, it would be a miracle to run across a single loose dollar, while as for uncoverin' it in bunches-- Say, Vee, how much of this pirate guff do you stand for, anyway?"

"Why, you silly," says she. "Of course there were pirates--Lafitte and Jose Gaspar and--and a lot of others. They robbed ships right off here and naturally they buried their treasure when they came ash.o.r.e."

"What simps!" says I. "Then they went off and forgot, eh?"

"Some were caught and hanged," says she, "and I suppose some were killed fighting. No one can tell. It was all so long ago, you see.

They're all gone. But the islands are still here, aren't they?"

"I don't miss any," says I. "There's the mound, too. It's big enough to hold forty truckloads."

"Oh, there won't be that much," says she. "A few chests, perhaps. But think, Torchy, of digging up gold that has been lying there for a hundred years or more!"

"I don't care how old it is," says I, "if it's the kind you can shove in at the receivin' teller and get credit for. What you plannin' to blow your share against?"

"I hadn't thought much about that," says Vee. "Only that I once saw the loveliest girdle made of old coins."

Isn't that the girl of it!

"You're a wonder, Vee," says I. "Here you stand to have a bundle of easy money wished on you, and all you can think of is winnin' a fancy belt."

Vee giggles good-natured.

"Well, Mister Solomon, what would you do with yours?"

"Swap it for as many blocks of Corrugated preferred as my broker could collect," says I. "Then when we declared an extra dividend--"