As for Rupert, he'd been kicked around so much the last few days that he hadn't a word to say. Here he was, too, right on the verge of the big test that he'd been workin' up to so long, and he's so meek he hardly dares open his head. When we starts pilin' into the launch he shows up with a couple of bundles.

"What the syncopated seraphims have you there?" demands Old Hickory.

"Gas bombs," says Rupert. "To clear out the snakes."

"Careful with 'em," growls Old Hickory. "What else?"

"A few canvas bags for--for the treasure, sir," says Rupert, duckin'

his head sheepish. "Shall--shall I put them in?"

"Oh, you might as well," says Old Hickory.

And once more, with Vee at the wheel, we sneaks off in the moonlight for Nunca Secos Key. We wasn't a chatty lot of adventurers. I expect we all felt like we was about to open an April fool package, and wished the others hadn't been there to watch. None of us could pa.s.s anyone else the laugh; that was some satisfaction.

There was enough outsiders, though, to give us the t.i.tter. Megrue was sure to spread the tale among Old Hickory's business friends. And who knew what that pair of foiled interviewers would do to us? Some of their stuff might get into the New York papers. Then wouldn't Mr.

Ellins be let in for a choice lot of joshin'! No wonder he sits chewin' savage at a cold cigar.

When we gets near the little island, though, he rouses up. He pulls on a pair of wadin' boots and, tosses another pair to me. Rupert, he's all fixed up for rough work, and even Vee has brought some high huntin'

shoes.

So, when we lands, each takes a shiny new spade or a pick and makes ready to explore the mound that looms mysterious through the mangrove bushes. First off, Rupert has to toss out a couple of gas bombs, in case there might be rattlers roamin' around. And, believe me, any snake that could stand that smell was ent.i.tled to stay on the ground.

It's ten or fifteen minutes before we dared go near ourselves. Rupert suggests that we start a tunnel in from the bottom, and sort of relay each other as our wind gives out.

"Very well," says Old Hickory. "It's a good many years since I did any excavating, but I think I can still swing a pick."

Say, he could; that is, for a five-minute stretch. And while he's restin' up I tackles it. I didn't last so long, either. Rupert, though, comes out strong. He makes the sand fly at a great rate. Vee stands by, holdin' an electric torch, while Auntie watches from the boat.

"We're makin' quite a hole in it, Mr. Ellins," says I, sort of encouragin'.

"It is the usual thing to do, I believe," says he, "before owning up that you've been fooled. Here, Killam, let me have another go at that."

He don't do it because he's excited about it, but just because it's his turn. In fact, we'd all got to about that stage. We'd shoveled out a wagon load or two of old roots and sand and rotten sh.e.l.ls without uncoverin' so much as a rusty nail, and it looked like we might keep on until mornin' with the same amazin' success. Considerin' that we was half beaten before we started, we'd done a pretty fair job. It was just a question now of how soon somebody'd have nerve enough to make a motion that we quit. That's when we had our first little flutter.

"Huh!" says Old Hickory, jabbin' in with his spade. "Must have struck a log. Hand me a pick, someone."

"When he makes a swing with that, the point goes in solid and sticks.

"Right! It is a log," he announces.

Killam tests it, and he says it's a log, too.

"An old palmetto trunk," says he, proddin' at it. "Two of them, one laid on the other. No, three. I say, that's funny. Let's clear away all of this stuff."

So we goes at it, all three at once, and inside of fifteen minutes we can see what looks like the side of a little log cabin.

"If this was out in Wisconsin," says Old Hickory, "I should say we'd found somebody's root cellar. But who would build such a thing in Florida?"

"Come on," says Killam, his voice sort of shrill and quivery. "I have one of the logs loose. Now pry here with your picks, everybody.

Together, now! It's coming! Once more! There! Now the next one above. Oh, put your weight on it, Mr. Ellins. Get a fresh hold. Try her now. It's giving! Again. Harder. Look out for your toes! And let's have that light here, Miss Verona. Flash it into this hole.

Isn't that a--a--"

"It's a barrel," says Vee.

"Water b.u.t.t," says Killam. "An old ship's water b.u.t.t. There are the staves of another, fallen apart. And look! Will--you--look, all of you!"

Would we? Say, we was crowded around that black hole in the mound as thick as noon lunchers at a pie counter. And we was strainin' our eyes to see what the faint light of the torch was tryin' to show up. All of a sudden I reaches in and makes a grab at something, bringin' out a fistful.

"Hard money," says I, "or I don't know the feel!"

"Why, it--it's gold!" says Vee, bringin' her flashlight close.

"There's more of it, a lot more!" shouts Killam, who has his head and shoulders inside and is pawin' around excited. "Quarts and quarts of it! And jewels, too! I say, Mr. Ellins! Jewels! Didn't I tell you we'd find 'em? See, here they are. See those! And those! Didn't I say so?"

"You did, Captain," admits Old Hickory. "You certainly did. And for a time I was just a.s.s enough to believe you, wasn't I?"

"Oh, Auntie!" calls Vee. "We've found it! Honest to goodness we have.

Come and see."

"As though I wasn't coming as fast as I could, child!" says Auntie, who has scrambled over the bow somehow and is plowin' towards us with her skirts gripped high on either side.

Thrillin'! Say, I don't believe any of us could tell just what we did do for the next half hour or so. I remember once Old Hickory got jammed into the hole and we had to pry him out. And another time, when we was rollin' out the cask, it was Auntie who helped me pull it through and ease it down the slope. She'd lost most of her hairpins and her gray hair was hangin' down her back. Also, she'd stepped on the front of her skirt and ripped off a breadth. But them trifles didn't seem to bother her a bit.

"Ho, ho!" she warbles merry. "Gold and jewels! The jewels of old Spain and of the days of Louis Fourteenth. Pirate gold! We've dug it!

The very thing I've always wanted to do ever since I was a little girl.

Ho, ho!"

"And I rather guess," adds Old Hickory, fishin' a broken cigar out of his vest pocket, "that as treasure hunters we're not such thundering jokes, after all. Eh?"

And say, when Old Hickory starts crowin' you can know he sees clear through to daylight. I looks over my shoulder just then, and, sure enough, it's beginnin' to pink up in the east.

"My dope is," says I, "that it's goin' to be a large, wide day.

Anyhow, it opens well."

CHAPTER XVI

TORCHY TAKES A RUNNING JUMP

Course, it don't sound natural. A merry sunrise party is an event that ain't often listed on the cards, unless it's a continuous session from the evenin' before. But this wasn't a case of a bunch of night-bloomin' gladiolas who'd lasted through. Hardly. Although Auntie does have something of a look like the parties you see lined up at Yorkville Court, charged with havin' been rude to taxi drivers; and Mr. Ellins might have been pa.s.sin' the night on a bakery gratin' with a sportin' extra for a blanket.

We was a long, long ways from either taxis or traffic cops, though. We was on Nunca Secos Key, with the Gulf of Mexico murmurin' gentle behind us, and out in front a big red sun was blazin' through the black pines that edge the west coast of Florida. Five of us, includin' Vee and Captain Rupert Killam and me; and each in our own peculiar way was registerin' the Pollyanna-Mrs. Wiggs stuff.

Why not? For one thing, it's about as handsome a December mornin' as you could dream of--the air soft and mild, with a clean, salty smell to it that sort of gives you a romantic hunch every sniff you pump in.

But the big reason for this early-mornin' joyfest of ours-- Well, there's the pirate treasure, almost enough to load a pushcart with.

You know how you feel when you pluck a stray quarter from the L stairs, or maybe retrieve a dollar bill that's been playin' hide-and-seek in the gutter? Multiply that by the thrill you'd get if you'd had your salary raised and been offered par for a block of industrials that had been wished on you at ten a share, all in the same day. Then you'll have a vague idea of how chirky we was at 5:30 A.M. as we stood around in front of that mound we'd torn open, gawpin' first at the heap of loot and then at each other.