CHAPTER XXI
BITS OF EVIDENCE
If Mark had received a shock from a galvanic battery he would not havebeen more startled.
"What's that you say?" he demanded, bringing his chair down from itstilted position and looking around upon the group in a bewildered way.
"Lester is right," said Ross, who had risen to his feet and stretchedout his hand. "My name is Ross Montgomery, and I want to thank you withall my heart for what you did for my father. I've never had the chanceto do it before."
His voice was shaken with emotion at this meeting with the man who hadplayed so large a part in the tragedy of his family so many yearsbefore.
Mark grasped the extended hand and shook it warmly.
"So it was your pa that I picked up that day," he said. "I hed a sort offeelin' to-day that I had seen you somewheres, an' I s'pose it's becauseyou favored him some. You have the same kind of hair an' eyes, as nearas I kin rec'lect."
"Of course I was only a little chap when it all happened," said Ross,"but I've often heard mother tell how kind you were to him after youfound him adrift."
"Oh, pshaw! that was nothin'," replied Mark deprecatingly, as he resumedhis seat. "I only did fur him what any man would do fur an' unfo'tunitfeller-man. He was nearly all gone when I come across him. The doc saidhe would 'a' died ef he'd floated around a few hours longer."
"Do you remember anything he said to you while you were taking care ofhim?" asked Lester.
"Oh, he said a heap o' things, jest like any man does when he is out ofhis head," was the answer. "I didn't pay much attention like. I was toobusy holdin' him down when he got vi'lent, as he did pretty often thefirst few days. After that he kind of settled down an' only kep'a-mutterin' to himself."
"Yes, but didn't he say anything that would give you a hint of what hadhappened to him and how he came to be adrift?" asked Fred.
Mark ruminated for a full minute, evidently doing his best to tax hismemory.
"I ain't got the best memory in the world," he said apologetically, "an'I couldn't make out fur certain all he said. But I got the idee thetthere'd been a fight of some kind an' thet he'd lost a pile of money. Hekep' a talkin' of 'gold' an' some 'debts' he owed. Course I thought itwas only the ravin's of a crazy man an' I didn't take much stock in it."
"Wasn't there anything else?" prodded Fred.
"N-no," replied Mark hesitatingly, "nothin' thet I remember on. Oh,yes," he went on, as a sudden flash of memory came to him, "I dorec'lect he kep' sayin': 'It's where the water's comin' in.' But ofcourse there wasn't no sense in that."
The boys sat up straight.
"Say that again, won't you?" asked Teddy.
"It's where the water's comin' in," repeated Mark. "He said that overand over. I s'pose it was the feelin' of the spray thet came over him inthe boat. I don't rightly know what else it could have been."
As the boys themselves turned the phrase over in their minds, they couldnot see how it bore on the object of their search. They filed it away intheir minds to think about later on.
For the next two hours they discussed the matter with Mark, trying toget from him any little shred of evidence that would be of help, and yetat the same time guarding carefully against revealing the real object oftheir questioning. He, for his part, set it down to the naturalcuriosity they felt in an event that touched the life of one of them sonearly, and did his best to cudgel his memory. But nothing more came ofit than they had already learned, and it was with a sense of depressionand failure that they finally gave up the cross examination that theyhad come so far to make.
"Well, Mark," said Lester at last, when several long yawns had shownthat the old man was tired and sleepy, "we can't tell you how muchobliged we are to you for all you've told us. But I guess we've tiredyou out with all our questions."
"Not a bit of it," denied Mark valiantly, though his drooping eyelidsbelied his words.
"I was just a-wonderin' where I was goin' to put all you boys for thenight," he went on. "There's only one bed in the cabin, but I kin spreadsome blankets on the floor, ef that'll do yer."
"Don't worry at all about that," said Fred cheerily. "You go right in tobed and we'll bunk out here on the beach. It's a warm night, and we'd assoon do it as not."
As there was really nothing else to do, Mark, after making a feebleprotest, said good-night and went inside, while the boys moved down thebeach until they were out of earshot and prepared to camp out.
"We didn't get much out of the old chap after all, did we?" said Billrather despondently.
"After coming all this way too," added Teddy, even more dejectedly.
"The only thing we'll have to show for the trip will be the shark, Iguess," said Lester.
"Well, that would be enough if we hadn't gotten anything else," declaredFred. "But I'm not so sure that we came on a fool's errand after all."
"What makes you think we didn't?" asked Bill. "What do we know that wedidn't know before?"
"Well," suggested Fred, "we hadn't heard before of that phrase Mr.Montgomery used over and over. 'It's where the water's coming in.'"
"That's nothing at all," affirmed Bill decidedly.
"I have a hunch it does mean something," replied Fred, "and I'm going tokeep mulling it over in my mind until I find out what the meaning is.
"By the way, Ross," he went on, turning to their new-found friend wherehe sat brooding a little way apart from the rest, "we've learnedsomething since we saw you first that may interest you. We'd have toldyou earlier this afternoon, but we've been traveling in different boats,and then when we got on shore we were so busy with cutting up the sharkthat we didn't get a chance till now."
Ross looked up eagerly.
"What is it?" he cried, getting up and joining the group.
He listened breathlessly while Fred told him what they had learnedduring their talk with Mr. Lee--the fight with the smugglers, theirflight to the south Pacific, the partial confession of Dick and thegoing down of the ship with all on board.
When Fred had finished, Ross rose and paced the beach excitedly.
"You fellows found out in a few minutes what I've spent years trying tolearn," he cried. "All the time I've been hunting, I've been haunted bythe fear that even if I found where the gold had been hidden, the moneywould long ago have been taken and spent by the robbers. I've felt likeall kinds of an idiot in keeping up the search on such a slender chance,and again and again I've been tempted to give it up. But this puts newlife and hope in me. There's still a chance to find the gold and pay myfather's debts."
"It's practically certain that the money is still there," affirmed Fred."The fellows who took it are all drowned--unless they're livingsomewhere on a desert island, and that's so unlikely after all this timethat it isn't worth giving it a second thought. The only living man,outside of ourselves, who knows about the gold is Tom Bixby. He's just arough sailor knocking about all over the world, and he too may be deadby this time. The whole secret lies with us, and if the gold's everfound, we'll be the ones who will find it."
"You boys have been perfect bricks," declared Ross warmly, "and you makeme ashamed for having kept anything back from you from the start."
"You needn't feel that way at all," asserted Teddy. "For my part, Ithink you've been very generous and outspoken in telling us as much asyou have. You'd never met us before that day of the storm and didn'tknow anything about us."
"Well, I know all about you now," declared Ross, "and from now on,everything I find out will be known to you as fast as I can get it toyou."
The boys said nothing but waited expectantly.
"There's one thing I didn't tell you that first night," Ross continued."I don't know how important it may prove to be, but at least it's a cluethat may lead to something.
"As you know, the _Ranger_ was taken to Halifax and abandoned thereby the smugglers. Ramsay, the captain who died on the trip, had ownedit, but he had no family and the authorities took charge of the boat andsold it after a while, holding the m
oney they got for it for the benefitof the heirs, if any should ever turn up. The new owner used the boatfor a voyage or two, but he found it hard to get a crew. You know howsuperstitious sailors are. The mysterious way it was found abandonedgave sailor men the impression that there was a hoodoo of some kindconnected with it, and they wouldn't ship aboard her. So the new ownersold it and the name was changed.
"One day in Canada I ran across a sailor who had made a trip in the shipbefore the name was changed, and he told me a queer thing. He said hehad found a rough map cut out on the wood of the forecastle with ajackknife. There were wavy lines to represent the water and a shadedpart that might stand for a beach. Then there was a clump of three treesstanding together, and a little way off were two more. One big rock roseout of the water on the right-hand side.
"Of course I jumped to the conclusion that it might have something to dowith the place where the gold was hidden. I thought perhaps some of thesailors had wanted to impress on their memory just how the place looked,so that they could find it more easily when the time came. I pumped theman for more details, but that was all he could remember. I've tried inevery way I knew to trace the old _Ranger_ but she has slipped outof sight like a ghost. If I could only have one look at that oldforecastle, I think that the map might put me on the right trail."
"I'll bet it would," declared Fred with conviction, and his opinion waseagerly echoed by the others.
For a long time they debated the matter from this new angle, and it wasvery late when Lester urged that they should settle down for the night.
"We'll get an early start in the morning and get back to the Shoalsbefore noon," he suggested. "I want to get busy on the government mapsand plot out every mile of the coast so that we can start out inearnest."
But Lester's plan miscarried in part. They got the early start after acordial good-bye to Mark. But the wind was baffling and they had to makelong tacks, so that dusk was drawing on when they at last reachedBartanet Shoals.