By that time Mr. Dunn was just about four pounds madder than any man who ever lived to tell the tale. He swelled up like a balloon and shoved out his jaw, and just waded out of that tent with all his fists flying. Maybe he enjoyed it, but it wasn’t wise. No, sir. It got us all into trouble. The net result was that a couple of Swedes sat on his stomach, and they dragged him back in and tied him to the tent pole. And what was worse, they made a good job of it by tying Catty and me, too.

“Guess that settles you,” says the boss mutineer. “Didn’t know when you was well off, did you?”

“You’ll sweat for this,” says Mr. Dunn.

“I’m figgerin’ on warm weather and hard work,” says the boss mutineer. Then he went out after he stationed a guard by the door, and we three sat on the ground with our backs against the tent pole and thought it over.

We must have looked kind of funny to a bystander. Three backs against that post, and three sets of legs stretching in all directions on the ground—kind of like some new kind of a spider.

But it wasn’t funny to us, or to me at any rate. I was scairt. I don’t know what Mr. Dunn was besides mad. He was so full of that, I guess, that there wasn’t much room for anything else. Catty didn’t say a word, and I couldn’t stretch my neck far enough to see his face. He wasn’t the kind to keep quiet long, though.

“My,” says he after a while, “isn’t this adventure working out first class!”

“Eh?” says Mr. Dunn.

“Better than a book,” says Catty. “I never heard of the mutineers seizing everybody, and tying them to a tent pole. It makes it a lot harder.”

“What?”

“Why—circumventing the mutineers. Generally the faithful party is barricaded on the poop deck or in a stockade or something. They always have arms. But look at us! We’re caught and tied and helpless. It’s—it’s wonderful.”

“Say, young man, are you crazy?”

Catty answered like he thought Mr. Dunn must be crazy. “Aren’t you enjoying it?” says he, like he was surprised almost to death.

“I’m enjoying it like an attack of rheumatism,” says Mr. Dunn.

“I’ll see every last one of them hung—or something,” says Mr. Dunn. “The day for mutinies and piracies has gone past. I’ll show them....”

“Sure,” says Catty, “we’ll show them. But how?”

“We’ll notify the police,” says Mr. Dunn.

“How?” says Catty, “and besides there aren’t enough police on this island to do more than speak loud to this gang of mutineers. Police—fiddlesticks!”

“You’re right, young man. We’re up against it. Say,” he says, beginning to realize all of a sudden what a fix he was in, “what can we do, anyhow?”

“The first thing to do,” says Catty, “is to talk low so the guard can’t overhear us. No use making a plan and telling it to the enemy.”

“You have got some sense,” says Mr. Dunn.

“Wait and see,” says Catty. “Now let me think.”

“Huh....” says Mr. Dunn.

So we sat, back to back, and listened to the mutineers fussing around outside and we began to ache, and the sun got high and the tent was scorching hot, and we began to itch, and nothing to scratch with. I was tired of mutineers.

“Maybe,” says I, “Mr. House or Mr. Robbins—on board the Porpoise—will miss you and come to see what’s the matter.”

“Huh,” says Mr. Dunn.

“And maybe,” says I, “our party will miss us and start a search.”

“Hope not,” says Catty.

“Why?”

“Well, they’d just get into trouble, and besides, that’s not the way it’s done. We don’t want to be rescued, do we? I should say not. Pretty heroes we’d be, letting somebody get us out of a fix. Our job is to get other folks out of fixes.”

“Say,” says Mr. Dunn, “what do you think you’re talking about?”

Catty’s voice sounded kind of pitying as he answered.

“Wee-wee and I are the heroes of this adventure. You’re the victim, and it’s our business to rescue you by overcoming terrible obstacles. It would spoil the whole thing if somebody else stepped in and did it. What kind of an adventure would you call it where the hero isn’t the big man? Tell me that. Why, I never heard of such a thing! I’d never hold up my head again.”

“Er—do you mean you’re—enjoying this?”

“I was never in anything like it before. It’s—it’s grand.”

“And you calculate to be the hero, eh?”

“We just are. We can’t help it. No heroes in stories start out to be heroes. Things just happen, and they have to be whether they want to or not. That’s how this is.”

“All right,” says Mr. Dunn, “go ahead and be a hero. I’m willing. Only be quick about it. I’m thirsty and this confounded tent pole is jamming a hole in my backbone. I’m all ready to be rescued now. Get busy and rescue me.”

“We’ve got to think about the treasure, too. It would be fairly easy to escape. But whoever heard of the good people escaping and leaving the treasure to the mutineers. I should say not.”

“Are you going to give me the treasure when you get it?” says Mr. Dunn kind of sarcastic.

“You.... No siree. That treasure belongs to the party on the Albatross—and we’re going to have it. All you get is to escape with your life. The minute we escape, you and I are enemies like we were before.”

“Did Mr. Topper describe this treasure to you?” says Mr. Dunn.

“No, but all buried pirate treasure is alike. Pieces-of-eight and jewels and Spanish things. The mutineers say there’s a million dollars worth of it. They’re going to take fifty thousand each and live happy forever after.”

“Hum.... They’re right about one thing, anyhow. It’s worth all of a million.”

Whew! Think of that. There we were sitting on that sand bar with a whole million dollars buried within a few feet of us. It had been there nobody knows how long. Folks had walked over it, and maybe dug clams right over it, and sat down on top of it—and never even guessed they could have uncovered all that money just by digging a little.

Another week or two passed, and then we heard a racket outside and yelling, and then a couple of men chucked Mr. House into the tent and followed him in and sat on him a little until he got reasonable, and tied him to the tent pole in the space between Mr. Dunn and me. It was kind of crowded, but he didn’t act like he minded the crowd.

As soon as he could speak he began quite a speech with lots of language in it. As near as I could gather, he wanted to know what in tunket was going on.

“Mutiny,” says Mr. Dunn. “The men have mutinied and they’re going to seize the treasure and the yacht.”

“No!” says Mr. House. Then he craned his neck to look at me and Catty. “Where’d you pick up these confounded kids?”

“They,” says Mr. Dunn, “are the heroes.”

“They’ve been heroing around ever since we started on this cruise. It was the skinniest one that we got the chart from.”

“No!” says Mr. Dunn.

“That didn’t work out like we expected,” says Catty, kind of apologetic. “I’ll tell you about that, now that it’s over. It all happened because Mr. Topper didn’t take us into his confidence right at the start. Of course we saw something was going on, and we figured out you were pirates, following us in that black yacht. Then we got onto the treasure, and knew that was what you were after. We weren’t sure till Newport, when we saw Mr. House send you a telegram.”

“Huh,” says Mr. House.

“Then,” says Catty, “we made up our minds to help, so we started in to fool you, and send you off on a wild-goose chase while we lifted the treasure comfortable.”

“Yes.”

“So we fixed up that chart, with marks on it and everything, and arranged things so you’d see it there in Padanaram. Remember?”

“I remember.”

“It was too bad. Mr. Topper should have told us what was what. But we did the best we could. We picked out Nantucket as being about as out of the way as anything could be, and marked the treasure right here. It got rid of you, all right. But the worst of it was, we had bad luck. Instead of sending you off where we’d never see you again, we sent you right to the spot where the treasure was buried.... It was a lovely scheme.”

“Can you beat that?” says Mr. House.

“Huh,” says Mr. Dunn, “if it hadn’t been for fool luck, these kids would have bamboozled you. You’re a fine citizen, you are. It isn’t your fault we’re not digging holes in some place a hundred miles from here. Smart kids, I’ll say.”

“They’re that. They’ve been on our necks ever since we got here, prowling around, and what not. We caught them once and had them aboard the Porpoise, but they got away.”

“Is that where that document case went to?” says Mr. Dunn kind of savage.

“I don’t know, but we missed it that night.”

“Have you kids got a document case you got aboard the Porpoise?” says Mr. Dunn.

“Why?” says Catty.

“Because,” says Mr. Dunn, “if you have, it’ll be worth money to you to give it back.”

“How much money?”

“Oh,” says Mr. Dunn careless-like, “twenty-five dollars.”

“H’m, ... if we had it—which we’re not saying, twenty-five dollars doesn’t look like enough to support a large family on,” says Catty.

“Anyhow,” says I, “twenty-five dollars wouldn’t be any good to anybody—not tied up in this tent. You can’t spend a penny here.”

“That’s sense,” says Mr. Dunn. “The first thing is to get out of here. Hear that, Mr. Hero? Now get busy heroing.”

“In daylight?” says Catty, kind of pitying. “However do you think I could rescue you in daylight?”

“These ropes are ’most cutting my wrists off,” says I.

“They always do,” says Catty. “Lots of times the prisoners bear scars for life, where the ropes cut in.”

“I’m not collecting scars,” says I. “Postage stamps are my specialty.”

“Everybody leave me alone,” says Catty, “while I think.”

“I suppose Robbins will be coming along next,” says Mr. Dunn.

“I doubt it,” says Mr. House. “I heard that man who seems to be bossing the crew give orders to man a boat and go out to the yacht. Most likely the mutineers have taken possession of it by now, both the Porpoise and your big yacht.”

“Then,” says Catty, “the Albatross is our only hope.”

“If there is any hope,” says I.

“I’m beginning to get an idea,” says Catty, “but we’ll have to wait for dark.”

“I hope it’s a good one,” says Mr. Dunn.

“It will be,” says Catty, “if it works.”

“Is there any danger in it?” says I.

“Plenty,” says Catty, as satisfied as a cat with a dish of cream.

“Then,” says I, “you can get right to work thinking up another one. What I want is something nice and safe—and comfortable.”

“Keep still,” says Catty, “or I won’t let you be in it.”

“That,” says I, “just suits me. I wish I hadn’t been allowed to be in this.”

“It’ll take nerve,” says Catty, “and daring.”

“Just out of both,” says I. “Find one with food in it.”