  First of all, of course, it was necessary for Tom, Cliff and Nicky to discover the key islands which formed the Dipper. This was not easy, because the channels between the islets were, in many places, too shallow for even their light-draught boat to navigate. They had no definite idea just where to locate the Dipper, except that the charts had shown it, and the white men had mentioned it as being about midway between the inner and the outer boundaries of the archipelago. Many trials they made before they found a channel that ran far into the crowded outcroppings which showed above the shallow water. Every time they would locate what seemed to be a straight and a deep waterway, it would shoal up at one end and they would have to make a detour, sometimes of several islands, to find water they could use. “I declare!” said Nicky, “it makes me think of a day my New York cousins took me for an automobile ride on Long Island. They were repairing roads, and every fork or crossroad we came to, it seemed, they had a sign, ‘Detour!’” “And now we ‘detour!’ again,” laughed Cliff, piloting from the bow, “to the left, this time, Tom—Nicky—easy!” They turned into a new channel, and so, time after time, even retracing their course occasionally to get back to deeper water, they made slow progress. No delay daunted them; no shoal “made their pluck run aground,” as Nicky explained it. To the continual detouring was added the handicap of the difficulty they had in recognizing what would look like the Dipper constellation from above. “If we had an airplane, now,” Tom argued, “we could spy it in a second.” “Right, again—pull slowly,” Cliff cut in; and so the morning wore on and they began to feel as though they had rowed half way around most of the archipelago. But the longest way ’round is said to be the shortest way through, and the chums found it so. “Look!” exclaimed Cliff, from the bow, “back water, fellows! And look ahead. I believe we’ve found it!” Tom and Nicky swung on the seat and stared over their shoulders. Hard as it was to be sure, because other islands, a little closer or further away complicated the general pattern, they felt that, at last, they saw the Dipper. “But there’s an island almost in line with two of the lower ones that wasn’t on the map,” objected Tom. “That’s so,” said Cliff, ruefully. “Anyway, here’s a good channel, and we’re going South again—back toward where we started,” Nicky argued. “Let’s——” “Back water! Back water!” ordered Cliff. But they had given a swift impetus to the small craft as Nicky and Tom bent to the oars and with a dull grating sound the bow up-ended a little, as it ran onto a shelf of the bedrock limestone, into which the coral formed itself. Tom and Nicky narrowly escaped toppling over backward and Cliff saved himself from a plunge onto the shoal only by gripping the thwart with both hands as the boat stopped sharply. “Well—here we are!” said Nicky, settling himself. “Come aft, Cliff, so we can lighten her bow and maybe we can pole off and back out—it’s too narrow a channel to turn around in!” Cliff stood up to do as his chum counseled; but he remained standing, his eyes fixed, his body becoming tense. “What’s the matter?” cried Nicky. “See anything?” asked Tom. Cliff lifted a hand, pointing dramatically. “Come here Nicky—Tom!” he urged. “Easy, so as not to tip the boat! Do you know what? That is the Dipper, and we have run aground right where the line would show we ought to stop in the chart—and yonder is ‘the bottom of the Dipper!’” Excitedly his fellows scrambled over the intervening seat and crouched at his side. “That’s right, I do believe!” agreed Nicky. “The reason the line stopped is because the channel stopped. This is where they must have come to a standstill in the old boat—those castaways!” “Yes,” added Cliff, “they couldn’t go any further. And the bottom is level here. We could climb out and walk along it.” “It’s just the place to unload chests of treasure,” Tom agreed. “If only there was some place to hide it in——” “What about that?” cried Nicky, pointing straight ahead. “There on that islet that’s really at the bottom of the Dipper.” “But it said ‘in’ not ‘at’ the bottom of the Dipper,” reminded Tom. Nicky nodded, scrambling out into the shallow water. Cliff followed, and Tom delayed only long enough to draw the nose of their tender far enough onto the shelf of limestone to prevent any chance of a slight current drifting it out of easy reach while they walked along carefully on the coral bed, avoiding jutting prongs and dodging the menacing little spaces into which a foot could slip so as to twist an ankle. “We’re in the bottom of the Dipper, at least,” Cliff declared after a few minutes of cautious wading. “I don’t see anything to write home about,” Tom said morosely, wincing from the pain of a slightly twisted foot. “All our trouble—for what?” “Stand here a minute,” urged Nicky. “Let’s think. Now, fellows, you know that the treasure wasn’t buried yesterday. Maybe the whole top of the archipelago has changed since the castaways’ day. But this looks like the place they told Captain Kidd about, and unless some one else has taken it away, their treasure ought to be here, if we just know how to locate it!” “That’s the trouble,” said Cliff, “how?” “It’s no use,” called Tom, who had moved a little beyond his two companions, at the side of the tiny islet. “Some one has been here already!” They moved up to his position and observed with dejected eyes the signs of a previous visit by others; roots were chopped in half; the signs were very fresh. At one place, very close to the edge of the small, root-matted surface, a hole had been chopped completely through the mass. Further into the brush there were signs of another such spot. “That settles it,” Cliff grumbled. “Some one has beaten us.” “Look out, Cliff,” cried Nicky, just behind his friend. “Don’t step back. Here’s another channel—right at the bottom of the Dipper part—it runs along what is the bottom, between the islands.” “It’s only a hole, maybe——” “No, it’s a channel,” persisted Nicky. “See—yonder, the color of the water looks different from the shoals. It runs——” “It only goes to the lower island,” declared Tom, studying the water, and gently lowering himself, testing till his foot found the bottom. “It’s only about three feet deep, and—” he waded carefully away, and then returned. “It stops just by the other island, the South one. But there’s another channel beyond a reef there.” “Then whoever came here didn’t use a boat,” Nicky suggested. “My guess is that those men waded up to here yesterday, and dug or chopped until they were sure they couldn’t find anything.” “How do you know they didn’t come from where our boat is?” “Because,” Nicky explained, “the chopped places are all on the outside part, nearest the gully—it isn’t really a boat channel, it’s only a gully.” “Well, that doesn’t help us any,” Tom was still dejected and the more so because of his slightly injured foot. “I move we give up.” But Nicky had climbed up onto the low, small islet, and, his body sprawled over the rooted, matted growth, was poking and probing. “Yes,” he said, after a moment, “I guess we might as well. If there is any treasure, it’s too well hidden to discover. I say we might as well wade back to the boat and get some lunch.” “Then we had better find our way out before dark—it took all morning to get in here,” Cliff suggested. Nicky, as nearly erect as the small, tough roots under foot would make it safe to be, began to push and work his way straight across the islet. Only his head and shoulders appeared above the low, young growths. “I hate to give up,” he said, as his comrades started to pick their way back along the bed of the reef. “This island may not have been here at all when the—” His words ceased. There came a crackling and rending of wood. Nicky cried out! Cliff, turning, saw Nicky disappearing! Forgetting his ankle, with a cry, Tom, who also swung about, scrambled and plunged toward Nicky. The latter was almost out of sight, near the edge of the islet, prevented from going lower by two roots, over which he had with quick presence of mind flung his arms. “I—I fell—through!” he gasped as his chums made their way to the edge of the islet. “It’s a hole under the roots! Be careful, fellows, don’t slip or break through; the coral may be thin over it. It may spread further around than you think!” With all the caution that their fear for Nicky permitted his comrades got close. The reef held. “Listen,” cried Nicky, breathlessly, “I’m not hurt. Fellows—” He made a beckoning motion with his head, “I’ve—we’ve—found it!” “The treasure?” “The treasure! I’m sure of it. I fell through—and I can just touch something—like bricks—with my shoes!” They had to go around the islet and approach Nicky from behind. The surface of the thin coating of land, held up and bound together only by its interwoven roots, was shaky enough, but they did not break through, and finally, by dint of much tugging, heaving and puffing, they drew Nicky back far enough so that he could scramble free and sprawl, gasping, half-laughing, on the surface by the jagged hole he had just left. Cautiously Cliff protruded his head. “I see something!” he whispered, as if some one might hear—— “The island wasn’t as big or as high,” Tom said, peering too, “when the castaways brought the chests here. They buried them—they must have used picks to break a place in the coral.” “Then they must have covered it over with boards and pulled the roots and earth over it—or else the wind and the birds have brought seeds and the islet has grown over the place,” Nicky added. “The boards were so rotted and the roots were so weak that my weight broke through!” Like three active puppies digging a hole for bones, the chums pushed and scraped, tugged and tore at the roots; the weaker ones gave way and soon they had quite a goodly sized opening uncovered. “There’s something down there!” gasped Cliff. “Gold bars, maybe! The chests must have been thrown away.” “Now the puzzle is—how can we get close enough to tell?” Nicky said, in an eager voice; he was none the worse for his experience. “Could one of us make a dive?” Tom speculated. All three were on their knees, heedless of the sharp coral bits, peering intently through limpid water into a mysteriously dark depression. “I could almost touch bottom; where I was,” Nicky exclaimed. “Tom, you hold one arm, Cliff, you brace and hold the other. I’ll let myself down——” “Don’t bother,” came a sharp voice, unexpectedly, from behind them. They looked up, startled, dismayed. Quickly their eyes took in the scene. Just back of their own tender lay the boat of El Libertad. Quietly it must have been sculled up, while their attention was focused on Nicky and his find. Close behind them, smiling in a half sneering way, was Mr. Coleson, with Senor Ortiga beside him. “We thought you might have misled us,” Mr. Coleson said. “We took the logical step to give you a free hand, and here you have exercised it—for which we are very—very grateful.” “As for the treasure,” added Senor Ortiga, “never mind diving for it. Here comes Jim.” “No, never mind,” added Mr. Coleson. “We will attend to it!” |
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