Chapter XXXI: Just the Two of Them

So there at last was the precious three thousand dollars of Long Buck Sanderson and his partner Mink Havers safe in the hands of our adventurers. Even on their way to the cabin after the scene just described, Tom must pause long enough to climb the old elm and examine the hollow in which the box had been for, who shall say how many years. There were many nutshells in the hollow, which was evidently a favorite nest of squirrels. The thought occurred to Tom how he had probably many times seen the little creatures who lived so near that precious box.

From the branch where the hollow was, he could look straight down into the fearful depth of the well. Mink Havers must have changed his mind about the hiding place in a last moment of hurried consideration. It seemed likely that he had fallen from the tree and that this had been the cause of his cut head and unconscious state when found.

“You don’t suppose there’s the slightest possibility, do you,” said Brent, as they went on to the cabin, “that Mink told Somers to get the treasure? sure? That would put us in wrong.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” said Tom. “Why, didn’t the article in the newspaper say the young doctor went to Europe? What was the use of that lie? He didn’t go, he came here.”

“And like the light that lies in woman’s eyes, he lied and lied and lied,” said Brent.

“My theory,” said Tom, “is that old Mink Havers was able to remember something about where his money was; he knew it was in a tree, _but what tree_? Somers was in trouble; that’s clear enough, isn’t it? And he jumped at this means to get the money that he needed. Things certainly broke right for him--till the last scene. He nearly got away with it. The forestry and tree dentistry gag gave him the chance to explore all the trees around here without starting suspicions. He was slick all right--and some line of talk!”

“I think you were a little leary about him,” Tom said.

“I was, but I don’t know just why,” said Brent; “woman’s intuition, I suppose.”

“Well, it’s all over but the shouting,” said Tom. “Just the same, we’ll camp here till Labor Day, hey? I have a feeling things are going to move along O. K.; old Havers will be heard from. Wonder what the Philistine[1] will say.”

They found the bait-box to be locked, but they did not quite feel that they could suffer the least uncertainty as to its contents, so they ripped it open with a screw-driver and a can-opener. Inside it was a shabby old leather wallet, bulging with the little fortune that it contained. There was also an old bit of paper with some figures on it, a sample probably, of Long Buck’s crude account-keeping in the matter of his relations with Pollock. There was also something else which (when I saw it later) interested me not a little. This was an old program of the Gayety Museum which held forth on the Bowery in the bygone days. I suppose old Buck had visited it.

The campers ate heartily and were gay at their meal that night. The treasure (for they could never call it anything else) lay upon the barrel which was their dining table and they glanced at it continually; it had a sort of fascination for them. It carried their thoughts back to a time when there were no camps and no Scouts in that wild region; when this overgrown fastness in which they were camping was the home of hardy hunters and trappers.

I had seen the last of the sturdy race who dwelt in that wilderness, but Tom and Brent had seen not so much as a living remnant of the old adventure and romance which had once been there. Only the little primitive cabin was left, nestling amid the brush and trees, and Conner’s well, and the old overgrown foundation of the forest home in which Conner (whoever he was) had once dwelt. And the treasure, eloquent memorial of those old hunting days....

And as they looked into that old bait-box where the musty wallet lay open for repeated inspections, a thought was more or less clearly formulated in the minds of both the adventurers. It was Tom who voiced that thought.

“Do you know,” said he, “now that it’s all over, I don’t want that money at all; I mean I wouldn’t care so much about it even if it didn’t belong to anybody. It was the fun of wanting to find it, and of getting it. Adventure is better than money, when it comes to a showdown. Because it’s a blamed sight more scarce, I suppose.”

“Money does not always bring happiness, Tom,” said Brent, with a whimsical look on his funny face.

“There you go, joking again,” said Tom.

“What are we going to do with the box when we go fishing?” Brent said. “It would be a shame to take the money out of the box, it wouldn’t look like treasure any more, it would just look like plain, common, everyday money.”

“Plain, common, everyday money is right,” said Tom. “What do you say we have a game of checkers? Somehow, I’ve turned against pinochle since to-night.”

“I always said there was no romance to pinochle, Tommy,” said Brent. “Checkers is full of medieval tradition. I think the pirates used to play checkers--or was it Mah-Jong? Anyway, it wasn’t pinochle. All right, I’ll beat you a game before we turn in. There goes the night worker.”

“I kind of like to hear that owl screeching,” said Tom.

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[1] By “the Philistine” he meant my humble self.