CHAPTER XXVIII
IN IMMINENT DANGER
IN IMMINENT DANGER
IN IMMINENT DANGER
For a time the boys were almost out of their heads with delight. Here was more wealth than they had ever seen or ever dreamed would be at their disposal. They were inclined to pinch themselves to find out if it was really true that they were awake and gazing on real money—money that had such power and yet had been lying here useless for no one knew how many years.
But there it was staring at them with its yellow eyes, gold of different coinages and of many countries, amassed no doubt by some thrifty trader who had sailed the seven seas and at last, extending his ventures to the North for its rich seal fur, had come to grief on this remote and inhospitable coast. Probably there had been no survivor of the wreck and the ship had simply been recorded in the shipping lists as missing and had practically passed from human memory.
For a time the boys were lost to every other thought but that of the treasure, and they took it up in handfuls and let it fall in a glittering stream beneath the rays of their lamp.
“How much do you think there is?” asked Bobby, in an awed tone.
“Thousands and thousands of dollars,” replied Fred, as he took up another handful. “Maybe it won’t be fun counting it!”
“Let’s do it now,” suggested Mouser. “I’m crazy to know how much there is.”
“Not now,” objected Bobby, as prudence which had vanished for a time returned to him. “You fellows mustn’t forget that the finding of this treasure has put us in a mighty lot of danger. It may mean the death of all of us if we don’t watch our step.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Billy, the ecstatic expression on his face giving way to one of soberness.
“Just this,” returned Bobby: “If Mooloo should once know that we had found it, the lives of all of us wouldn’t perhaps be worth a plugged nickel.”
“You don’t think he’d murder us?” asked Mouser, in awed tones.
“Who can tell?” returned Bobby. “There are thousands of men among people that we call civilized that would kill us as readily as they would a fly to get this money away from us. How safe do you think we’d be in New York or any large city if thugs or gunmen knew that we had this with us? And if that is true there where they’d have to take chances with the law, how much more easily might it happen here. We haven’t any way to defend ourselves, and Mooloo with his spears could kill us easily. There wouldn’t have to be any explaining. He’d simply say, if he said anything at all, that we’d been lost in a blizzard, and the Eskimos would grunt, and that’s all there’d be to it. He’d slip our bodies into the sea and they’d never be found.”
The boys shuddered at the thought.
“Do you think that Mooloo is that kind of a fellow?” asked Billy.
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t,” replied Bobby. “But many a bad man becomes a murderer at the sight of gold, and it won’t do to take any chances. They say opportunity often makes the thief, and I suppose the same thing is true of other crimes. And certainly there couldn’t be any easier kind of opportunity than Mooloo would have if he wanted to take it.”
“But how on earth are we to get the money away from here without Mooloo knowing about it?” asked Fred, in great perplexity.
“That’s something we’ve got to figure out,” answered Bobby. “But just now the thing we’ve got to do is to board up this place again and do it quickly. Billy, you go up on deck and keep a lookout for Mooloo. Give us the tip if you see him coming, and we’ll hustle into some other part of the ship. Lively now, boys.”
They took another long look at the treasure and then reluctantly closed the chest. Then they set to work to repair the battered wall as well as they could. It was not a very workmanlike job, but the walls were so seamed and cracked anyway that by the time they had finished the repaired part did not differ greatly from the rest, and they trusted that it would escape detection.
Then they abandoned that particular cabin and took up their quarters in another as far removed as possible from the treasure trove. Here they got out their food and prepared a rough meal while awaiting Mooloo’s return.
It was not long before he came trudging back, dragging behind him a seal which had fallen a victim to his spear. His success had made him so well content with himself that he was less gruff and surly than usual, and even unbent so far as to tell them something of his morning’s adventures. The boys laid themselves out to be enthusiastic about his skill as a hunter. The more they could keep his mind on himself the less likely he was to be inquisitive about them.
The Eskimo was hungry after his hunt and fairly gorged himself at his meal. Then with a grunt of satisfaction he rolled himself in skins and stretched out on the floor, and the boys knew that he would be dead to the world for several hours.
Nothing could have pleased them better, and they took advantage of his slumber to make a thorough search of other parts of the ship, taking care to give a wide berth to the cabin in which they had found the treasure.
What they found, however, was of no value. The remorseless hand of Time had worked its will on the ship. Everything was covered with mold and mildew and rust. The sailors’ chests had long ago been broken open and everything of value removed. They came across fragments of letters, some in foreign tongues and most of them illegible from age. Even if they could have read them, the boys would have shrunk from doing so, as it appeared too much like trenching on the privacy of the dead.
One or two gold pieces that had escaped the prying eyes of the Eskimos were gathered up as the boys went through piles of debris.
“This explains why the Eskimos got the idea that this was a treasure ship, I suppose,” remarked Bobby. “Doubtless there were a lot of gold pieces in the sailors’ chests that represented their wages or savings. Different parties came back with these from time to time, and the story spread that where there was so much there must have been more. And it’s barely possible that old Takyak made the same discovery that we did of the treasure chest and meant some time to get it away either in driblets or at some time in a mass. Maybe there was some superstition of his that prevented his taking it before.”
In one of the cabins they came across a number of large books. Some of them were scattered volumes of an encyclopedia. Others were huge ledgers with brass clasps in which the trader’s accounts had evidently been kept. Still others were bound volumes of old magazines designed no doubt to relieve the tedium of the nights of the Arctic winter.
“Quite a library here,” commented Fred, as he handled one of them. “Why is it that they used to make books so big and thick that it was hard to lift them!”
Bobby was glancing over one of them when suddenly an idea struck him with such force that he fairly jumped.
“I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” he exclaimed jubilantly.