All duringthe hot July days that followed Judy and Marjorie did indeed live in bathing suits. Mrs. Powell and Penny tried to make them dress up for dinner, but they compromised by changing into clean shirts and blue jeans.
“Aren’t we ever going to do anything about the treasure that’s supposed to be buried around here?” Judy asked one day. They had been in swimming and were now lying in the sun on the shore of the lake.
“I suppose we should do something about it,” Marjorie said lazily. “But it’s been so hot I hate the thought of digging. Helping Pat hoe up his potatoes was about all I could stand.”
“I’ve still got some blisters,” Judy said with a grin.
Marjorie raised herself on one elbow and squintedup toward the Lodge. “Penny and Phil don’t think there’s any treasure buried around here any more than there was a ghost haunting the place.”
“I knowtheydon’t,” Judy said. “But Jimmy, Alf and Brook do. They’ve been acting very mysteriously ever since we got here. They sneak off early in the morning with shovels and things, and I’m sure they don’t spend all their time fixing up their shack.”
“I know,” Marjorie said thoughtfully. “And it would be simply awful if the boys found the treasure, not us.” She scrambled to her feet. “We’ve got to find it first. Let’s get out of these wet bathing suits before we do anything else. While we’re changing into dungarees we can decide where the best place to start digging is.”
Ten minutes later the girls left the Lodge by the back door and, armed with shovels, went down to the clearing.
“Oh, golly,” Marjorie moaned. “I thought this would be a swell place to dig because there’s no grass on the ground here. But just look. There’s the wash hanging out on the line to dry. Mr. Taggart must have just brought it back from the laundry-mat.”
“Just our luck,” Judy complained. “We’d better not dig anywhere near it. We’d be sure to raise clouds of dust. It hasn’t rained in ages.”
“I tell you what let’s do instead,” Marjorie suggested. “Let’s go help the boys with their shack. They promised to let us work on it, too. Once it’s finished maybe they’ll go off on that camping trip with Pat. Then we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”
“That’s right,” Judy agreed. “If they caught us digging, they’d be sure to make fun of us. They pretend that we’re silly to believe that there’s treasure buried around here, but I happen to know that they believe in it too.”
When they arrived at the shack, the girls’ offer of help was promptly turned down.
“Help!” Alf hooted. “Judy, you don’t know which end of a hammer is the head.”
“Neither does Marjorie,” added Jimmy with a teasing grin. “Scram, you two. We men have work to do.”
“But you promised,” Marjorie reminded him crossly.
Jimmy waved her away. “Later, child, later. Rightnow we’re too busy to teach you the rudiments of carpentry.”
So Judy and Marjorie wandered forlornly off and returned to the clearing where they had left their shovels. After that they spent a few hours every day aimlessly digging here and there for buried treasure. But it was tiresome work and since they knew the holes had to be filled up, they never dug very deep or very long at any one spot.
“This is hopeless,” Judy said one day toward the end of July. “What we ought to look for are clues. Maps and things pirates may have left around which will tell us exactly where to dig.”
“I don’t think there were ever any pirates around here,” Marjorie said dubiously. “Didn’t they always stick pretty close to the seacoasts?”
“I guess you’re right,” Judy said disconsolately. “But whoever buried the treasure should have left some clues or directions.”
“Not necessarily,” Marjorie pointed out practically. “He might have buried it in a hurry and then the Indians or somebody might have killed him right afterwards.”
“I give up.” Judy flung her shovel on the ground. “The boys can find the treasure first for all I care. My hands are so sore I couldn’t paddle a canoe. So let’s go swimming.”
“All right,” Marjorie agreed. “I do want you to have fun while you’re our guest, Judy,” she added worriedly.
“Oh, I am,” Judy assured her with a quick smile. “It was my idea to dig for the treasure, not yours. But let’s forget about it for awhile.”
“Let’s,” Marjorie agreed. “Besides, I haven’t been much of a help to Penny lately. I’m supposed to be assistant hostess, you know, and help her entertain the guests.”
“Well, I’m a guest,” Judy said with a giggle. “And you’ve entertained me royally.”
From then on Marjorie spent more time helping Penny and Ann Mary and Theresa.
By the first of August the boys had made great progress with the shack. Mal, Pat and Phil helped out whenever they could and some of the guests pitched in occasionally. The walls and the roof were now up, the doors and windows were in place and theboys had even spent two nights sleeping there on cots. They were now putting in the finishing touches, and true to their promise they had let Marjorie and Judy help.
Marjorie, in her enthusiasm over being allowed to put up a shower wall all by herself, had banged her finger with the hammer and the boys had suggested that she and Judy take some time off to recuperate. So Marjorie and Judy were looking for shells down on the beach.
“Oh, golly,” Judy said in disgust after awhile, “all the nice ones seem to get as far under the rocks as they can.”
“They certainly do,” Marjorie agreed. “But let’s keep looking. We might find some really valuable ones which we could sell to collectors for a lot of money.”
For the next few minutes they were very busy pushing and shoving at the rocks, upturning some and giving up others that were too heavy to budge.
Finally they came across one huge stone that seemed to be imbedded in the sand. Marjorie knew that even with Judy’s help she couldn’t move it, andshe was just about to crawl by it when she saw something.
“Judy,” she cried excitedly. “Come here, quickly. Doesn’t it look as though someone had been digging around this rock a little while ago?”
Judy scrambled to her feet and joined Marjorie. “You’re right,” she said. “Some onehasbeen digging here. I’ll bet whoever it was buried something under that rock.” She flopped down on her knees beside Marjorie and together the girls began to dig frantically with their fingers.
And then Marjorie’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of something that glittered in the sunlight. “Diamonds,” she gasped. “Judy, help me. Let’s see if we can’t inch the rock up a little so we can see better. Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was real honest-to-goodness treasure buried here?”
Judy, tugging at the heavy rock, could only pant, “There. Now we’ve got it!”
They both fell to digging with renewed vigor, and in another second Marjorie could see that the glittering object was only a dark green glass bottle.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she moaned disappointedly.“And I thought we were at last going to find the buried treasure.” Crossly she yanked the bottle out of the warm sand and raised her arm to toss it into the lake.
“Wait a minute!” cried Judy, grabbing her arm just in time. “There’s something in that bottle, Marjorie. When you held it up in the sunlight I could see right through the dark green glass.”
Marjorie held the bottle up again and stared at it. “You’re right, Judy,” she said. “It looks like a piece of paper. Oh, golly, maybe it’s a map which’ll tell us exactly where the treasure is buried!”
As she talked, Marjorie was prying out the cork with a piece of broken shell.
“Hurry, hurry,” Judy cried impatiently, hopping up and down. “Now you’ve got it out at last. Turn it upside down and shake it, Marjorie. Oh, oh, itisa piece of paper!”
The piece of paper was battered and torn, and it had been crumpled into a small ball. Carefully Marjorie smoothed it out, and together they tried to read the smudged words.
After half an hour of intensive studying they wereable to figure out that the scrap was a fragment of a message, and the message had something to do with “the Log Cabin” and “a well that.”
“Oh, Judy,” Marjorie gasped. “The well must be the one we dug up. If we could only find the other fragment, I’ll bet the two together would tell us where the treasure is buried!”
“Who do you suppose wrote the message?” Judy asked wonderingly. “And how did it get torn? And how did one half get into this bottle?”
“I can guess what happened,” Marjorie said, her imagination completely running away with her. “Two men knew about the buried treasure near the old well. They wrote down just where they were supposed to dig. Then they got into a fight when they talked about how they were going to divide the loot. In the tussle, one man got off with one half, and the other put his half in this bottle and buried it here for safekeeping.”
Judy stared at her in admiration. “You’re wonderful, Marjorie,” she said. “That’s just what happened. Now all we have to do is find the other half.”
Marjorie’s elfin blue eyes were bright with suppressedlaughter. “All?” she demanded sarcastically. “The other half of the message could be anywhere in the world.” She stared thoughtfully down at the scrap. “The two letters ‘tr’ might be part of the word ‘trunk.’ What do you think, Judy?”
“I think you’reabsolutelyright,” Judy said emphatically. “Aren’t there some old trunks in the storeroom that you haven’t opened yet? Oh, Marjorie, do you suppose there’s another clue in one of them?”
“Let’s look anyway,” Marjorie said. “Tuesday when I was helping Ann Mary get the soiled linen ready for Mr. Taggart to take into town, I asked her if you and I couldn’t go through those old trunks some rainy day. And she said we could. She laughed at me and said, ‘You won’t find any treasure there. If you’re smart you’ll search for rare shells down by the lake.’ That’s how I got the idea of trying to find some which rich collectors might buy from us.”
“Well,” Judy said, “we didn’t find any worth bringing back to the Lodge. Let’s don’t waste any more time looking for rare shells. Let’s go show this clue to the boys.”
Marjorie hesitated. “Okay, but I’ll bet they just make fun of us. Jimmy won’t even consider that it just might be a clue.”
“But,” Judy objected, “he’s bound to realize that the message had something to do with the well and the Lodge. Let’s go.”
Marjorie carefully tucked the torn paper into the pocket of her blue jeans. Then they raced back to the Lodge.
Out in the shed the girls found that Jimmy, Alf and Brook had finished closing in the shower. They banged on the door and Jimmy called out in a dramatic voice:
“Who invades our privacy? This is the bachelors’ retreat and we want no women around here!” Marjorie heard him add in a loud whisper: “And especially not dimwit girls!”
She yelled at the top of her lungs: “Oh, come on out, Jimmy. Quit being so mean to us. We have something important to show you.”
But Jimmy was adamant. “Youquit banging on the door, dopes. We’ll open it when we’re ready and not a minute before.”
Marjorie turned to Judy. “Try Alf. He’s your brother.”
“Alf Powell,” Judy screamed. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t come right out. What we have is something really yummy!” She added quietly to Marjorie, “That’ll get him!”
“Yummy,” they heard both Alf and Brook repeat, and then from Jimmy as he opened the door and stuck his head out:
“Why didn’t you say you had food in the first place?”
“Look,” said Marjorie, showing him the piece of paper. “Judy and I found this in a bottle buried in the sand under a big rock on the beach. We think it’s part of a message that has something to do with the buried treasure.”
“Oh, you dopey kids,” Jimmy said in a very condescending tone of voice. “Your imagination works overtime. It’s fantastic,” he said over his shoulder to Alf and Brook, “what they can think up in their spare time.”
But Jimmy took the paper from Marjorie, and gave it a contemptuous glance. “What a mess,” he said.“You know perfectly well you rigged this up yourselves, but you can’t fool me.”
“We didn’t, honest,” Marjorie said, tossing her blonde head. “But if that’s the way you feel about it, give it back to me. Furthermore, if we find any more clues you’ll be the last person in the world we consult.”
Jimmy tossed it to her with a grin. “Run along, kids. We haven’t time for your monkey business. We’re going for a swim, and then we’re going to get the Bronc ready for our camping trip.” He slammed the door in Marjorie’s face. “Scram. Later, if we men haven’t anything better to do, you can try to fool us with your phony clues.”
“See?” Marjorie bitterly asked Judy. “That’s a brother for you! If we do find anything in the storage room, let’s not tell a soul!”