The Coming Wave Part 22

No high tide had washed the beach since Leopold dug for the treasure, and even his shovel marks were plainly to be seen under the overhanging rock.

"I might as well tell him all about it," thought Leopold. "I can trust him till the end of the world; and I should like to have some one to help me bear the burden of the secret."

"What were you digging for, Le?" repeated Stumpy, his curiosity considerably excited.

"Can you keep a secret, Stumpy?"

"Of course I can till the rocks crumble, and the earth sinks," replied he, warmly.

Leopold told him the whole story, from the first glimpse he had of Harvey Barth's diary, down to the finding of the bag of gold.

"I swow!" exclaimed Stumpy, drawing a long breath, when the narrative was finished. "Twelve hundred in gold!"

"I haven't counted it; but that's what the diary says," replied Leopold.

"You will be as rich as mud, Le. Gold! Then it's worth double that in paper."

"It don't belong to me," answered Leopold, decidedly.

"It belongs to you as much as it does to any one."

"But I intend to find the owner, or the heirs of the man who buried the gold."

"I wouldn't leave it here a day longer, if I were you, Le," said Stumpy. "Somebody else will find it."

This suggestion was considered for some time, and Leopold finally concluded to dig up the treasure, and conceal it in some safer place. In a few moments more the shot bag was unearthed, and Stumpy held it in his hand.

"I swow! Solid gold!" exclaimed he.

"Halveses!" shouted Charley Redmond, suddenly stepping between the money-diggers.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FAIR THING.

Leopold immediately began to realize that he had no talent for concealment; that he was a sad bungler in the management of any business which was not open and above-board. This impertinent, disagreeable little c.o.xcomb of a New Yorker, without a warning sound to announce his coming, had suddenly stepped between him and Stumpy, who held the hidden treasure in his hand. If there was any person in or about Rockhaven from whom he would have particularly desired to keep his secret, it was Mr.

Charles Redmond, or any other person like him.

Both Leopold and Stumpy supposed the little New Yorker with the eye-gla.s.s was making himself as agreeable as he could to the young ladies on the cliffs above. It is true there was an angle in the cliffs which concealed his approach from the eye, and the soft sand deadened the sound of footsteps to the ear; but both the money-digger and the clam-digger would have deemed it impossible for any one to come into their presence without being heard. But then both of them were absorbed in the unearthing of the treasure, and Leopold made so much noise with his shovel that the sound of Charley Redmond's approach, if there were any, could not be heard.

Leopold looked at Stumpy, and Stumpy looked at Leopold. The money-digger and the clam-digger realized that they were in a bad sc.r.a.pe. This little dandy in eye-gla.s.ses had certainly upset all Leopold's plans for the disposition of the gold.

"Halveses!" shouted Charley a second time, as he adjusted his eye-gla.s.ses, and fixed his gaze upon the wet shot-bag which contained the hidden treasure.

"I think not," added Leopold.

"No? When a fellow finds any money, the rule is to divy with all present," added Charley.

"And for that reason you modestly ask for one half?"

"Well that's a conventional phrase, you see. Of course I meant _shareses_. I shall be quite satisfied with one-third; and that's the way to do the thing."

"Where did you come from? I thought you were on the cliff with the young ladies," asked Leopold.

"I was there; but it seems that I came down just in the nick of time,"

replied the little fop. "The fact is, I drank too much wine last night, and it makes me thirsty to-day. I was almost choked, and the ladies had seated themselves on a rock, to enjoy a view of the boundless ocean, you see; and it looked to me just as though they intended to stay there all day, you see. In the mean time I was suffering with thirst; but it wasn't polite, you see, for me to leave them. It isn't the way to do the thing, you see. I knew they wouldn't want me to leave them."

Leopold looked at Stumpy, and smiled significantly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STUMPY WITH THE BAG OF GOLD. Page 253.]

"My throat was as parched as though I had spent a month in the Desert of What-you-call-it, you see," continued Mr. Redmond. "I desired very much to come down to the boat and obtain a draught of cold water. I didn't expect to obtain a draft on a gold bank then--ha, ha! you see? Not bad--eh? Even a gentleman can't help making a pun sometimes, you see."

"Making a what?" asked Leopold.

"A pun--you see," laughed Mr. Redmond.

"Which was the pun?"

"Don't you see it? Why, a draught of water, and a draft on a gold bank.

Ha, ha!"

"O, that was it--was it? I'm much obliged to you for telling me."

Of course Mr. Redmond hardly expected a "countryman" to appreciate his wit.

"_I_ was suffering with thirst, you see," continued the fop.

"I think you said so before."

"I wanted to introduce the matter so as not to be abrupt; not to tear myself rudely away from the ladies, you see. We were gazing out upon the vast ocean, you see; and a quotation from the poet--ah--a doosed odd sort of a thing, written by the poet--what's his name? you know--about an old salt that killed a wild goose, or some sort of a thing, and then had nothing to drink. I repeated the quotation, and both of the girls laughed: 'Water, water, all around, but not a drop of whiskey to drink.'"

"I don't wonder the girls laughed," replied Leopold.

"Why so?" asked Mr. Redmond, blankly.

"You didn't quote it just as the poet 'What-you-call-him' wrote it, Stumpy can give it to you correctly."

"'Water, water everywhere; Not any drop to drink,'"

added Stumpy; "and Coleridge was the fellow that wrote it."

"Not correct," protested Mr. Redmond, emphatically. "Do you mean to tell me that an old salt thought of drinking water? It isn't the way old salts do that sort of thing, you see."

The c.o.xcomb felt that he had the best of the argument, however astonished he was to find that these countrymen knew something about the poets.