Part 4

When we reached the other side, he refused to answer any of my eager questions. He would not let me know even for what place on the line he had purchased our tickets, and, as a hint that I should not disturb him, he stuffed into my hands the latest magazines. “At least tell me this,” I demanded. “Have you ever been to this place before to-day?”

“Once,” said Edgar shortly, “last week. That’s when I found out I would need some one with me who could dig.”

“How do you know it’s the right place?” I whispered.

The summer season was over, and of the chair car we were the only occupants; but, before he answered, Edgar looked cautiously round him and out of the window. We had just passed Red Bank.

“Because the map told me,” he answered. “Suppose,” he continued fretfully, “you had a map of New York City with the streets marked on it plainly? Suppose the map said that if you walked to where Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet, you would find the Flatiron Building. Do you think you could find it?”

“Was it as easy as that?” I gasped.

“It was as easy as that!” said Edgar.

I sank back into my chair and let the magazines slide to the floor. What fiction story was there in any one of them so enthralling as the actual possibilities that lay before me? In two hours I might be bending over a pot of gold, a sea chest stuffed with pearls and rubies!

I began to recall all the stories I had heard as a boy of treasure buried along the coast by Kidd on his return voyage from the Indies. Where along the Jersey sea-line were there safe harbors? The train on which we were racing south had its rail head at Barnegat Bay. And between Barnegat and Red Bank there now was but one other inlet, that of the Manasquan River. It might be Barnegat; it might be Manasquan. It could not be a great distance from either; for sailors would not have carried their burden far from the ship. I glanced appealingly at Edgar. He was smiling happily over “Pickings from Puck.” We passed Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, halted at Sea Girt, and again at Manasquan; but Egdar did not move. The next station was Point Pleasant, and as the train drew to a stop, Edgar rose calmly and grasped his suit-case.

“We get out here,” he said.

Drawn up at the station were three open-work hacks with fringe around the top. From each a small boy waved at us with his whip.

“Curtis House? The Gladstone? The Cottage in the Pines?” they chanted invitingly.

“Take me to a hardware store,” said Edgar, “where one can buy a spade.” When we stopped I made a move to get down; but Edgar stopped me.

I protested indignantly, “I haven’t much to say about this expedition;” I exclaimed, “but, as I have to do the digging, I intend to choose my own spade.”

Edgar’s eye-glasses flashed defiance. “You have given your word to obey me,” he said sternly. “If you do not intend to obey me, you can return in ten minutes by the next train.”

I sank into my seat. In a moment the mutiny had been crushed. Not even a cabin boy had fallen! Edgar returned with a spade, an axe, and a pick. He placed them in the seat beside the boy driver.

“What is your name, boy?” he asked.

“Rupert,” said the boy.

“Rupert,” continued Edgar, “drive us to the beach. When you get to the bathing pavilions keep on along the shore toward Manasquan Inlet.” He touched the spade with his hand. “I have bought a building lot on the beach,” he explained, “and am going to dig a hole, and plant a flagpole.”

I was choked with indignation. As a writer of fiction my self-respect was insulted.

“If there are any more lies to be told,” I whispered, “please let me tell them. Your invention is crude, ridiculous! Why,” I demanded, “should anybody want to plant a flagpole on a wind-swept beach in October? It’s not the season for flagpoles. Besides,” I jeered, “where is your flagpole? Is it concealed in the suit-case?”

Edgar frowned uneasily, and touched the boy on the shoulder.

“The flagpole itself,” he explained, “is coming down to-morrow by express.”

The boy yawned, and slapped the flanks of his horse with the reins. “Gat up!” he said.

We crossed the railroad tracks and moved toward the ocean down a broad, sandy road. The season had passed and the windows of the cottages and bungalows on either side of the road were barricaded with planks. On the verandas hammocks abandoned to the winds hung in tatters, on the back porches the doors of empty refrigerators swung open on one hinge, and on every side above the fields of gorgeous golden-rod rose signs reading “For Rent.” When we had progressed in silence for a mile, the sandy avenue lost itself in the deeper sand of the beach, and the horse of his own will came to a halt. On one side we were surrounded by locked and deserted bathing houses, on the other by empty pavilions shuttered and barred against the winter, but still inviting one to “Try our salt water taffy” or to “Keep cool with an ice-cream soda.” Rupert turned and looked inquiringly at Edgar. To the north the beach stretched in an unbroken line to Manasquan Inlet. To the south three miles away we could see floating on the horizon-like a mirage the hotels and summer cottages of Bay Head.

“Drive toward the inlet,” directed Edgar. “This gentleman and I will walk.”

Relieved of our weight, the horse stumbled bravely into the trackless sand, while below on the damper and firmer shingle we walked by the edge of the water.

The tide was coming in and the spent waves, spreading before them an advance guard of tiny shells and pebbles, threatened our boots’ and at the same time in soothing, lazy whispers warned us of their attack. These lisping murmurs and the crash and roar of each incoming wave as it broke were the only sounds. And on the beach we were the only human figures. At last the scene began to bear some resemblance to one set for an adventure. The rolling ocean, a coast steamer dragging a great column of black smoke, and cast high upon the beach the wreck of a schooner, her masts tilting drunkenly, gave color to our purpose. It became filled with greater promise of drama, more picturesque. I began to thrill with excitement. I regarded Edgar appealingly, in eager supplication. At last he broke the silence that was torturing me.