An examination showed that his right leg was painfully skinned and bruised, where it had scraped on the edges of the hole in the plank, as his foot went through the timber.

“We’ll bandage it up when we get to camp,” said Tom, as he used an extra handkerchief on the worst cut of his chum’s leg. “Do you feel able to go on to the mill, or shall we turn back, Jack?”

“Go on, of course,” declared the injured one. “I’m not going to let a little thing like a game leg stand between me and a treasure hunt. Lead on, captain!”

“That’s the talk!” exclaimed Bert. “You’ll get the best of the pirates’ hoard yet.”

“Now go a bit easy,” cautioned Tom. “It may be that Old Wallace is around somewhere, and, as this is his property, he’d be justified in making a row if he found us here. So go a bit slow until we size up the situation.”

They were on the lower side of the mill now, the side nearest the river. The ancient structure consisted of three stories. The lower one was a sort of basement, on a level with the lower ground, where it was evident that wagons had driven in[78] to receive their loads of grain. Here too, was some of the old machinery of the mill, the levers that controlled the water gate and other things, but now all rotted and fallen into decay.

[78]

“Say, this would be the place where the treasure would be buried, if anywhere,” declared Jack.

“I don’t think so,” spoke Tom. “It’s too conspicuous.”

“That’s just it,” argued Jack. “The more conspicuous a thing is, the harder it is to find it, sometimes. Nothing is more difficult to pick up, sometimes, than something right under your nose, as the saying is.”

“That’s right,” agreed Bert. “Did you ever play the geography game?”

“No. What is it?” asked Tom.

“Well, you take a big map, and ask a person to find some country, city, lake or river, as the case is. Most persons pick out for the puzzle a name printed in very small type, but those who know select a name printed in big letters, that take up half the map, maybe. And it most always happens that this is the hardest to find. I didn’t originate that,” he added, modestly. “I think Poe speaks of it in one of his stories.”

“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “At any 

 Prev. P 47/132 next