Crocodile Key?”

“I never heard of it,” Mr. Neale replied. “But——”

“Yonder—yonder!” cried Sam, extending his arm toward a point on the distant shoreline. “That may not be a key, sar—but there shorely are three trees in a row!”“So they are!” agreed the captain, jamming over the tiller as the sloop heeled in the breeze and swung her bow toward the trees. 
“But they are on the shore—not on a key,” objected Tom. 
“Coral may have closed a channel during the years,” Mr. Neale explained. 
“Then earth covered it. That is, granting that our message is genuine.” 
“The trees prove it!” Nicky cried. “Now, all we have to do is to wait till tomorrow and then——” 
“Dig for treasure!” cried Tom and Cliff, together.

CHAPTER IX 
BLACK CAESAR’S BUCCANEERS 

Once the anchor was dropped and the sails furled, and everything made ship-shape for an indefinite stay, the chums lost no time in tumbling into their dinghy and rowing the several hundred yards to shore. They wanted to inspect the small inlet opposite which they had anchored, and, before the light faded, to get an idea of what sort of a place lay beneath those three sentinels standing their silent guard over the treasure buried so long ago. 

The mouth of the inlet was dark and gloomy when they reached it and Tom, using the oars, let them trail in the water until the snub-nosed boat lost way. “It looks pretty spooky in there,” he said. 
“Oh, pshaw!” exclaimed Nicky, “pull, Tom. There aren’t any spooks!” 
“But there are snakes—and plenty of them,” Cliff came to the rescue of the oarsman. “Mr. Neale warned us, and it’s getting close to sunset. We might not see them—the snakes!” 
Nicky gave in and they drifted close in to the narrow waterway. The shore was heavily matted with a jungle of undergrowth, above which the larger growth, some small mahogany, mangrove and other trees towered. 

“This may be just a lagoon, not an inlet. If it’s a—er—like a strait, you know,” Nicky urged, “then’s there may be water enough on the far side to make this a key. In that case—we’ve got the very place mentioned in the message!” 
“We’d better wait till morning to make sure,” Cliff said, and after many speculations as to which side of the trees the treasure lay under—the message had not said—they rowed back to the sloop. 

“There’s another boat—I think it’s making for the _Treasure Belle_,” said Cliff. Looking across the small distance, the others saw a rowboat coming from around a point, making at leisurely speed for the spot they had their bow 

 Prev. P 34/143 next