After Georgina's letter came she resolutely put her forebodings and misgivings aside many a time, prompted by it to steer onward so steadily that hope must do as Uncle Darcy said, "make rainbows even of her tears."

Georgina wrote on until dinner time, telling all about the way she had spent her birthday dollar. After dinner when the sunshine had dried all traces of the previous night's rain, she persuaded Tippy that she was entirely over the effects of the gas, and perfectly able to go down street and select the picture postals with which to conduct her daily correspondence.

Richard joined her as she pa.s.sed the bungalow. They made a thrilling afternoon for themselves by whispering to each other whenever any strange-looking person pa.s.sed them, "S'pose _that_ was the owner of the pouch and he was looking for us." The dread of their sin finding them out walked like a silent-footed ghost beside them all the way, making the two pairs of brown eyes steal furtive glances at each other now and then, and delicious little shivers of apprehension creep up and down their backs.

Whether it was the pa.s.sing of the unseasonable weather into hot July sunshine again or whether the wild-cat liniment was responsible, no one undertook to say, but Mrs. Triplett's rheumatism left her suddenly, and at a time when she was specially glad to be rid of it. The Sewing Circle, to which she belonged, was preparing for a bazaar at the Church of the Pilgrims, and her part in it would keep her away from home most of the time for three days.

That is why Georgina had unlimited freedom for a while. She was left in Belle's charge, and Belle, still brooding over her troubles, listlessly a.s.sented to anything proposed to her. Belle had been allowed to go and come as she pleased when she was ten, and she saw no reason why Georgina was not equally capable of taking care of herself.

Hardly was Mrs. Triplett out of sight that first morning when Georgina slipped out of the back gate with a long bra.s.s-handled fire-shovel, to meet Richard out on the dunes. He brought a hoe, and in his hand was the little compa.s.s imbedded in the nut.

When all was ready, according to Georgina's instructions, he turned around three times, then facing the east tossed the compa.s.s over his shoulder, saying solemnly, "Brother, go find your brother." She stood ready to mark the spot when it should fall, but Captain Kidd was ahead of her and had the nut in his teeth before she could reach the place where it had touched the ground. So Richard took the nut away and held the agitated little terrier by the collar while Georgina went through the same ceremony.

This time Richard reached the nut before the dog, and drew a circle around the spot where it had lain. Then he began digging into the sand with the hoe so industriously that Captain Kidd was moved to frantic barking.

"Here, get to work yourself and keep quiet," ordered Richard. "Rats!

You'll have Cousin James coming out to see what we're doing, first thing you know. He thinks something is the matter now, every time you bark.

Rats! I say."

The magic word had its effect. After an instant of quivering eagerness the dog pounced into the hole which Richard had started, and sent the sand flying furiously around him with his active little paws. Georgina dragged the acc.u.mulating piles aside with the fire-shovel on one side, and Richard plied the hoe on the other. When the hole grew too deep for Captain Kidd to dig in longer, Richard stepped in and went deeper. But it was unsatisfactory work. The shifting sand, dry as powder at this depth, was constantly caving in and filling up the s.p.a.ce.

They tried making new holes, to the north of the old one, then to the south, then on the remaining sides. They were still at it when the whistle at the cold-storage plant blew for noon. Georgina rubbed a sleeve across her red, perspiring face, and shook the ends of her curls up and down to cool her hot neck.

"I don't see how we can dig any more to-day," she said wearily. "The sun is blistering. I feel all scorched."

"I've had enough," confessed Richard. "But we've got to find that pouch."

After a moment's rest, leaning on the hoe-handle, he had an inspiration.

"Let's get Manuel and Joseph and Rosa to help us. They'd dig all day for a nickel."

"I haven't one nickel left," said Georgina. Then she thought a moment.

"But I could bring some jelly-roll. Those Fayals would dig for eats as quick as they would for money. I'll tell Belle we're going to have a sort of a picnic over here and she'll let me bring all that's left in the cake box."

Richard investigated his pockets. A solitary nickel was all he could turn out. "Two cents for each of the boys and one for Rosa," he said, but Georgina shook her head.

"Rosa would make trouble if you divided that way. She'd howl till somebody came to see what was the matter. But we could do this way. The one who gets the least money gets the most jelly-roll. We'll wait till the digging is over and then let them divide it to suit themselves."

By five o'clock that afternoon, the compa.s.s had been sent to "hunt brother" in a hundred different places, and the hollow circled by the bayberry bushes and beach plums where the pouch had been hidden filled with deep holes. Captain Kidd had responded to the repeated call of "Rats" until the magic word had lost all charm for him. Even a dog comes to understand in time when a fellow creature has "an axe to grind."

Finally, he went off and lay down, merely wagging his tail in a bored way when any further effort was made to arouse his enthusiasm.

The Fayal children, working valiantly in the trenches, laid down arms at last and strolled home, their faces streaked with jelly-roll, and Georgina went wearily up the beach, dragging her fire-shovel after her.

She felt that she had had enough of the dunes to last her the rest of her natural lifetime. She seemed to see piles of sand even when she looked at the water or when her eyes were shut.

"But we won't give up," she said staunchly as she parted from Richard.

"We're obliged to find that pouch, so we've _got_ to keep hope at the prow."

"Pity all this good digging has to be wasted," said Richard, looking around at the various holes. "If it had all been in one place, straight down, it would have been deep enough to strike a pirate's chest by this time. I hope they'll fill up before anybody comes this way to notice them."

"Somehow, I'm not so anxious as I was to go off 'a-piratin' so bold,'"

said Georgina with a tired sigh. "I've had enough digging to last me forever and always, amen."

The Fayal children, surfeited with one afternoon of such effort, and not altogether satisfied as to the division of wages which had led to war in their midst, did not come back to the Place of the Pouch next morning, but Richard and Georgina appeared promptly, albeit with sore muscles and ebbing enthusiasm. Only stern necessity and fear of consequences kept them at their task.

Cousin James had reported that there was a fishing vessel in that morning with two enormous horse mackerel in the catch, which were to be cut up and salted at Railroad wharf. It was deliciously cool down on the wharf, with the breeze blowing off the water through the great packing shed, and the white sails scudding past the open doors like fans. With Mrs. Triplett busy with the affairs of the Bazaar, it would have been a wonderful opportunity for Georgina to have gone loitering along the pier, watching the summer people start off in motor boats or spread themselves lazily under flapping sails for a trip around the harbor.

But something of the grim spirit of their ancestors, typified by the monument looking down on them from the hill, nerved both Richard and Georgina one more time to answer to the stern call of Duty.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XVIII

FOUND OUT

"I DREAMED about that old pouch last night," said Richard in one of the intervals of rest which they allowed themselves.

"I dreamed that it belonged to a Chinese man with crooked, yellow finger-nails a foot long. He came and stood over my bed and said that because there was important news in that letter and we buried it, and kept it from going to where it ought to go, _we_ had to be buried alive.

And he picked me up like I was that nut and tossed me over his shoulder, and said, 'Brother, go find your brother.' And I began sinking down in the sand deeper and deeper until I began to smother."

Georgina made no answer. The dream did not impress her as being at all terrifying. She had swung her prism around her neck that morning when she dressed, and now while she rested she amused herself by flashing the bars of color across Captain Kidd. Richard resented her lack of interest.

"Well, it may not sound very bad out here in the daylight, but you ought to have _had_ it. I yelled until Daddy shook me and told me I'd wake up the whole end of town with such a nightmare. If you'd have seen that old Chinaman's face like a dragon's, you'd understand why I feel that we've just got to find that pouch. It's going to get us into some kind of trouble, certain sure, if we don't."

Georgina rose to begin digging again. "It's lucky n.o.body ever comes this way to see all these holes," she began, but stopped with her shovel half lifted. A familiar voice from the circle of bushes at the top of the dune called down cheerily:

"Ship ahoy, mates. What port are you bound for now? Digging through to China?"

"It's Uncle Darcy!" they exclaimed in the same breath. He came plunging down the side of the dune before they could recover from their confusion. There was a pail of blueberries in each hand. He had been down the state road picking them, and was now on his way to the Gray Inn to sell them to the housekeeper. Leaving the pails in a level spot under the shade of a scrubby bush, he came on to where the children were standing, and eased himself stiffly down to a seat on the sand. It amused him to see their evident embarra.s.sment, and his eyes twinkled as he inquired:

"What mischief are you up to now, digging all those gopher holes?"

Neither answered for a moment, then Georgina gulped and found her voice.

"It's--it's a secret," she managed to say.

"Oh," he answered, growing instantly grave at the sound of that word.

"Then I mustn't ask any questions. We must always keep our secrets.

Sometimes it's a pity though, when one has to promise to do so. I hope yours isn't the burden to you that mine is to me."

This was the first time he had spoken to them of the promise they had made to him and Belle. With a look all around as if to make certain the coast was clear, he said:

"There's something I've been wanting to say to you children ever since that day you had the rifle, and now's as good a chance as any. I want you to know that I never would have promised what I did if it could have made any possible difference to Mother. But lately she seems all confused about Danny's trouble. She seems to have forgotten there was any trouble except that he went away from home. For months she's been looking for him to walk in most any day.

"Ever since I gave my word to Belle, I've been studying over the right and wrong of it. I felt I wasn't acting fair to Danny. But now it's clear in my mind that it _was_ the right thing to do. I argue it this way. Danny cared so much about saving Emmett from disgrace and Belle from the pain of finding it out, that he was willing to give up his home and good name and everything. Now it wouldn't be fair to him to make that sacrifice in vain by telling while it can still be such a death-blow to Emmett's father and hurt Belle much as ever. She's gone on all these years fairly worshiping Emmett's memory for being such a hero."

Uncle Darcy stopped suddenly and seemed to be drawn far away from them as if he had gone inside of himself with his own thoughts and forgotten their presence. Georgina sat and fanned herself with her shade hat.