“Say,” says Catty, “is it fair to ask a question?”
Catty looked at me and I looked at him. The fat was in the fire for sure. Nantucket!
“Isn’t there any other place we can go?” says Catty.
“Because,” says Catty, “that’s where the _Porpoise_ is.”
“We sent her there. Might as well own up. We couldn’t help overhearing how Mr. Topper was afraid the black yacht was a pirate or something following us, and that we were on a cruise after treasure. So Wee-wee and I cooked up a scheme to get rid of them so we could sneak off where they couldn’t find us.”
“Why, we found an old chart of Nantucket—it was when we were in Padanaram—and we kind of marked it up to look like a treasure map, and we sat on the porch of the yacht club’s station looking at it when one of the pirates—his name is House—came along and got curious.... We gave him the chart, and he took his old yacht off to dig where we had made a cross mark.”
Mr. Browning threw back his head and laughed so I thought he would bust. “Listen to that, Topper. We should have taken in these kids on the start. They know how to cruise after treasure. Ho....”
“A fine mess they’ve made of things,” says Mr. Topper.
“Might be worse. Anyhow, we’re sure now. No mistake. And we know where they are.”
“Sure. They’d have followed us anyhow. Now they’re interested in this chart, and they’ll be digging all over the place. It’ll keep them occupied. They think they’ve got something, and it will give us a chance to do our bit of business and be off for home.”
“Maybe, but I don’t like it. Say, where did you kids make your cross for them to dig?”
“Here’s a chart,” says Catty. “I’ll show you.”
He did, and pointed with his finger to the place we had marked for the _Porpoise_ men to do their digging. I heard Mr. Topper make a funny noise, and I looked from him to Mr. Browning, and he looked as if somebody had hit him in the stomach.
“However did you come to pick that locality?” says he.
“Why,” says Catty, “it looked like a likely place for treasure to be buried.”
“It is,” says Mr. Browning. “It’s all-fired likely. I’ll bet they’re digging now within a hundred feet of where the thing is hid that we’re going after.”
“It looks,” says Catty, “as if we’d made a mess of things.”