“Come on, don’t hang back like that, Herb; you’ve just got to see!” ventured Josh, laying hold of the other’s sleeve, and commencing to drag him forward.
It was like the boy who jumps into the pond so early in the spring that he is nearly frozen stiff; but whoever heard of him confessing to the fact; while his comrades hesitate on the bank he puts on the most angelic face possible, and declares that the water is “as warm as anything;” until he has coaxed them all in; for misery loves company, they tell us.
“Good gracious, why, it’s only a little puppy dog after all!” broke from his white lips, as he stood there and stared.
“That’s just what it is,” replied Jack. “And after all, that fellow spoke what he meant, when we thought he referred to another sort of treasure. This must have been his pet.”
“But Jack darlint,” broke in Andy, “phat d’ye think he wanted to bury this ki-yi on the island for at all, at all?”
“What for?” echoed Buster, before Jack could say a word, “why, because the little beast had gone and kicked the bucket--died on him--you know.”
“Must have been a pet dog,” suggested Josh, “’cause we heard him say he felt bad at putting the thing underground. Say, Jack, d’ye think now, the little beast could a got hurt that night when they broke into the Lawrence bank and looted it? P’raps somebody fired at the thieves and hit the pup; or it might a got hold of rat poison somehow.”
“Quit your guessing, Josh; what does it matter to us how the poor little beast came to his end?” demanded George, who had a liking for dogs himself, and seemed to feel less hilarity than any of the rest, once the shock of the discovery, and their own disappointment wore away.
Jack was for taking it as a joke at his expense.
“Say, just think of that splendid sneak of mine wasted,” he remarked, sadly. “And all for this, too. I’ve got half a notion to crawl back again, and bury the poor little wretch over, just to pay for making such a mistake.”
“But hold on,” Herb observed, “this doesn’t mean that the two over yonder ain’t what we took ’em to be, does it? There’s the white boat, you know, with the red trimming; didn’t Jack tell us he could see it plain enough anchored close to the shore? Just because they put a little pet dog underground don’t make ’em better, I reckon, eh, Jack?”