“Say nothing!” was the sign Tom made and Nicky nodded.
“I suppose my brother has learned from you about the treasure,” said Ortiga, rising. “That is what he would use you for. Well—we will be just a little ahead of him—as usual!”
For once, as they sprawled on the cushioned side seats which had to serve as bunks, the three comrades admitted to their own secret selves, although not to each other, that there seemed to be no way out of this dilemma. For once their self-reliance was a very small spark, indeed!
“But the right always wins out somehow,” Nicky consoled himself. “If it didn’t then the world would have been smashed up long ago!”
Then, a little braced by his trust, he dozed.
When they awoke the three comrades found their clothes, soaked by their swim the night before, dry enough to put on. There was very little conversation during breakfast, but immediately after the meal Senor Ortiga drew from his pocket the two halves of Captain Kidd’s map, laid them on the folding table and summoned the boys to his side.
There were the two halves of the real map, together for the first time in Nicky’s sight.
The two halves fitted exactly when Mr. Coleson held them together. They showed the complete sign of the Dipper, with small islands indicating a very close resemblance to the real constellation of the heavens, as the chums saw it at night. Beneath them, the two separated syllables formed, as they had inferred, the name Dipper.
The faint line, zigzagging among the small and irregular dots below, ran from the wreck to a point at what was the eastward of the reproduced constellation; but the line ended without pointing to any particular islet.
“There’s your map,” Mr. Coleson said. “Now, lads, you can see that it means very little. It shows the point where the wreck occurred many years ago. It shows a channel that must have been used by the castaways in transferring the treasure.”
“But,” Don Ortiga broke in, irritably, “we have located the islands that make the Dipper—they lie inward about half way between the Gulf side and the inside channel. And we have dug every one of them over, torn roots apart, plumbed with leads and grappled with hooks——”
“And all we’ve got for our work,” Mr. Coleson growled, “is the ache in our backs.”