as a floor, excepting
where, midway across it, Parson Jones, who was now stooping over
something on the ground, had trampled it all around about.

When Tom Chist saw him he was still bending over, scraping away from
something he had found.

It was the first peg!

Inside of half an hour they had found the second and third pegs, and Tom
Chist stripped off his coat, and began digging like mad down into the
sand, Parson Jones standing over him watching him. The sun was sloping
well toward the west when the blade of Tom Chist's spade struck upon
something hard.

If it had been his own heart that he had hit in the sand his breast
could hardly have thrilled more sharply.

It was the treasure box!

Parson Jones himself leaped down into the hole, and began scraping away
the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. At last, with some
difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the
surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that clung to it.
It was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good
many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. Parson Jones
himself lifted the lid. Tom Chist leaned forward and gazed down into the
open box. He would not have been surprised to have seen it filled full
of yellow gold and bright jewels. It was filled half full of books and
papers, and half full of canvas bags tied safely and securely around and
around with cords of string.

Parson Jones lifted out one of the bags, and it jingled as he did so. It
was full of money.

He cut the string, and with trembling, shaking hands handed the bag to
Tom, who, in an ecstasy of wonder and dizzy with delight, poured out
with swimming sight upon the coat spread on the ground a cataract of
shining silver money that rang and twinkled and jingled as it fell in a
shining heap upon the coarse cloth.

Parson Jones held up both hands into the air, and Tom stared at what he
saw, wondering whether it was all so, and whether he was really awake.
It seemed to him as though he was in a dream.

There were two-and-twenty bags in all in the chest: ten of them full of
silver money, eight of them full of gold money, three of them full of
gold dust, and one small bag with jewels wrapped up in wad cotton and
paper.

"'Tis enough," cried out Parson Jones, "to make us both rich men as long
as we live."

The burning summer sun, though sloping in the sky, beat down upon them
as hot as fire; but