they had not seen him
come up.

"I'm all right," he shouted, to quiet their fears. Then he looked around
him and realized what had happened.

He had passed under a projecting shelf of rock into what seemed to be a
cave. The water was shallow and he found that he could stand on the
sandy bottom.

His first feeling was that of relief. His second was one of amusement at
the involuntary trick he had played on his mates. His third came to him
so suddenly that it nearly took him off his feet.

What was it that Mr. Montgomery had said? "_It's where the water's
coming in._" In a moment of sanity, had the robbed and wounded man
seen the place where the robbers had hidden his money?

"It's where the water's coming in."

With legs that trembled, Teddy waded forward. He soon struck dry ground.
He went up a slight slope, feeling his way until he was above high-water
mark. He felt rough ledges as he steadied himself against the rough side
of the cave and suddenly a shock went through him that thrilled him to
the finger tips.

On a ledge at the right, his hand rested on a box! He tried to lift it.
It was too heavy.

He turned and raced for the entrance, plunged into the water and
reappeared among his comrades.

"I've found it! I've found it!" he sputtered incoherently.

"Found what?" they yelled in chorus, already anticipating the answer.

"The money!" he repeated. "Ross' money! I've found the chest of gold!"

None of them could remember very clearly just what followed. Like so
many young otters the other boys swam after Teddy. They brought the
chest to the water's edge, and got it into the boat that Bill had swum
back to fetch. They reached the beach, broke open the rusted lock with
blows of a pick, and there before them in the sunlight was the gold.
Golden sovereigns, golden eagles, golden twenty-franc pieces, gold that
gleamed, gold that dazzled, gold that mirrored back their own delighted
faces! A great wrong had been righted, and their persistent search had
been crowned with a glorious success.

There were three triumphal journeys during the days that followed. The
first was to Oakland, where a widow wept happy tears because her
husband's name was to stand clear before the world and her son's future
was provided for. The second was to Bartanet Shoals, where the kindly
keeper of the lighthouse had his part in the general jubilee. The third,
and to the Rushton boys the most important of all, was to Oldtown, where
R