and friend was his son Daniel, who, being a chip of the old block,
faithfully imitated his father's lazy, useless mode of life. Mrs.
Evans and the younger son, David, were the only members of the family
who worked. They never lost an opportunity to turn an honest penny,
and there were times when Godfrey and Dan would have gone supperless
to bed if it had not been for these two faithful toilers.

Godfrey disliked this aimless, joyless existence as much as he
disliked work, and even Dan at times longed for something better.
They both wanted to be rich. Godfrey wanted to see his fine
plantation, which was now abandoned to briers and cane, cultivated as
it used to be; while it was Dan's ambition to have two or three
painted boats in the lake, to have a pointer following at his heels,
and to do his shooting with a double-barrel gun that "broke in two in
the middle." He wanted to take his morning's exercise on a spotted
pony--a circus horse, he called it; and to wear a broadcloth suit,
a Panama hat and patent leather boots, when he went to church on
Sundays. Don and Bert Gordon had all these aids to happiness, and
they were the jolliest fellows he had ever seen--always laughing,
singing or whistling. Dan thought he would be happy too, if he could
only have so many fine things to call his own, but he could see no
way to get them, and that made him angry. He hated Don and Bert so
heartily that he could never look at them without wishing that some
evil might befall them. He threatened to steal their horses, shoot
their dogs, sink their boats, and do a host of other desperate
things, believing that in this way he could render the two happy
brothers as miserable as he was himself.

Godfrey and Dan lived in a most unenviable frame of mind for a year
or more, and then the former one day happened to think of the barrel
which old Jordan had told him was hidden in the potato-patch. He
spoke of it while the family were at dinner, and announced that he
and Dan would begin the work of unearthing the BURIED TREASURE that
very night. If they didn't find it the first time they tried, they
would go the next night; and they would keep on digging until they
obtained possession of it, if they had to dig up the whole state of
Mississippi. Dan almost went wild over the news. He and his father
spent a few minutes in building air-castles, and then Godfrey, who
felt as rich as though he already had the money in his possession,
hurried down to the l