Jibby took off his hat and unpinned the map from inside the sweatband, where he always carried it. He spread it out on his hand.
“ ‘Land’ or ‘sand,’ ” he said. “It might be one or the other, the way it is scribbled. It’s ‘Greenland’ or it’s ‘green sand,’ just as you want to read it. And there wasn’t any treasure at Greenland. Look here—where would the green sand be, according to this map?”
We leaned over the map and studied it a minute.
“Right there,” said Tad, putting his finger on the very spot where the X mark was.
“All right!” Jibby said. “Here’s your river, and here’s your slough, and here’s your creek, and here’s your crossroads. And these crisscross scribble marks stand for Riverbank. And here’s your signal pine, and your house, and your green sand right where the X mark is—and marked ‘green sand’ plain enough for anybody. And what would John A. M’rell’s brother send as directions if he hid the money here, and John A. M’rell was a criminal and likely to be hunted when he was coming for his treasure?”
“What would he say?” Tad asked.
“He would say, ‘Come up the Mississippi River to Riverbank, Iowa. Only, you’d better not go there; they may be looking for you. So, when you come to the first slough below Riverbank, row up the slough until you come to a creek. You can sneak up that creek without much chance of anybody seeing you. So come along up the creek until you come to some green sand, about two or three miles back from the slough. And, when you come to the green sand, climb up the creek bank and you’ll see a brick house, and a signal pine I planted. That’s where I am.’ ”
“Gee!” I said, it was all so plain.
“How do you pronounce M-u-r-r-e-l-l?” Jibby Jones asked.
“Murl,” I said.
“Well, that old negro Mose pronounced it M’rell,” Jibby Jones said. “M’rell and Murl is all the same. One is the Southern way of saying it, and the other is the Northern way. And you say the name of this creek is Murl’s Run. That’s M’rell’s Run—M-u-r-r-e-l-l’s Run. This is the place!”
XVIII
Pirate’s Treasure
Well, that all sounded reasonable enough. We were all standing under the old pine tree, and Wampus and Skippy and Tad and I started for the old house on a run, but Jibby just stood there by the tree.
“Come on!” we shouted. “Come on and search the house.”
“You go,” Jibby said. “I want to think this out first. I can think hidden treasure better when I’m here by the signal tree. I thought out about it being here, and I’ve got to think where it would be hidden.”
He leaned up against the tree and stayed there. He was rubbing that big nose of his with his forefinger, but we did not watch him long; we piled into the house and began to hunt pirate’s treasure with all our might.
We pounded on the walls and rummaged in every room, hunting for secret hiding-places, and everything had a different look to us. Nothing changes a place like thinking there is treasure hidden in it. We were all as busy as bees.
I was up in the attic, under the roof that was tumbling in, and Skippy and Tad were on the ground floor, pounding and poking, and Wampus was in the cellar that was under about half the house. The way we worked you might have thought the treasure was butter that might melt and run away if we did not find it soon enough. Wherever there was a loose brick we pried it out, and wherever there was a loose board we pried it up.
Now and then I looked through the broken roof, and there was Jibby Jones by the old pine tree, rubbing the side of his nose slowly with his finger and looking first one way and then another. Sometimes he would look at the sky, and then he would look far off into the distance, and then he would look at the house. Now and then he would shake his head, and once he took off his hat and hit himself three or four times on the head with his fist, as if he was trying to make his brains work better by joggling them. I would have laughed, but I could not waste the time, so I only grinned. He was a funny fellow.
I was poking around, doing my best to find a million dollars or so, and finding nothing but cobwebs and dust, when I heard Wampus shout in the cellar.
“Come down here quick,” he shouted; “I’ve found something.”
I slid down from the attic and Skippy and Tad were already piling down into the cellar. I went to a window and shouted to Jibby to come, but he only waved his hand.
“Wampus has found something in the cellar; come on!” I shouted; but Jibby only waved his hand again, although he heard me well enough, so I piled down into the cellar, too.
Wampus was showing Skippy and Tad a place in the cellar floor, and he was as excited as a kitten with a mouse.
“Listen to this and then to this,” he was saying, and he thumped
