then there's something about digging, too!" It was as though a sudden
light began shining into his brain. He felt himself growing quickly
very excited. "Read that over again, sir," he cried. "Why, sir, you
remember I told you they drove a peg into the sand. And don't they say
to dig close to it? Read it over again, sir--read it over again!"

"Peg?" said the good gentleman. "To be sure it was about a peg. Let's
look again. Yes, here it is. 'Peg S.E. by E. 269 foot.'"

"Aye!" cried out Tom Chist again, in great excitement. "Don't you
remember what I told you, sir, 269 foot? Sure that must be what I saw
'em measuring with the line." Parson Jones had now caught the flame of
excitement that was blazing up so strongly in Tom's breast. He felt as
though some wonderful thing was about to happen to them. "To be sure,
to be sure!" he called out, in a great big voice. "And then they
measured out 427 foot south-southwest by south, and then they drove
another peg, and then they buried the box six foot to the west of it.
Why, Tom--why, Tom Chist! if we've read this aright, thy fortune is
made."

Tom Chist stood staring straight at the old gentleman's excited face,
and seeing nothing but it in all the bright infinity of sunshine. Were
they, indeed, about to find the treasure-chest? He felt the sun very
hot upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a
tern that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings in
the sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood staring
into the good old gentleman's face.

It was Parson Jones who first spoke. "But what do all these figures
mean?" And Tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor