The Hunniwell boys and the platinum mystery
“Know what day it is?” Bill asked as soon as they were over the water.
“Friday, isn’t it?” Gordon guessed. “At least it ought to be,” he added.
“And the thirteenth at that,” Rogers smiled.
“Well, you’re both wrong,” Bill told them.
“What day is it then?” Gordon demanded.
“It’s Saturday and the date is the tenth.”
“Which means that we don’t start for home till Monday,” Gordon declared.
“Exactly,” Bill agreed.
“I reckon he planned it so that he could stay longer with, er, with Mr.
and Mrs. Mann,” Gordon grinned turning to Rogers who, as usual, was in
the back seat.
“Probably you’re right,” Rogers told him.
“A lot of planning there’s been so far as time is concerned,” Bill
retorted. “But have all the fun you want to at my expense. I don’t mind
it.”
“Then what are you blushing so for?” Gordon asked.
“Who’s blushing?” Bill demanded.
“Ask Steve, he knows,” Gordon laughed.
“I guess it’s nothing but tan,” Rogers smiled.
“Maybe, but I’d like to take his temperature just the same. I’ll bet the
mercury would jump out the end of the thermometer.”
“Keep it up,” Bill told him.
“Hope I never fall in love,” Gordon said in an undertone but loudly
enough for both of them to hear.
“You probably never will,” Bill told him.
“It must be awful.”
“Ask Steve, he knows,” Bill advised.
“It’s not so bad,” Rogers laughed, “when you get the right girl.”
“But how do you know when you do get the right one?” Gordon wanted to
know.
“You’ll know all right when the time comes,” Rogers assured him.
“Anyone will be the right one for Gordon provided she’s a good cook,”
Bill chuckled.
“You said a mouthful,” Gordon grinned.
“Wonder how the Jap made out,” Rogers remarked a few minutes later.
“Perhaps we’ll get a chance to make a call on him while we’re visiting,”
Gordon said.
“We must try to,” Bill added.
“Yes,” Rogers agreed. “I’d really like to know that he’s all right. I
sure took a fancy to him.”
“Same here. He’s a regular fellow if his skin is a bit on the yellow
shade,” Gordon told them.
All this time the plane had been skimming along at about seventy-five
miles an hour and only a few hundred feet above the water. They knew
there was no hurry and the day was too fine and the flight too pleasant
to make speed. But finally they were hovering over the lot in back of
the mansion, and the elevator was slowly allowing the plane to approach
the ground.
“There’s Laura,” Gordon announced when they were nearly down.
“Guess she must have been expecting us,” Rogers chuckled.
“And there’s the rest of the family,” Gordon said as he saw a man and a
woman emerging from the rear of the house.
They were greeted most heartily by the entire family and made to feel at
home at once. In spite of their evident great wealth and high position
the boys knew that they were just plain people, the kind they liked. Two
men, who evidently worked about the place, rolled the plane into the
commodious garage a hundred feet back of the house, and Rogers and the
boys followed their hosts into the house.
The house was most luxuriously furnished but with such excellent taste
that there was no hint of ostentation. A hot bath was most grateful to
all three, and a little later they sat down to a meal which, as Gordon
afterward declared, was in entire keeping with the house.
“Those biscuits were pretty nearly up to your standard, Bill,” he
whispered as they left the dining-room an hour later.
“All they needed was a square tail to go with them,” Bill whispered
back.
Seated on the broad porch Rogers asked Mr. Mann if he knew of their Jap
friend and was told that he knew of him although he had never met him.
Then Rogers told him the story of their meeting.
“Suppose we have the car around and run over and call on him. I know
they usually keep open until nine o’clock or later.”
“Just what we’d like, eh boys?” Rogers replied.
“You bet,” Gordon told him.
They found their friend in and delighted to see them again and were
happy to learn that things had come out splendidly.
“I bought my partner out two days ago and he left for the States
yesterday,” the Jap told them.
Sunday morning they went to Church with the family in spite of their
insistence that they had no decent clothes to wear.
“Doesn’t make a mite of difference,” Mr. Mann assured them. “We’re
rather a free and easy lot here and your clothes will attract no
attention.”
After dinner the car was brought around and they enjoyed a long drive
about the city and outlying country.
“It’s most as good as Maine,” Gordon whispered to Bill as they returned
to the house.
“But not quite?” Bill smiled.
“No place can be quite as good as home,” Gordon told him.
“And square tails,” Bill chuckled.
“You’re getting your figures of speech mixed,” Gordon told him.
“Thought you’d appreciate it,” Bill smiled.
It was sometime in the night that Bill’s sleep was broken by a violent
jab in the side.
“What the dickens?” he grunted.
“Listen.”
“Where’s the fire?”
“There isn’t any fire, but I’m a chuckle headed idiot,” Gordon told him.
“That’s no news, but why wake me up to tell me about it? Afraid you’ll
recover before morning?”
“Listen, Bill. I woke up a few minutes ago and was thinking and it came
to me all of a sudden.”
“What came and why?”
“Why how we made a mistake about that platinum.”
“You mean you think it’s there?” Bill was wide awake now and sitting up
in bed.
“I don’t know that, but I’m sure we overlooked a bet.”
“Where?”
“In that hole.”
“Nonsense.”
“’Tisn’t nonsense. Do you remember how the bottom of it looked?”
“Why, no, not particularly. Seems to me it was kind of sandy looking.”
“That’s just it, it was sandy. In fact it was covered with sand.”
“Well, what of it?”
“My, but you’re dumb. Why didn’t we look under that sand?”
“Brush it away, you mean?”
“Sure, why didn’t we brush it away?”
“I’ll bite. Why didn’t we?”
“I told you why I didn’t. Because I’m an idiot. You can draw your own
conclusions in regard to yourself.”
“Well, it isn’t too late.”
“But don’t you think it’s a possibility?”
“That the platinum is there?”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Of course it’s possible.”
“And we’ll go and take another look?”
“Of course.”
Rogers occupied another room and so they had to wait till morning before
telling him of their new idea, and after talking it over for a few
minutes longer, they turned over for another nap.
CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION
“You mean you think there’s a chance that we overlooked it?”
Rogers asked the question of the boys as they were sitting on the porch
the following morning waiting to be called to breakfast. Gordon had told
him what he had told Bill during the night and he was all excitement in
an instant.
“I think there is,” Gordon told him.
“But rather a small one I’d say,” Bill added. “Of course, as Gordon
says, there’s a chance that there’s another hole under that layer of
sand, but my advice is that you don’t get your hopes up again. Of course
we’ll stop there on the way back and see what there is to see, but you
mustn’t be disappointed if nothing comes of it.”
“But that sand didn’t get there by itself, that’s certain, and so it
must have been put there for a purpose and what other purpose could
there have been?” Rogers demanded.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Gordon told him.
The evening before, in answer to a rather broad hint given them by their
host, they had told him their story and Mr. Mann had agreed with them
that it was a pretty long chance. He had, however, sympathized with them
over their failure, and they had agreed not to mention their new
purpose.
“We’ve got enough grub in the plane to last a couple of days, haven’t
we,” Bill asked just as the breakfast bell sounded.
“Sure we have if we don’t eat too much,” Gordon told him as he got up
from his chair.
“It wouldn’t make any of us one bit mad if you folks would make up your
minds to stay with us a few days,” Mr. Mann told them as they took their
seats at the table.
“It’s mighty kind of you to ask us,” Bill replied, “but we’ve really got
to go.”
“Stay over one day and I’ll take you down to the south shore and show
you some surf board riding that’ll make you sit up and take notice,” he
coaxed.
“Please do,” Laura added her invitation and Mrs. Mann was no less
insistent.
“Well, I don’t know,” Bill hesitated. “What do you say?” he asked
turning to Rogers.
“I guess we can spare one more day,” he said.
“How about you, Gordon?”
“I’m for it. I’ve never seen a real surf board rider and I’ve always
wanted to.”
“Then we’ll consider it settled,” Mr. Mann smiled. “About ten o’clock is
the best time and I think I can promise you some fun.”
“Bill was all right,” Gordon whispered to Rogers a few minutes later as
they were leaving the house for the porch, “until the girl put in her
two cents’ worth.”
“But I thought you were keen for it,” Rogers told him.
“Well, I am in a way, but I think we ought to get back there as soon as
we can. Suppose someone finds that hole and goes to poking around in
it.”
“Oh, I guess there’s no danger of that,” Rogers told him. “We didn’t see
a soul about there except the Jap all the time we were there. It’ll be
safe enough, I reckon.”
“I suppose it will only——”
“Only what?”
Bill had lingered behind a few minutes to speak to Laura and had joined
them just in time to hear Gordon’s last words.
“Nothing,” Gordon told him.
“Didn’t you want to stay?” Bill demanded.
“Sure he did,” Rogers broke in. “Only he’s afraid someone will get ahead
of us over on the other island.”
“Of course I want to stay,” Gordon added. “It’ll probably be the only
chance we’ll ever have to see real natives ride surf boards and I
wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The sight was all their host had promised and for fully two hours they
watched the riders of both sexes as they raced in on the long swells.
“Gee, but I’d like to have a try at it,” Gordon declared.
“It takes a lot of practice to do it right,” Mr. Mann told him.
“To do it at all, I’d say,” Bill declared.
“Few white people ever get the knack,” Mr. Mann said. “Of course, after
a little practice one can do something at it but it seems to take a
native to do it right.”
“I imagine it’s some different from riding a board after a motor boat,”
Rogers declared.
“Well, yes, I reckon it is,” Mr. Mann told him. “The hard part of it
seems to be to hit the wave at just the right second and that’s what
counts.”
“Well, I’m mighty glad we stayed,” Gordon said as they started back.
“So say we all of us,” Bill added.
They were treated to another long ride in the afternoon and they were
forced to acknowledge that they had never seen more beautiful scenery.
“Not a bad place to live, is it?” Mr. Mann asked as they rolled into the
driveway shortly before six o’clock.
“It’s wonderful,” they assured him.
“But you ought to see Maine in the summer time,” Gordon added.
“I’ve never been there,” Mr. Mann told them, “But it’s possible that we
may see it next summer.”
“If you do you must come to Skowhegan and make us a visit,” Bill quickly
told him and grinned as he caught the wink which Gordon gave Rogers.
“We surely will do that very thing,” Mr. Mann assured him.
It was just nine o’clock when they took off the following morning after
bidding farewell to their new friends and exacting another promise that
they would come to see them the following summer if it were at all
possible.
“Nice people,” Rogers declared, as the Albatross rose in the air.
“And then some,” Bill added as he headed her nose toward Molokai.
“Father, mother and——ahem——daughter, all of them,” Gordon agreed.