Mystery of Crocodile Island (10 page)

George grimaced. “At least until the
Pirate
is repaired.”

“Meanwhile, why don’t you visit Cape Florida?” their hostess suggested. “It’s a lovely place. Beautiful trees and a nice beach. People go there for picnics. The main attraction is an old lighthouse. A guide will show you around and tell you something about its history.”

“That sounds great,” Bess said. “I could use a change of pace.”

The girls got directions and set off early the next morning in one of the Cosgrove cars. Nancy, at the wheel, drove across the bridge leading to Cape Florida, and turned into the park entrance.

“Look at those gorgeous trees!” Bess exclaimed as they rode down an avenue of tall Australian pines.

“I’ve read in a magazine that these aren’t native to Florida,” Nancy said. “They were imported.”

The road twisted and turned; then they came to a shaded picnic area with a large sandy beach.

“This is a heavenly spot,” Bess remarked. “No wonder it’s so popular.”

Many people were seated on the beach, while others had settled at picnic tables set up in a grove of trees. Nancy parked and the girls strolled toward the water.

To their right was a natural coral breakwater, which had been built up by polyps. It was very rough and Nancy realized at once that anyone slammed into it by waves could be badly cut. She noticed that bathers seemed to be avoiding it.

“What a lot of seaweed there is!” George remarked.

She picked up handfuls of it and rolled the soggy masses into a ball. “Let’s play catch,” she suggested.

The girls formed a triangle and threw the seaweed ball back and forth to one another. Whoever dropped it was eliminated from the game. After about ten minutes of play George was declared the winner.

To tease her, Bess picked up the ball and threw it hard at her cousin. Unfortunately it missed and sailed across the sand. The soggy mass landed
plunk!
on a bald-headed bather who was stretched out on the beach, sleeping.

“Oh!” Bess cried in dismay and went over to the man.

He blinked at her and looked annoyed, but after she apologized and he saw the look of concern on her face, he sat up and smiled. “Hi!” he said. “My, you’re pretty!”

Bess backed away. “He’s old and fat and bald-headed,” she told herself. “I hope he won’t try to get too friendly!”

Her fears were confirmed when the man stood up and took her hand. “I believe you threw that seaweed on purpose to wake me up. Well, here I am, at your service!”

“I—I—it was an accident,” Bess stammered. Then she turned away and ran off as fast as she could. When she reached Nancy and George, they laughed.

“That’ll teach you to aim straight when you throw something,” George remarked.

Nancy, who had been watching various bathers in the water, now spotted a little girl who had not noticed that the tide was pulling her toward the coral breakwater. She realized that at any moment the child would be bashed against its jagged side and severely injured!

Nancy rushed down to the water’s edge, slipped off her sandals, and splashed in. The water was shallow for adults, but the little girl could have drowned in it. Nancy swam with powerful crawl strokes toward her. By now the child was only a few feet from the breakwater!

“Come here!” Nancy called out and grabbed the child’s hand. Together they struggled to the beach, where they were met by a frantic woman.

“Tessie!” she scolded. “You were told not to wade over there!”

The little girl cried. “I didn’t mean to, but all of a sudden I couldn’t keep from going that way,” she sobbed.

“Are you her mother?” Nancy inquired.

“No. I’m Mrs. Turnbull. I’m in charge of a group of children who attend my day camp. I brought them here to swim, but it’s hard to watch all of them at once.”

“I understand,” Nancy said.

“Thank you for going in after Tessie,” Mrs. Turnbull continued. “When I saw her, it was too late for me to help.”

Now the other children ran to them. The woman opened her purse and offered Nancy a bill as a reward for saving Tessie’s life.

“Thank you,” Nancy said, “but I couldn’t possibly accept any money.”

Tessie had stopped crying. She took Mrs. Turnbull by the hand, and said, “I know how we can reward her. Give her the map.”

Mrs. Turnbull smiled. “Tessie, we have no right to give the map away. We should turn it over to the authorities. But I will show it to this young lady. By the way, what is your name?”

Nancy introduced herself and her friends, who had joined the group, by their Boonton name, not wishing to be identified. The woman fished in her handbag and brought out a faded piece of paper. She unfolded it.

“I don’t know whether this is authentic or not,” she said. “We found it back in the woods. Somebody must have dropped it yesterday or today.”

Nancy, Bess, and George studied the map. Not only was the paper old, but the printing on it was quite faded. Mrs. Turnbull explained that she and the children suspected that someone had been hunting for a treasure, perhaps buried long ago by pirates.

“The person must have lost it. The map does seem to indicate a buried treasure,” she said. “Perhaps it’s here on Florida Key.”

The girls were intrigued by the story, and Nancy looked closely at the map. On it were directional lines pointing north, east, south, and west. There were also a number of intersecting lines converging at one spot.

“This must be the place where the treasure was hidden,” Nancy remarked.

“True,” Mrs. Turnbull said. “But how would one go about trying to figure out where it is?”

“We have to find a point of reference,” Nancy said. “But what?” She puckered her brows and tried to figure out the strange map. Suddenly the girl detective had an idea.

“You see this line running directly into the water? It could be the coral breakwater!”

“You’re right!” Mrs. Turnbull agreed. “Let’s draw a continuing line from it through the sand and then bisect it just as it was on the map.”

Tessie jumped up and down in excitement. “Let’s hurry up and dig!” she exclaimed. “I brought my sand shovel. I’ll get it.”

She ran off and soon returned with a toy shovel. Nancy, Bess, and George were amused at the thought of digging for hidden pirate treasure with this implement.

The bald bather had walked up, curious to see what was going on. When he realized that they were planning to dig with the toy shovel, he said, “I have a spade in my trunk and would be glad to lend it to you.”

He hurried to his parked car and returned a few minutes later with the spade. He handed it to Bess and looked at her with an admiring smile. It made her blush.

“Thank you,” she said and pushed the spade into the sand. She worked for a while. Then, when the hole was about a foot deep, she handed the spade to Nancy.

“Your turn,” she declared

While the day-camp children, Mrs. Turnbull, and the bald-headed man watched, Nancy continued to dig. When her arms got tired, she looked at George.

“You’re next if I don’t hit something,” she said, and shoved the spade down once more. There was a slight clang of metal against metaL Nancy exclaimed, “I hit something hard!”

“It must be the treasure!” Tessie cried out, jumping up and down.

 

 

 

NANCY lifted Tessie into the hole, and she dug the objects out with her toy shovel. As she handed up a battered tin knife and spoon, she squealed in delight. “Did pirates leave these?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy replied.

“They could have been utensils dropped by a picnicker and buried in the sand,” George pointed out.

Bess examined the pieces carefully. “I’m sure they’re very old,” she said. “They’re probably from a pirate ship.”

“Can I keep them?” Tessie begged.

“Maybe,” Nancy replied.

Tessie looked for more treasure, but reported that there was nothing. Nancy helped her climb out, then offered to dig deeper. A few minutes later, she stopped suddenly and stepped out.

“Tessie, go down and feel around in the sand.”

In a few seconds the little girl handed up a coin. Nancy looked at it and exclaimed, “This is a doubloon ! A Spanish doubloon!”

Tessie wanted to know what a doubloon was. Bess explained that many years ago Spanish ships sailed across the ocean to Mexico, which was not far from Florida.

“They captured people and had them do all sorts of work. One thing was to make coins like those they had in Spain. They were called doubloons and were made of pure gold.”

Tessie tried to dig farther, but found it impossible. She had hit solid coral rock. The little girl looked up at Nancy and said, “Please lift me out and then you dig.”

Nancy complied. She assumed that the coral rock had been there a long time, but suspected that something precious might have been buried before the tiny polyps had built their pile of rock on top of it.

She chipped at the coral with the spade, and presently saw a few more doubloons. She handed them up to Tessie, then Nancy broke off more of the rock. In a few moments she climbed out of the hole, but helped Tessie down.

This time the little girl exclaimed, “Oh, I found a bracelet!” and climbed out.

Nancy explained that all treasure found must be taken to police headquarters and listed. “You can’t keep everything you find,” she added. “It’s against the law.”

George scraped the hole thoroughly, but found nothing more, and came back up.

“Now I suppose we must put all that sand back,” Bess said with a sigh.

“Of course,” George replied. “Otherwise someone could fall in and get hurt. Here, my dear cousin, you haven’t been digging for a while. You start.”

Bess did not look very happy, and the bald-headed man stepped up. “Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you,” he offered, and took the spade.

With powerful arms he threw the sand back into the hole and soon the beach looked just as it had before.

“Thanks,” Bess said. “That was very nice of you.”

“Don’t mention it. Want an ice cream?”

“Oh—no, thanks. I—I’m on a diet.”

The man smiled and left to take his spade back to the car.

George chuckled. “How come you’re turning down food?”

Bess blushed. “As I said, I’m on a diet!”

George and Nancy laughed. “Best joke I’ve heard in years!” George exclaimed. “If he had been young and handsome, Bess would have eaten three banana splits!”

Mrs. Turnbull’s children became restless now that the treasure hunt was over and asked if they could have their lunch. The woman nodded and again thanked Nancy for rescuing Tessie. She promised to take the treasure to the authorities on their way home, then beckoned her charges toward the grove. The children waved good-by and followed the woman.

After they had gone, Nancy said, “I’m sure someone else found the rest of that treasure.”

“I hope he reported it,” George said, grinning.

The three friends walked along the beach.

“From Mrs. Cosgrove’s description,” Nancy said, “this should be the way to the old lighthouse.”

“You’re right,” George confirmed a few seconds later, when they saw the building inside a fenced area. It was about sixty feet in height, cone-shaped, and made of brick.

Several other visitors, including a group of boy scouts, had gathered in front of the gate and the girls joined them. “The tour will begin in a few minutes,” the scoutmaster told them.

He had hardly finished speaking, when an attractive young woman in a ranger’s uniform unlocked the gate. She admitted the visitors and led them around the lighthouse toward the water. They went up to a small porch and gathered around her as she talked about the building’s history.

“This lighthouse hasn’t been used for years,” she said, “because others have been built farther out in the bay. However, it has an interesting background. This building is not the original one.”

“What happened to that one?” a scout asked.

“It was burned.”

“Was anyone in it?”

“Unfortunately, yes. The lighthouse keeper John Thompson and his black assistant. It was dangerous living out here at that time because the Indians who occupied this territory were not friendly. Many of the Seminoles had had their wives and children taken away by white people, who made them slaves. Naturally they were furious and did everything they could to retaliate.

“One night a crowd of Indians came here. A circular stairway led to the top, where the great lantern was. The Seminoles set the old wooden building on fire to prevent the keeper and his assistant from escaping. The two men hid in the tower, but bullets whizzed at them continuously. The black man was shot and died, and the keeper was wounded. But the fire attracted the attention of two ships offshore.”