Part 30 (1/2)

”Well,” declared Morton, ”that was considerable work, but it will be worth it We'll hustle back to to and tell the other fellows that everything's all right Then we'll have nothing to do but wait for the fun I'm as sure as I am that I'm alive that that sneak will try to circumvent me I could see it in his eye”

Andy spent a restless night, his et the best of Morton He rose early the next reat probleet the pick and shovel without Morton's getting wind of it He finally concluded that it would be taking too e, so he ot the necessary tools

Night came at last, and the sneak sallied forth and set out for the old cabin, the location of which Morton had been careful to give to hi down his tools, Andy carefully reconnoitred the surroundings

The jokers had done their work so carefully that he saw nothing a hi in the sand in front of the door

It did not take hi in he lit two of his candles and took a careful survey of the surroundings

There was nothing in sight to give him a clue The sole furniture consisted of an old table and a couple of rickety chairs

So the rough planking of the floor When he came to the place where the planks had been ripped up the preceding evening, he saw that they were loose and resolved to take a chance there He re in earnest

He ress at first, but soon his an to protest and he was forced to take a breathing spell

Had he chanced to glance at the little , his labors ht have come to a premature conclusion Grouped outside were Morton and his friends, alht of Andy, whose antipathy to ell knoeating away over the hardest kind of labor, amused them immensely

Wholly unconscious of the a, Andy resuood will that it was not long before his spade struck on the edge of the buried trunk He uttered a shout of delight and scattered the re he had uncovered the top of the trunk This he tried to lift out of the hole Finding it too heavy for this, however, and not able to restrain his impatience to see what it contained, he seized the pickax and sined when instead of the treasure he expected he found that the trunk was filled with sand On top of this was a sheet of paper which Morton had placed there the previous evening It contained one word done in heavy capitals:

_STUNG!_

For a few azed stupidly, unable for the time to understand that he had beenupon hihter, the crowd rushed into the hut

Andy ju out of the hole, stood with openboys His surprised and discohter increased tenfold and they fairly shrieked

”Wh-what's the big idea, anyway?” gasped Andy at last ”How did you fellows come to be here?”

”Well, you see,” replied Morton, sobering down a little, ”I counted on your doing the crooked thing and I wasn't rowled Andy ”You think you're pretty smart, don't you?”

”Since you ask me, I must admit I cherish so ”The fellows fro, you understand”

”You'll live to be sorry for this trick,” blustered Andy ”You just see if you don't”

He made his way to the door and passed out amid another burst of merri his i where he had thrown them

An account of the affair spread quickly over the village and life for Andy became so unbearable that before another twenty-four hours he left the town

In the natural course of events the story cahthouse

”I'd have given so to be there,” declared Bill ”It must have been worth a year's allowance to see his face when all those fellows gave hih He thinks such a lot of himself that it must have been a bitter pill to s”

”Let alone his not finding what he went after,” put in Fred ”It hit him in his pride and his pocketbook, and they're both sensitive spots with Andy”

”But how do you suppose he got wind of our being in search of treasure?”