CHAPTER XXII
The Search
Lunch, motorcycles—everything else was forgotten!
With a wild yell of delight, Frank began to scurry down the embankment that flanked the right of way. At his heels ran Joe.
They raced down the grassy slope until they came to the wire fence. They scrambled over it, heedless of tearing their clothes. They dashed up on to the cinder path beside the rails.
"What if we're wrong, Frank?" panted Joe.
"We can't be wrong. I just know that's what Jackley meant. The old tower. It was the old water tower he meant all along. He didn't have time to explain."
The Hardy boys were tingling with excitement.
It seemed that they could never reach the water tower. They dashed along the cinder path with all the speed at their command, but the tower still seemed a long distance away.
"If only we have stumbled on the secret after all, Joe!"
"It'll clear Mr. Robinson—"
"We'll get the reward—"
"Dad'll be proud of us."
These thoughts gave them new strength and their hopes were high as they neared the tower.
The structure reared gloomily from beside the tracks. At close quarters it was even more decrepit, even more in a state of disrepair than they had imagined. The old tower had been abandoned for some time in favor of the new tank nearer the station. It sagged perilously. The ladder that led to the top lacked so many rungs that at first the boys feared they would be unable to ascend.
"If Jackley got up this ladder, we can do the same," said Frank, as he stopped, panting, at the bottom. "Let's go."
He began to scramble up the flimsy ladder.
Hardly had he ascended four rungs than there came an alarming crack!
"Look out!"
Frank clung to the rung above, just as a rung snapped beneath his weight. He hung in midair for a moment, then drew up his feet and placed them on the next rung. This proved firmer, and he was able to go on.
"Don't break 'em all," called Joe. "I want to be in on this."
Frank continued up the ladder. Occasionally, when he came to a place where a rung had broken off, he was obliged to haul himself upward by main force, but finally he neared the top. The ladder ran up along the side of the tank to the very top of the great, vat-like receptacle, and there it led to a trapdoor.
The Hardy boys did not look down. They were high above the ground now, and the old water tower was swaying alarmingly. They began to realize their peril, for the tower was old and liable to topple over with them. But the thought did not serve to restrain them, and at last Frank scrambled over the last rung and found himself on the upper surface of the tower. He turned around and helped Joe over.
Far below them lay the countryside, the green fields laid out in neat patterns, the roads in the distance like white ribbons, and the railway tracks glistening in the sunlight. The wind seemed much stronger on top of the tower, and it whistled about their ears. The flimsy structure swayed to and fro with every movement they made.
The trapdoor was closed. Frank went over to it and tugged at it, but the timber was heavy and Joe was obliged to help him. Between the two, however, they managed to raise it, revealing a dark gap that led into the recesses of the abandoned water tower.
The upper part of the tank was a space about four feet in depth and separated from the lower, or main portion by a thick floor. Frank lowered himself through the opening, and he was quickly followed by his brother. They crouched down below the roof of the tank and peered about them in the obscurity.
"It must be in here. There's no other place he could have hidden the stuff," said Frank.
"Let's hunt for it, then. I wish we had brought our flashlights."
Frank, however, had matches. Cautiously, he lit one. Then, crawling on hands and knees, he advanced into the darkness of the tower.
In the faint glow of the match they saw that the place was half-filled with rubbish. There was a quantity of old lumber, miscellaneous bits of iron, battered tin pails, crowbars, and other things piled up pellmell in all parts of the tower.
But there was no sign of hidden loot.
"It must be here somewhere!" declared Joe doggedly. "He wouldn't leave it out in the open. Probably it's in behind all this junk."
Frank held the match. They had to be careful, for the place was as dry as tinder and any negligence might have made the whole place a mass of flame from which there would have been no escape. In the glow, then, Joe searched frantically, casting the old pails and the old bits of board and lumber aside with reckless abandon.
One entire side of the tower top was searched without result. Then, on the far side, they spied a number of boards piled up in a peculiar manner. They did not look as though they had been flung there carelessly or accidentally, but rather as though they had been placed to hide something.
Like a terrier after a bone, Joe made for it. Frantically, he tore away the boards.
There, in a neat little hiding place formed by the wood, lay a bag. It was an ordinary gunny sack, but when Joe dragged it forth he knew at once that their search had ended.
"We've found it!" he exulted.
"The Tower treasure!"
"This must be it."
Joe dragged the gunny sack out into the light beneath the trapdoor. They did not even wait to go out on top of the water tower.
"Hurry!" exclaimed Frank, as with trembling fingers Joe began to open the sack.
It was tied with a piece of twine, and Joe tugged at the stubborn knots. At last, however, the twine fell away, and the bag sagged open.
Joe plunged his hand into the recesses of the sack and he first withdrew an old fashioned bracelet of precious stones.
"Jewelry!"
"How about the bonds?"
Again Joe groped into the sack. His fingers encountered a bulky packet. He withdrew it and the packet proved to be comprised of long, imposing-looking documents, held together by a rubber band. On the surface of the outer document, when they held it up to the light, they read the information that it was a negotiable bond for $5000 issued by the City of Bayport.
"That settles it," said Frank. "We've found the treasure."
The boys looked at one another in triumph.
"Jackley wasn't lying after all. He did hide the stuff in the old tower. And Mr. Robinson wasn't in league with him and didn't find it after it was hidden," ruminated Joe. "We can clear up the whole affair now."
"Let's start, then!" Frank exclaimed. "No use sitting here all day patting ourselves on the back. It's up to us to get right back to Bayport and turn this treasure over to the Applegates."
Hastily, he scrambled up through the trap, and Joe passed the bag of treasure up to him. Frank put the sack carefully to one side, then helped his brother up to the top of the tower. After that he tied the treasure sack to his belt, in order that he might have the full use of his two hands in descending the precarious ladder.
They were so excited by their momentous discovery, by the knowledge that all the days of fruitless search had now ended, that they descended the ladder at breakneck speed. The last two rungs of the ladder snapped under Frank's feet and the boys were obliged to undertake a drop of six feet in order to reach the ground, but they hardly noticed it. Scarcely had they picked themselves up than they were off on a run for their motorcycles, parked far back on the hillside.
"We've shown 'em, eh?" gasped Joe.
"I'll say we have! Oh boy, won't this surprise everybody?"
"Now I'd like to see dad tell us we're not cut out to be detectives!"
"Wait till Adelia Applegate sees all her jewelry back again. She'll change her opinion of us."
"Wait till Hurd Applegate sees his bonds back. And wait till Chief Collig and Detective Smuff hear about it!"
So the Hardy boys gloated over their prospective return, but beneath it all they were thinking of what this discovery meant to the Robinsons.
They reached the embankment, scrambled over the fence, and made their way up the slope until at last they regained their motorcycles. Although they had only partly finished their lunch, they were too excited to eat any more, so they stowed the remainder away in the basket, lashed the bag of treasure securely to Frank's carrier, and turned the motorcycles around.
"What a lucky chance for us that we decided to go down this road!" declared Frank. "If we had done as we intended and circled around by Chet's place we would never have found the stuff!"
"And it's ten chances to one that neither of us would have thought of that water tower until his dying day."
The rest of their speculations were drowned by the roar of the motorcycles as the Hardy boys set out on their return to Bayport with the Tower treasure.