"Nothin' but a leetle moonshine, looks to me," old Jerry remarked, as he rubbed his pointed chin with finger and thumb. "No brand on the pesky bottle, you-uns notice," ventured Lige, the foreman, trying to make the best of a bad bargain. "Mighty queer that little runt taking such big chances just to get hold of a bottle of hot stuff," Zander Forbes from Yale remarked shrewdly. "Jerry, they tell me you used to be a good judge of such things," observed Sally Keating. "Take a sniff, and see if you can name the brand." "Hold on boys, you're all away off your trolley," Frank told them. "This bottle has been buried here for a good many years, I'd say; as long, it might be, as that old chest was in the cellar!" "Bully boy!" snapped Lanky enthusiastically. "Hit her again, Frank! Put the pins up on the other alley and make a spare or a strike. Now go on and tell us _how_ you know?" "Here, fetch that lantern over, Charlie Gin Sing," Frank called out to the cook who had just appeared on the scene, understanding that all firing had stopped and that it was safe for him to venture abroad. "Say, it does look mighty like the old bottle's been under the soil for ages, boys," agreed Zander, after a close scrutiny of the object. "Shake it, Frank, and see if you hear something gurgle." "Nixey! Never a solitary gurgle!" gloated Lanky. "There's something else than liquid lightning inside that black bottle. Frank, knock the head off, or I'll explode, I'm that stuffed with curiosity." Bang! went the bottle against the edge of the spade. As the glass flew in a shower a curled paper yellowed with age, fell to the ground. On this Frank pounced and straightened it out. Everybody crowded around, eager to see, and among them old Jerry Brime pushed his beak forward, to immediately cry out something that sent a thrill through the three boys. CHAPTER VIII STARTING FOR GOLD FORK "By hokey!" Jerry ejaculated, mightily interested in the age-stained paper. "Sure I've seen thet thar figgerin', 'fore now! Yep! It seems like I kin' 'member ole Josh Kinney bottlin' the paper up wid a big grin an' askin' how it looked fur a drawin' prize. I done tole him it seemed to me a hen went an' crawled acrost the paper wid muddy feet!" It certainly did look a bit that way, as Frank and Lanky were forced to admit. They studied their find for a few minutes; then Lanky rubbed his nose and went on to remark sarcastically: "And, say, that same hen must have been some loco, to make such a bunch of crooked tracks." "Well, it must be some sort of chart, or map," suggested Paul. "I take it that's right," Frank observed, nodding his head. "Perhaps you might call it a supplementary one to the first we found."