“Hey, there, you!” Jim shouted. “Heft that stuff down easy, can’t you? Ain’t I told you often enough there’s dynamite in that bag?” “I shore did heft it easy, boss,” the negro said. “I don’t heft no dynamite down hard.” They talked awhile longer, and the white men decided to let the negroes stay to watch the dunnage, and they started off up the creek. The three black men stretched out on the yellow sand in the sun and got ready to go to sleep, and then Jibby stole away and came for us. “Aw, pshaw!” Wampus said. “That ends it! Those men have dynamite and everything and they’ll get that treasure, and we’re beaten out of it!” “Maybe!” Jibby said. “I don’t know yet. I remember when I was in New Orleans with my father and we went down to the levee and a bale of cotton rolled over.” “What has that got to do with it?” Wampus asked. “Why, a negro was asleep, stretched out on the ground,” Jibby said, “and the bale of cotton rolled on top of him and across him and then off of him again.” “Did it kill him?” Skippy asked. “No,” Jibby said. “That isn’t it. I was just telling you how one of those Southern negroes sleeps when he stretches out in the sun. This one just brushed his hand across his face and said, ‘Shoo fly! go ’way!’ and went on sleeping. Sleeping is the best thing some of those negroes do.” “Well, what?” I asked. “Nothing much,” Jibby said. “I was only thinking that the coming of this gang of treasure-hunters is the best luck we’ve had yet. We only guessed there was treasure here; now we know it. Now all we have to do is get rid of these men.” “And that is so easy! Only ten of them!” I said. “Well, I am surprised at you, George,” Jibby drawled. “You talk as if they were ten bumblebees.” “But how are we going to get rid of them?” Wampus asked. Jibby fondled his nose gently. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “they won’t like it here and will go away without being asked to go.” Well, I didn’t like it much, but Jibby picked up the oil can and started for the woods along the Run, and, of course, a fellow could not hang back, so we all went. When we were near the edge of the bank, we all got down and wiggled forward until we could look over the edge and down at the place where the three negroes were asleep. They were sound asleep, too--plenty of sound, if you mean the sound of snoring. The bank was about twelve feet high there, but not straight up and down. It slanted toward the creek and was covered with grass and weeds and a few small bushes as creek banks usually are. The dunnage of the treasure-hunters was piled in one pile close to where the foot of the bank met the sandy stretch on which the three black men were asleep. We looked down awhile, and then wiggled back and got to our feet and went off a few yards to hold a council. “We’ll take a bunch of rocks and slam them down on those men,” Wampus said. “We’ll scare the life out of them.”