“Half and half was what I said, and half and half holds good,” said the Tough Customer. “And this will, maybe, be a big thing. I’ll play fair with you if you play fair with me. Will you play fair? Hope to die and may your throat be cut, if you don’t?” “Hope to die and may my throat be cut if I don’t!” said the Rat. “Fair and square, or may the dogs eat us!” “Now, that’s talking,” said the Tough Customer. “Look here, now!” They heard him feeling around among the boards of the shanty-boat, inside and nearest the corner to the boys. “I got a map of the whole business,” the Tough Customer said. “You didn’t know that, did you? It’s been right there in that split board back of the lantern ever since I come aboard this boat. And you would never have seen it if you hadn’t played fair and square with me, you bet! Gimme that board there to spread it out on.” They heard the Rat move around and then the Tough Customer spoke again. “When I was down there in Helena, like I told you,” he said, “they stuck me in jail for ten days for being a vagrant, and there was a fellow in my cell with me, see? A red-headed fellow with a scar over one eye. And he shines up to me about the second day, and says I’m the sort of man he’s looking for. He says he knows where pirate’s treasure is, and he’s getting up a gang to go and get it. Only, he’s in jail for three months for stealing a hog, you understand? And he needs somebody that’s going to be free soon, to make some preparations and one thing and another. So he shows me this map that he stole off an old nigger down there.” [Illustration: a map] “This map?” said the Rat. “This map, which was drawed by the land pirate’s own brother to show where the treasure was,” said the Tough Customer. “So I said I’d go in with him, and he explained all he knew about the map, and the night before I was turned loose I stole the map off him, and I dropped it through the window. And the next day, when I was turned loose, I went around under the window and picked up the map and beat it for up here as fast as I could. Because this here word on the back of the map is the key word. ‘Riverbank,’ see? That’s the place to go to, to start out from, to find the treasure.” “Well, you couldn’t be much nearer,” said the Rat. “All right! And here’s the map itself,” said the Tough Customer. “You say you know places hereabouts; what do you make of it?” “Let me get a good look at it,” said the Rat. “Why, pshaw! It looks plain enough! Here’s the river, because it is marked ‘river.’ And this bent business is a slough coming into the river. And this crooked line would be a creek emptying into the slough.” “That’s how I’d make it out,” said the Tough Customer. “Sure!” said the Rat. “And these lines mean two roads crossing each other, don’t they? And this is a house or barn in the lot at the crossroads. And here’s a cross-mark--this X here. That ought to be where the treasure is buried, hey?”