“All right!” Jibby said. “Here’s your river, and here’s your slough, and here’s your creek, and here’s your crossroads. And these criss-cross scribble marks stand for Riverbank. And here’s your signal pine, and your house, and your green sand right where the ‘X’ mark is--and marked ‘green sand’ plain enough for anybody. And what would John A. M’rell’s brother send as directions if he hid the money here, and John A. M’rell was a criminal and likely to be hunted when he was coming for his treasure?” [Illustration: a map] “What would he say?” Tad asked. “He would say, ‘Come up the Mississippi River to Riverbank, Iowa. Only, you’d better not go there; they may be looking for you. So, when you come to the first slough below Riverbank, row up the slough until you come to a creek. You can sneak up that creek without much chance of anybody seeing you. So come along up the creek until you come to some green sand, about two or three miles back from the slough. And, when you come to the green sand, climb up the creek bank and you’ll see a brick house, and a signal pine I planted. That’s where I am.’” “Gee!” I said, it was all so plain. “How do you pronounce M-u-r-r-e-l-l?” Jibby Jones asked. “Murl,” I said. “Well, that old negro Mose pronounced it M’rell,” Jibby Jones said. “M’rell and Murl is all the same. One is the Southern way of saying it, and the other is the Northern way. And you say the name of this creek is Murl’s Run. That’s M’rell’s Run--M-u-r-r-e-l-l’s Run. This is the place!” CHAPTER XVIII PIRATE’S TREASURE Well, that all sounded reasonable enough. We were all standing under the old pine tree, and Wampus and Skippy and Tad and I started for the old house on a run, but Jibby just stood there by the tree. “Come on!” we shouted. “Come on and search the house.” “You go,” Jibby said. “I want to think this out first. I can think hidden treasure better when I’m here by the signal tree. I thought out about it being here, and I’ve got to think where it would be hidden.” He leaned up against the tree and stayed there. He was rubbing that big nose of his with his forefinger, but we did not watch him long; we piled into the house and began to hunt pirate’s treasure with all our might. We pounded on the walls and rummaged in every room, hunting for secret hiding-places, and everything had a different look to us. Nothing changes a place like thinking there is treasure hidden in it. We were all as busy as bees. I was up in the attic, under the roof that was tumbling in, and Skippy and Tad were on the ground floor, pounding and poking, and Wampus was in the cellar that was under about half the house. The way we worked you might have thought the treasure was butter that might melt and run away if we did not find it soon enough. Wherever there was a loose brick we pried it out, and wherever there was a loose board we pried it up.