_Good night_, you should have heard the fellows when he finished reading. I mean you couldn’t have heard them, because nobody said anything; they all just sat there gaping. Then Brent said, awful funny, he said, “It seems, scouts, that by following S line south we shall come to a pie. Whether it is a pumpkin pie or a mince pie I cannot say——” Harry kind of cut him off short and said, “Brent, putting all fooling aside, now that you read that paper over, it sounds pretty good to me.” “I was always fond of pie,” Brent said. Harry said, “Well, I was always fond of buried treasure and that paper has the true ring to me, hanged if it hasn’t. Skeleton Cove sounds as if it meant business. So does ‘_treasure at HW limit_’ I like the sound of that. I never gave two thoughts to that paper until just now when you read it, but I’m hanged if I don’t think it means something. What do you say, Tom Slade?” Tom said in that slow way of his, “It’s got the word _treasure_ in, that’s sure.” Then Brent said with a sober face, “As an expert, Pee-wee, what would _you_ say? Is a pie a treasure?” “Good night,” I said, “he’s buried enough pies, he ought to know.” “It means buried treasure, that’s what it means!” Pee-wee shouted. “And I’m with Harry; I say let’s go and find it.” “Where?” Brent said. “You said we could get a map,” the kid shouted. All the fellows were with Harry; they were just crazy to go after that treasure. Tom Slade didn’t say much, but he never does. I went around to the side of the fire where he was sitting and I said, “You were always so crazy about adventures; what do you think it means if it doesn’t mean buried treasure?” “I haven’t got anything to say,” he said; “it’s got the word treasure in it, and that settles it. I say let’s go, if we can find the place.” I shouted, “Tom Slade is with us, he believes in it. I say let’s go after it.” Harry was sitting on the back end of the van, swinging his legs and looking in the fire. I knew his thoughts were kind of serious, all right. He’s crazy about adventures, that fellow is. Brent took my scout knife and held it between his teeth and glared into the fire, very fierce and savage, just like a pirate. He did it to make Harry mad. But all the fellows were with Harry, anyway, and they were all crazy about the thing—even I was crazy. Harry said, all the while looking into the fire kind of dreamy like, he said, “Brent, why may not this be true?” Brent said, “You mean the Pirates’ Secret or the Mystery of the Hidden Pie?” “Don’t you mind him,” Pee-wee shouted to Harry; “he’s a Philippine!” “That’s just what you are, Brent,” Harry said; “you’re a Philistine. You have no romance. Just because you live in the twentieth century you think nothing can happen. But the world war happened, didn’t it? You have it from a man you met that two mysterious strangers visited the old gent who once owned that coat. You found this paper; in that coat—didn’t you?” Brent said, “Alas, yes.”