“Well, if he can’t think of weirder things, and go to sleep more peacefully than anybody I ever heard of!” exclaimed Harvey, as he put out the cabin lantern and turned in for the night. On his promise of secrecy, they let George Warren into the scheme next morning. The other Warren boys had gone up the island. So, at George’s suggestion, they took the _Viking_ up the cove, alongside the _Spray_, and lashed the two boats together. “Now you can take the ballast out on to the deck of our yacht, if you want to,” said George Warren. “Let’s overhaul the cabin, first,” said Henry Burns. As for Jack Harvey, he wanted to overhaul the whole boat at once, so filled was he with the mystery and the excitement of the thing. He threw open this locker and that, piled their contents out on to the cabin floor, and rummaged eagerly fore and aft, as though he half-expected to come across a hidden fortune in the turning of a hand. “Look out for Jack,” said George Warren, winking at Henry Burns. “With half a word of encouragement, he’ll take the hatchet and chop into the fine woodwork.” “I’ll bet I would, too,” declared Harvey, seating himself, red-faced and perspiring, on one of the berths. “Say, Henry, where do you think it is?” “Probably under where you’re sitting,” replied Henry Burns, slyly, winking back at George Warren. Harvey jumped up, with a spring that bumped his head against the roof of the cabin; whereupon he sat down again, as abruptly, rubbing his crown, and muttering in a way that made the others double up with laughter. “That’s a good suggestion, anyway,” he said, making the best of it. And he fell to tossing the blankets out of the cabin door. He searched in vain, however, for any hidden opening in the floor of the berth, and sounded fruitlessly for any suspicious hollow place about its frame. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” suggested Henry Burns; “you and Tom start forward, and George and I will start aft, and we’ll work toward one another, examining everything carefully as we go. We’ll pass the stuff to Bob and he can carry it outside.” Setting the example, Henry Burns began with the provision locker on the starboard side, next to the bulkhead. He took everything out, scrutinized every board with which the locker was sealed, and tapped on the boards with a little hammer. But there was no unusual fitting of the boards that suggested a hidden chamber, nor any variance in the sound where the hammer fell, to warrant cutting into the sides of the locker. He examined top, sides, and bottom, with equal care and with no favourable result. Next, on the starboard side, was the stove platform and the stove. There was no use disturbing that, so he passed it by. A chamber, sealed up and lined with zinc for an ice-box, afforded a likewise unfavourable field for exploration.