"And I rather guess," adds Old Hickory, fishin' a broken cigar out of his vest pocket, "that as treasure hunters we're not such thundering jokes, after all. Eh?" And say, when Old Hickory starts crowin' you can know he sees clear through to daylight. I looks over my shoulder just then, and, sure enough, it's beginnin' to pink up in the east. "My dope is," says I, "that it's goin' to be a large, wide day. Anyhow, it opens well." CHAPTER XVI TORCHY TAKES A RUNNING JUMP Course, it don't sound natural. A merry sunrise party is an event that ain't often listed on the cards, unless it's a continuous session from the evenin' before. But this wasn't a case of a bunch of night-bloomin' gladiolas who'd lasted through. Hardly. Although Auntie does have something of a look like the parties you see lined up at Yorkville Court, charged with havin' been rude to taxi drivers; and Mr. Ellins might have been passin' the night on a bakery gratin' with a sportin' extra for a blanket. We was a long, long ways from either taxis or traffic cops, though. We was on Nunca Secos Key, with the Gulf of Mexico murmurin' gentle behind us, and out in front a big red sun was blazin' through the black pines that edge the west coast of Florida. Five of us, includin' Vee and Captain Rupert Killam and me; and each in our own peculiar way was registerin' the Pollyanna-Mrs. Wiggs stuff. Why not? For one thing, it's about as handsome a December mornin' as you could dream of--the air soft and mild, with a clean, salty smell to it that sort of gives you a romantic hunch every sniff you pump in. But the big reason for this early-mornin' joyfest of ours-- Well, there's the pirate treasure, almost enough to load a pushcart with. You know how you feel when you pluck a stray quarter from the L stairs, or maybe retrieve a dollar bill that's been playin' hide-and-seek in the gutter? Multiply that by the thrill you'd get if you'd had your salary raised and been offered par for a block of industrials that had been wished on you at ten a share, all in the same day. Then you'll have a vague idea of how chirky we was at 5:30 A.M. as we stood around in front of that mound we'd torn open, gawpin' first at the heap of loot and then at each other. Simple way to pass the time, eh? But, somehow, we couldn't seem to take it in that we'd actually done the trick. I know I couldn't. I've always kidded myself along, too, that I was something of a speed artist when it came to framin' up a situation. I expect we all hand ourselves little floral offerings like that. But when we get up against anything really new--that is, some sensation we ain't happened to meet before--we find we ain't such hair-trigger propositions, after all. We catches ourselves doin' the open-face act, while the little stranger idea stands tappin' patient on the wood.