Tom Paulding : the story of a search for buried treasure in the streets of New York

Contents

Page

I The Scene op the Story 1

II Around the Bonfire 10

Chapter I. The Scene Of The Story

N every great city there are unexplored fastnesses as little known to the world at large as is the heart of the Dark Continent. Now and again it happens that a sudden turn in the tide of business or of fashion brings into view these hitherto unexplored regions. Then there begins at once a struggle between the old and the new, between the conditions which obtained when that part of the city was ignored, and those which prevail now that it has been brought to the knowledge of men. The struggle is sharp, for a while ; but the end is inevitable. The old cannot withstand the new; and in a brief space of time the unknown region wakes up, and there is a fresh life in all its streets ; there is a tearing down, and there is a building up ; and in a few months the place ceases to be old, although it has not yet become new.

During this state of transition there are many curious changes; and a pair of sharp eyes can see many curious things.

In this Manhattan Island of ours, there is more than one undiscovered country of this kind ; and in a city as active and as restless as New York it is only a question of time how soon such a quarter shall be discovered, and rescued from neglect. Though a place may have been abandoned for a century, sooner or later some one will find it out again. Though it may have been left on one side during the forced march of improvement, sooner or later some one will see its advantages, and will make them plain.

At the time of this story, when om* hero, young Tom Paulding, set forth upon his quest for buried treasure, in the ninth decade of the nineteenth century, the quarter of New York where he lived, and where he sought what had been lost more than a hundred years before, was passing through a period of transition. This part of New York lies above Central Park, behind Morningside Park and beside the Hudson River, where the Riverside Drive stretches itself out for two miles and more along the brow of the wooded hill.

This portion of the city has much natural beauty and not a little historic interest. Just beyond the rocky terrace of Morningside Park was fought the battle of Harlem Plains on September 16, 1776. Then it was that the British troops, having occupied the lower part of the island, assaulted the Continental forces, and were beaten back. For days thereafter, General Washington had his headquarters within a

THE SCENE OF THE STORY. 3

mile or two of the spot where General Grant now lies buried.

In the fourscore years which elapsed between the retirement of Washington from the presidency of these United States and the election of Grant to that exalted position, the part of Manhattan Island where Tom Paulding lived, and where his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather had lived before him, changed very little. In 1876 it seemed almost as remote from the centers of trade and of fashion as it had been in 1776. Although it was not out of town, it was beyond the beaten track of traffic. Just before the Revolution, and immediately after it, handsome countryseats had been built here and there on the heights overlooking the Hudson. And here and there, on the rocky knobs that thrust themselves up through the soil, squatters had since set up their little wooden shanties, increasing in number as the edges of the city spread out nearer and nearer.

In time the Riverside Drive was laid out along the river ; and then the transformation began. Day by day there were changes; and year by year the neighborhood was hardly recognizable.

Here had been one of the few spots on Manhattan Island where nature was allowed to run wild and to do as she thought best, unimpeded by man ; and by great good fortune the advancing tide of city life was not allowed to overwhelm altogether the natural beauty of the region. The irregularities of the surface were planed over, it is true;

TOM PAULDING.

streets were cut through the walls of rock which then arose in jagged cliffs high above the sidewalks on both sides, and avenues were carried across sunken meadows, leaving deep, wide hollows where the winter snows collected.

Around the shanties which were perched upon the rocks, sheer above the new streets, goats browsed on the scanty

herbage ; and down in the hollows which lay below the level of the same thoroughfares, geese swam about placidly, and squawked when a passing boy was carelessly cruel enough to throw a stone at the peaceful flock.

It is a region of contrasts as it is a time of transition.

In one block can be seen the old orchard winch girt about one of the handsome country-places built here early .in the century; and in the next can be seen the frames of a market-gardener, who is raising lettuce under glass, on ground which the enterprising builder may demand any day. The patched and weather-stained shanty of the market-gardener may be within the shadow of a new marble mansion with its plate-glass conservatory. An old wooden house with a Grecian portico is torn down to make room for a tall flat,

SKETCH IN UPPER NEW YORK.

THE SCENE OF THE STORY. 7

stretching itself seven stories high, with accommodation for a dozen families at least. The builder is constantly at work. The insignificant whistle of his engine announces the morning ; and the dull report of blasting is of daily frequency.

With its many possibilities, this is perhaps the part of New York where a boy can find the most wholesome fun. He is iu the city, although he has many of the privileges of the country. He can walk under trees and climb hills ; and yet he is not beyond the delights of the town. There are long slopes down which he may coast in winter ; and there are as yet many vacant lots where he may play ball in summer. There is the Morningside Park with its towering battlements, just the place for a sham fight. There is the Riverside Park with its broad terrace extending nearly three miles along the river front, and with its strip of woodland sloping steeply to the railroad track by the river.

It is a place with nearly every advantage that a boy can wish. For one thing, there is unceasing variety. If he takes a walk by the parapet of the Riverside, the freight-trains on the railroad below rush past fiercely, and are so long that the engine will be quite out of sight before the caboose at the end comes into view. From the brow of the hill the moving panorama of the Hudson unrolls itself before him ; above are the Palisades rising sheer from the water's edge and crowned with verdure; opposite is Weehawken, and just below are the Elysian Fields, now sadly shorn of their green beauty. No two views of the river are ever alike, except possibly in winter when the stream may freeze over. In the summer there is an incessant change ; yachts tack across against the breeze ; immense tows of canal-boats come down drawn by one broad and powerful steamboat ; and pert little tugs puff their way up and down, here and there. The dayboats go up every morning and the night-boats follow them every evening. Excursions and picnic parties go by in double-decked barges, lashed together side by side, and gay with flags and music. Sometimes a swift steam-yacht speeds up stream to West Point, and sometimes a sloop loaded with brick from Haverstraw drifts down with the tide.

On land there is a change almost as incessant. Buildings are going up everywhere ; shanties are being torn down ; and streets are being cut through here and filled up there, and paved, and torn up again to lay pipe, and repaired again, and torn up yet once more. There is a constant effort toward the completion of the Riverside Park, and of Morningside Park but a few blocks beyond it. There is also the new aqueduct, bringing more water from the Croton hills to the host of dwellers in the city.

When Tom Paulding first saw the men at work on this great undertaking, he little knew how necessary that water would one day be to him in his quest, or how the laborers who were laying the gigantic pipes in deep trenches underground would unwittingly lend him their aid.

But there is no need to dally longer over this description of the place where the young New Yorker lived who is to be the chief character of the story set forth in the following pages. It is time now to introduce Tom Paulding himself ;

THE SCENE OF THE STORY. 9

to show you what manner of boy ho was ; to make you acquainted with his friends and companions ; to explain how it happened that his uncle returned home in time to advise j and to tell how it was that he set out to find the treasure. What the final result of Ins quest was will be fully shown in this narrative; but whether or not Tom Paulding was successful in his endeavor, every reader must decide for himself.

Chapter II. Around The Bonfire

N one of the side streets extending eastward from the Riverside Park, a dozen boys were gathered about a barrel, which had been raised on four stones. It was late in the afternoon of the Tuesday following the first Monday in November ; and the boys were about to exercise the immemorial privilege of young New Yorkers on election night. Between the stones which supported the barrel were two or three crumpled newspapers and a heap of shavings. Within the wooden chimney of the barrel itself were the sides of a broken box, six or eight short boards, and such other combustible odds and ends as the boys had been able to get together against the coming of the fiery holiday. The impromptu altar had been erected almost in the middle of the street ; but as there was scarcely a house within a block on either side, and as few carriages or carts needed to come down that way, there was little danger that the bonfire of the " Black Band " would frighten any horses.

When the shavings had been inspected, and he had made sure that the flames would be able to rise readily through the improvised flue, the boy who seemed to be the leader looked around and said, " Who 's got a match 1 "

" Here 's a whole box ! " cried little Jimmy Wigger, thrusting himself through the ring of youngsters ranged about the barrel. He was the smallest boy of all, and he was greatly pleased to be of service.

" Are you going to set it off now, Cissy ? " a tall thin lad asked.

" Well, I am ! " answered the boy who had been making ready for the fire. " We said that we 'd start -it up at five o'clock, did n't we ? "

The speaker was a solidly built young fellow of about fourteen, with a round, good-naturecLface. His name was Marcus Cicero Smith ; his father always called him " Cicero," and among his playfellows and companions he was known as " Cissy," for short.

A timid voice suggested, .-'What 's your hurry, Cissy? Tom Paulding is n't here yet."

This voice belonged to Harry Zachary, a slim boy of scant thirteen, shy in manner and hesitating in speech. He had light golden hair and light-blue eyes.

" If Tom Paulding 's late," replied Cissy, as he stooped forward and set fire to the paper and shavings, " so much the worse for Tom, that 's all. He knows the appointed hour as well as we do."

" I 'd just like to know what is keeping Tom. He 's not often late," said the tall thin lad who had spoken before, and as he said it he twisted himself about, looking over his shoulders with a strange spiral movement. It was partly on account of this peculiar habit of self -contortion that he was generally addressed as "Corkscrew." But that nickname had been given also because of his extraordinary inquisitiveness. His curiosity was unceasing and inordinate. It is to be recorded, moreover, that he had straight red hah-, and that his thin legs were made more conspicuous by a large pair of boots, the tops of which rose above his knees. His real name was George William Lott.

As the wood in the barrel kindled and blazed up, the boys heaped on more fuel from a pile outside their circle. While taking a broken board from the stack, little Jimmy Wigger looked up and saw a figure approaching. The street where they were assembled had been cut through high rocks which towered up on each side, irregular and jagged. Twilight had begun to settle down on the city, and in the hollow where the roadway ran between the broken crags there was little light but that of the bonfire. It was difficult to make out a stranger until he was close upon them.

" Some one is coming ! " cried little Jimmy, glad that he had again been able to be useful.

The approaching figure stood still at once.

The group about the fire spread open, and Cissy careened forward a few feet. He had always a strange swing in his walk, not unlike the rolling gait of a sailor.

When he had swung ahead four or five paces he paused, and raising his fingers to his lips, he gave a shrill whistle with a peculiar cadence :

Igp^^i^

The stranger also stood still, and made the expected answer with a flourish of its own :

E m

11 It 's Tom Paulding," said Harry Zachary.

" I wonder what has made him so late/"' Corkscrew remarked.

Cissy Smith took another- step forward, and cried, "Who goes there ? "

The new-comer also advanced a step, which brought him into the glare of the blazing barrel. He was seen to be a well-knit boy of barely fourteen, with dark-brown eyes and curly black hair.

To Cissy's challenge he answered in a clear voice, "A friend of the Black Band."

" Advance, friend of the Black Band, and give the countersign and grip."

Each of the two boys took three paces forward, and stood face to face.

The new-comer bent forward and solemnly whispered in ,( Cissy's ear the secret password of ihe Black Band, " Captain Kidd."

With the same solemnity, Cissy whispered back, " As he sailed." Then he extended his right hand.

Tom Paulding grasped this firmly in his own, slipping his little finger between Cissy's third and little fingers ; then he pressed the back of Cissy's hand three times with his own thumb.

These proper formalities having been observed with due decorum, the boys released their grasp and walked together to the bonfire.

" What made you so late, Tom ? " asked Corkscrew.

"My mother kept me while she finished a letter to my Uncle Dick that she wanted me to mail for her," Tom Paulding replied ; " and besides I had to find my dark lantern."

" Have you got it here ? " said Cissy.

" Oh, do let me see it ! " cried little Jimmy Wigger.

Tom Paulding unbuttoned his jacket and took the lantern from his belt. There was at once perceptible a strong odor of burnt varnish ; but the circle of admiring boys did not mind this. The possession of a dark lantern increased their admiration for its owner, who was a favorite, partly from his frank and pleasant manner, and partly because of his ingenuity in devising new sports. It was Tom Paulding who had started the Black Band, a society of thirteen boys all solemnly bound to secrecy and to be faithful, one to another, whatever might befall. Cissy Smith, as the oldest of the thirteen, had been elected captain, at Tom's suggestion, and Tom himself .'was lieutenant.

" Is it lighted ? " little Jimmy Wigger asked, as he caught sight of a faint spot of light at the back of the dark lantern in Tom's hand.

" Of course it is," Tom replied, and he turned the bull's-eye toward the rugged wall of rocks which arose at the side of the street, and pulled the slide. A faint disk of light appeared on the stones.

" That 's bully ! " said Harry Zachary, in his usual hesitating voice. " I wish I had one ! "

" What good is a dark lantern, anyhow ? " asked Corkscrew Lott, who was almost as envious as he was curious. " What did you bring it out for 1 "

"Well," Tom answered, "I had a reason. We had n't agreed what the Black Band was to be this evening ; and I thought if we were burglars, for instance, it would be useful to have a dark lantern."

" Hooray ! " said Cissy. " Let 's be burglars." i There was a general cry of assent to this proposition.

"A burglar always has a dark lantern," Tom went on, "and he 'most always has a jimmy — "

"Well, where 's your jimmy ? " interrupted Lott.

" Here it is," Tom answered, taking a dark stick from its place of concealment in the back of his jacket. " It ought to be iron, you know ; a jimmy 's a sort of baby crowbar. But I made this out of an old broomstick I got from our Katie. I whittled it down to the right shape at the end, and then I polished it off with blacking and a shoe-brush. It does look like iron, does n't it ? "

The jimmy was passed from hand to hand, and met with

1G TOM PAULDING.

general approval. Even Corkscrew Lott had no fault to find with it.

" We ought to have everything real burglars have, if we are going into the burgling business," added Tom.

" If we are burglars," said little Jimmy Wigger, in a plaintive voice, " can't we begin burgling soon ? Because my aunt says I must be home by eight this evening, sure."

" I said it was a mistake to let that baby into the Black Band," Corkscrew remarked ; " a pretty burglar he '11 make ! "

" Yes, I will ! " cried little Jimmy, sturdily ; " I '11 make as good a burglar as you any day ! "

" I could tell you stories about burglars that would make your hair curl," said Harry Zachary, noticing that little Jimmy had shrunk back.

" Then tell them to Tom Paulding," Lott cried ; " he likes to have his hair curl. I believe he puts it up in curl-papers ! "

Now, if there was one thing which annoyed Tom more than another, it was that his hair was curly, " like a girl's " as he had said in disgust to his sister only that morning. And if there was any member of the Black Band toward whom he did not feel a brotherly cordiality, it was Lott.

" Look here, Corkscrew," he said hotly, " you let my hah* alone, or I '11 punch your head ! "

" You had better not try it," returned Lott. " You could n't do it."

" We '11 see about that, if you say anything more against my hair ! " Tom replied.

" I '11 say what I please," responded Corkscrew.

By this time Tom had recovered his temper.

"Say what you please/' he answered, *<and if it does n't please me, we '11 have it out. The sooner we do, the better ; for I don't believe we can get through the winter without a fight, and I sha'n't be sorry to have it over."

" Silence in the ranks," ordered the Captain of the Black Band, as he saw that Lott was ready to keep up the quarrel. " Is it agreed that we are to be burglars ? "

"No," answered Corkscrew quickly, before any of the others could speak. " We have n't got all the things. Let 's be Indians on the war-path. We 've got a bully fire now, and it 's the only night we can have it. So we can play we Ve a captive, and we can burn him at the stake, and have a scalp-dance around the barrel."

" That 's a good idea," Harry Zachary agreed. " They won't let us have a bonfire except on election night."

" That 's so," Cissy admitted.

Lott saw his advantage and seized it promptly.

" We can be burglars any time," he cried, " if we want to. But to-night 's the best time to be Indians. It 's our only chance to burn a captive at the stake."

"We might make him run the gantlet first," suggested Harry Zachary, who was a delicate boy of a very mild appearance, but strangely fertile in sanguinary suggestions.

" Let little Jimmy Wigger be the captive," Lott proposed. "We won't hurt him much."

"No, you don't," Tom Paulding interposed. "Little Jimmy is too young. Besides, when his aunt let him join the Black Band, I promised that I would keep him out of mischief."

"Then who '11 run the gantlet?" asked Lott, sulkily.

" I will/' Tom answered. " I 'd just as lief. In fact, I 'd liefer. I Ve never been burned at the stake yet, and the Sioux shall see how a Pawnee can die ! "

Then, at the command of Cissy Smith, the Black Band formed in a double row facing inward, and Tom Paidding ran the gantlet. When he came to the end of the lines he broke away, and the whole troop pursued him. After a sharp run he was caught, and brought back to the bonfire. More fuel was heaped upon this, and it blazed up fiercely. A stake was driven into the ground not far from the fire, and Tom was tied to it, with his hands behind him. Then, under the leadership of Cissy Smith, the Black Band circled about the fire and the stake, with Indian yells and shrill whistles. As the flames rose and fell on the shouting boys and on the broken rocks which towered high above them on both sides, an imaginative spectator might almost have fancied himself gazing at some strange rite of the redskins in a far canon of Colorado.

Chapter III. A Walk By The River

BOUT six o'clock Jimmy Wigger's aunt came for him. He begged hard for only a few minutes more, but she did not yield and he went away reluctantly. Other members of the Black Band remembered that their suppers would be waiting for them ; and soon the assembly broke up. The smaller boys were the first to go, and the Captain and Lieutenant of the Black Band were the last to leave the blazing barrel which now was almost burnt out.

Tom Paulding had released himself from the bonds that bound him to the stake ; and as he was stooping over the embers to warm his hands, Cissy Smith proposed that they should go for a walk through the woods between the Riverside Drive and the river. Tom agreed at once, and asked Harry Zachary to come also.

Corkscrew Lott had started off ahead of them, but at the first corner he, too, joined the group.

The boys walked down the street four abreast, Cissy rolling along irregularly in his usual fashion. They crossed the Riverside Drive and stood for a minute at the head of the stone steps that led to the strip of steep woodland below. There was a sharp whistle in the distance, and then an advancing roar; and a short passenger train rushed rapidly past them, the flying white steam from the engine reddened by the glare from the furnace as the fireman threw in fresh fuel. Out on the broad river beyond, one of the night-boats went up the river, its rippling wake gleaming in the bluish moonlight.

" I wonder why little Jimmy's aunt came for him so early," said Corkscrew, twisting himself up on the parapet to get a good look over it.

" If she 'd found him tied to the stake, and the Black Band scalp-dancing all around him, she 'd have been 'most scared out of a year's growth, I reckon," Harry Zachary commented. His mother was a Kentuckian, and it was from her that he learned his gentle ways and his excellent manners. He had taken also from her an occasional Southern phrase not common in New York.

" I don't believe it would be much fun to be an Indian really," Cissy remarked. " I guess they have a pretty hard time of it when it 's cold and rainy — leastwise those I 've seen West did n't seem any too set up and happy." Cissy's father, Dr. Smith, had only a short time before removed to New York from Denver.

"Have you seen real Indians out West?" asked Tom Paulding. "Were they on the war-path?"

"Not much they were n't. They were coming into the agency to get their rations," Cissy answered.

" Did you kill any of 'em when you had the chance ? " asked Harry in his usual timid voice.

"I did n't kill 'em. Of course not," Cissy responded. "Why should I?"

Tom Paulding was kindly by nature, but he was a little disappointed to learn that his friend had neglected a chance to kill a redskin.

" Perhaps you 've never read a book called ' Nick of the Woods ' ? " Harry Zachary inquired. " That tells all about a man they called the Jibbenainosay, who lived in the forest and killed Indians, and marked every man he killed so that they should know the handiwork of the Mysterious Avenger."

" My Uncle Dick, when he went up to the Black Hills, had a fight with the Indians," said Tom.

" How many did he kill ? " asked Corkscrew, promptly.

"He did n't know," replied Tom, "but — "

" If he did n't know how many he killed what was the use of talking about it?" Harry Zachary asked. "That is n't any way to do. The best plan is to be alone in the woods, and take 'em by surprise, and kill 'em, one by one, and mark 'em."

" And suppose one of them takes you by surprise and kills you, what then "1 " Cissy interposed.

" I reckon I 'd have to take my chances, if I was an Avenger," Harry admitted. "But in the books they 'most always get the best of it."

" Let 's go down to the water as we said we would," suggested Cissy.

" Look at that schooner," Tom cried, as they were going down the long stone stairway. "She 's a beauty, and no mistake."

" That 's the kind of a ship I 'd have if I was a pirate like Lafitte," said Harry Zachary.

" How can you be a pirate now, when there are policemen everywhere ? " asked Cissy, scornfully.

"I 'd like to be a pirate some place where there are n't any policemen," Harry explained. " Down in Patagonia, or up in Greenland, or somewhere."

" They 'd be sure to send a big frigate after you," said Tom Paulding ; " they always do."

" Then I 'd fight the frigate till the deck ran with blood," persisted Harry, with a tone of excitement in his gentle voice. " I 'd nail the black flag to the mast ; and if they got the better of us I 'd fire the powder-magazine and blow up the whole boat — and that would surprise them, I reckon."

" It is n't the kind of surprise party I want," said Cissy emphatically, as the boys came to a halt among the trees near the railroad track by the edge of the river.

"How many pirates would there be on a boat like that?" inquired Lott.

"How many beans make five?" Cissy Smith answered sarcastically. " There 's a Boston problem for you."

Lott had been born in Boston, and he had lived in New York less than a year.

"I wish I knew a place where a pirate had buried his treasure/' he remarked, paying no attention to Smith's taunt.

" Now, there 's another thing that 's great fun," Harry interjected, " and that 's hunting for buried treasure. I Ve read all about that in a story called ' The Gold Bug.' It 's pretty interesting, I reckon, to dig under a tree with a skeleton or a skull on one branch, and to find thousands and thousands of guineas and doubloons and pieces-of-eight."

" Pieces of eight what ? " asked Cissy.

" Pieces-of-eight — why, that 's just the name they have for them. They 're some kind of a coin, I reckon," replied Harry.

" Pieces of eight cents, very likely," Cissy returned. " I don't believe it 's worth while wearing yourself out with hard labor just to dig up a few pieces of eight cents. And who would all these guineas and doubloons and pieces of eight cents belong to when you found 'em ? "