Dan thought he would be happy too, if he could only have so many fine things to call his own, but he could see no way to get them, and that made him angry.

He hated Don and Bert so heartily that he could never look at them without wishing that some evil might befall them.

He threatened to steal their horses, shoot their dogs, sink their boats, and do a host of other desperate things, believing that in this way he could render the two happy brothers as miserable as he was himself.
Godfrey and Dan lived in a most unenviable frame of mind for a year or more, and then the former one day happened to think of the barrel which old Jordan had told him was hidden in the potato-patch.

He spoke of it while the family were at dinner, and announced that he and Dan would begin the work of unearthing the BURIED TREASURE that very night.

If they didn't find it the first time they tried, they would go the next night; and they would keep on digging until they obtained possession of it, if they had to dig up the whole state of Mississippi.