The Slipper Point Mystery (novella)

CHAPTER I

THE ENCOUNTER

She sat on the prow of a beached rowboat, digging her bare toes in the sand.

There were many other rowboats drawn up on the shore, as well as a number of canoes and some sail-boats were anchored farther out. Also there was the pavilion and a long flight of wide wooden steps leading to it, for this was Carter's Landing, the only place on lovely little Manituck River where pleasure-boats could be hired. Down on the sand was a signboard which said:

CHILDREN MUST NOT PLAY IN THE BOATS

Nevertheless, she sat on the prow of one, this girl of fourteen, digging her bare toes aimlessly in the sand. She wore a blue skirt and a soiled middy-blouse, and had dark brown eyes and thick auburn hair, hanging down in a rope-like braid. Her face was freckled, and apart from her eyes and hair she was not pretty. By her side a tiny child of about three sat industriously sucking her thumb and staring contentedly out over the water.

"Stop sucking your thumb, Genevieve!" suddenly commanded the older girl. Whereupon the child hastily removed the offending member from her mouth.

Presently, from around the bend in the river, a red canoe shot into sight, paddled vigorously by a girl of fourteen or fifteen clad in a dazzlingly white and distinctly up-to-date Russian-blouse suit, her curly golden hair surmounted by a smart "tam." The girl of the bare toes eyed her speculatively, and unerringly placed her as a guest of "The Bluffs," the one fashionable and exclusive hotel on the river.

She beached the canoe skilfully, not three feet away from the occupied rowboat, and ran up the steps to the pavilion. In two minutes, however, she was back again, a box of expensive candy in her hand. But in front of the occupied rowboat she stopped, drawn, perhaps, by the need of companionship on this beautiful, but solitary, afternoon in early June.

"Have some?" she queried, proffering the open box of candy. The barefooted girl's eyes sparkled.

"Why—yes, thanks!" she hesitated, gingerly helping herself to a small bit. "You 're awfully kind."

"Oh, take a lot!" cried the girl in white, emptying a third of the box into the other's lap. "And give some to the baby. I'm awfully lonesome up there at that old hotel. Mother is n't very well, and likes to lie down a lot, and I just don't know what to do with myself. Won't you tell me your name?"

"Oh. I'm Sally—Sally Carter. It's a horrid name, is n't it? But my little sister's is pretty—Genevieve. Dad owns this landing, and that was my mother up at the candy counter. What's your name?"

"Doris Craig," replied the girl in white. "And I believe you 're as lonely as I am. or you would n't be sitting here all by yourselves—you and Genevieve. Won't you come and take a paddle in my canoe? We could put the baby in the middle. And you could tell me about the nice places on this river. I only came a day or two ago. Will you?"

The barefooted girl flushed deeply, in mingled delight and embarrassment. This was a new departure for a guest of "The Bluffs," none of whom had ever so much as deigned to notice her existence before. She could scarcely believe her ears. And she began to wish madly that she had put on a clean blouse and her shoes and stockings that afternoon.

"Why—why, I'd like it first rate." she faltered. "But we can't go in the canoe. It's too dangerous for Genevieve. But we could take old '45' if you like. It's a rowboat, and it's heavy, but Dad lets me use it in the off season sometimes."

Doris assented gladly to this change, and the three were soon shooting out into the stream, under the impetus of Sally's short, powerful, native strokes. A slight shyness held them silent for a time; but with the easy freemasonry of fourteen, they were soon busy exchanging the girlish details of their lives in home and school, work and recreation, while overhead the fish-hawks swooped and plunged, and from the shore was wafted the warm scent of the pines and the song of a robin, distantly sweet.

Presently Doris was drawn from personal details to a genuine admiration of the scene about her.

"This is a lovely place," she sighed ecstatically, cuddling Genevieve close to her on the stern seat. "I never in my life saw a prettier river. I suppose you know it all like a book, don't you, Sally? And I have n't seen anything more of it than this part right around the hotel and the Landing."

"Yes," acknowledged her companion. "We 've explored every inch of this river, Genevieve and I, 'cause we 've so little else to do. And I reckon we know something about one part of it, at least, that the oldest inhabitant here does n't know!" She made the latter statement so meaningly that Doris's ready curiosity was fired at once.

"Oh, what have you found out, Sally? Can't you tell me? I will never tell a soul."

But the acquaintance was evidently too new, and the secret too precious for the other to impart just yet. She only shook her head and replied:

"No, honestly, I somehow can't. It's Genevieve's secret and mine, and we 've promised we'd never tell a soul. Have n't we, Genevieve?" The baby gravely nodded, and Sally headed her boat for the wagon-bridge that crossed the upper part of the river. And Doris, too well bred to say another word on the subject, was nevertheless transformed thereby into a seething caldron of excitement and curiosity.

Sally headed the boat for the draw in the bridge, and in another few moments they had passed from the quiet, well-kept, bungalow-strewn shores of the lower river to the wild, tawny, uninhabited beauty of the upper. The change was very marked, and the wagon-bridge seemed to be the dividing line.

"How different the river is up here," remarked Doris. "Not a house nor a bungalow nor even a fisherman's shack in sight. Do you know, it made me think, when I passed under that bridge, of a part in 'The Ancient Mariner' that Father used to read me asleep to, every night:

"We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea."

Sally suddenly shipped her oars and stared amazedly into her companion's face.

"Do you know that poem?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Well, you 're the first person I ever met that did. We have it home in a big, book on the parlor table. It has lovely pictures in by a man named Doré! (She pronounced it Door'!) It was one of my mother's wedding-presents, but I don't believe another soul in our house ever read it but Genevieve and me. I love it, and Genevieve likes to look at the pictures. I know it all by heart."

"So do I—almost," echoed Doris, marveling that this ignorant little village-girl should be so well acquainted with her own favorite. And straightway they began comparing notes on other passages in the famous poem. The knowledge seemed to establish a bond between them. It drew Doris closer to this queer new companion, but it did even more for Sally. It made her feel that here she had found a friend she could instinctively trust, and in her heart she cast away all barriers between them.

"Listen, Doris." she said suddenly, after a long silence. "I'm going to tell you my secret!" And, at Doris's sudden start of astonishment, she went on:

"Yes, I 've made up my mind. To begin with, you never asked me again, after I said I could n't. Most girls would have teased me to pieces and then gone straight off and told it to some one else, if I'd been such a fool as to give in. I know you won't. Then, I felt somehow, first, that there was—such a big difference between us—well, that we just could n't be real friends. But now I don't feel that way about it. Do you understand?"

Doris nodded comprehendingly. "It's dear of you to do it, and I 'll just keep the secret as faithfully as you," was all she answered. But with that answer Sally seemed amply content.

"We 're coming to it in a moment," she announced. "Do you see that point ahead?"

Doris looked, and beheld a jut of land projecting several hundred feet into the tide, its end terminating in a long, golden sand-bar. Toward the shore, the land gently ascended in a pretty slope, crowned with velvety pines and cedars. The conformation of bar, slope, and trees gave the land a curious shape.

"They call that 'Slipper Point,' around here," Sally went on, "and—the secret is there!"

They beached the boat on the sand-bar and scrambled out, Doris' heart beating high with the sense of mysterious adventure, and Sally almost as much excited. Only Genevieve appeared to view the excursion with calmness.

Sally grasped her small sister's hand and led the way, Doris following closely in the rear. Along the tiny strip of beach on the far side of the point, where the river ate into the shore in a great sweeping cove, they turned their steps. After trudging along in this way for nearly a quarter of a mile, Sally suddenly struck up into the woods through a deep little ravine. It was a wild scramble through the dense underbrush and over the boughs of fallen pine-trees. Sally and Genevieve, more accustomed to the journey, managed to keep well ahead of Doris, who was scratching her hands freely and doing ruinous damage to her clothes, plunging through the thorny tangle. At last the two, who were a distance of not more than fifty feet ahead of her, halted, and Sally called out:

"Now stand where you are, turn your back to us and count ten—slowly! Don't turn round and look till you 've finished counting."

Doris obediently turned her back, and slowly and deliberately counted ten. Then she turned about again to face them.

To her complete amazement, there was not a trace of them to be seen!

Thinking they had merely slipped down and hidden in the undergrowth, to tease her, she scrambled to the spot where they had stood. But they were not there. She had, moreover, heard no sound of their progress, no snapping, cracking, or breaking of branches, no swish of trailing through the vines and high grass. They could not have advanced twenty feet in any direction in the short time she had been looking away from them. Of both these facts she was certain. Yet they had disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them. Where, in the name of all mystery, could they be?

Doris stood and studied the situation for several moments. But as they were plainly nowhere in her vicinity, she presently concluded she must have been mistaken in thinking they had not had time to get farther away.

So she determined to extend her search, and, as she pursued her difficult quest, she became constantly more involved in the thick undergrowth, and more scratched and disheveled every moment, till at length she stood at the top of the bluff. From this point she could see in every direction, but not a vestige of Sally and Genevieve appeared. More bewildered than ever, Doris clambered back to the spot where she had last seen them. And as there was plainly now no other course, she stood where she was and called aloud:

"Sally! Sal-ly! I give it up. Where in the world are you?"

There was a low, chuckling laugh, directly behind her, and whirling about, she beheld Sally's laughing face peeping out from an aperture in the tangled growth that she was positive she had not noticed there before.

"Come right in!" cried Sally, "and I won't keep it a secret any longer. Did you guess it was anything like this?"

She pushed a portion of the undergrowth back a little farther, and Doris scrambled in through the opening. No sooner was she within than Sally closed the opening with a swift motion, and they were all suddenly submerged in inky darkness.

"Wait a moment," she commanded, "and I 'll make a light."

Doris heard her fumbling for something, then the scratch of a match and the flare of a lighted candle.

With an indrawn breath of wordless wonder, Doris looked about her. "Why, it's a room!" she gasped, "a little room all made right in this hillside. How did it ever come here? How did you ever find it?"

It was, indeed, the rude semblance of a room. About nine feet square and seven high, its walls, floor, and ceiling were finished in rough planking of some kind of timber, now covered in many places with mold and fungus growths. Across one end was a low wooden structure, evidently meant for a bed, with what had once been a straw mattress on it. There was, likewise, a rudely constructed chair, and a small table on which were the rusted remains of a tin platter, a knife and spoon. There was also a metal candlestick, in which was the candle recently lit by Sally. It was a strange, weird little scene in the dim candle-light, and for a time Doris could make nothing of its riddle.

"What is it? What does it all mean, Sally?" she exclaimed, gazing about her with awe-struck eyes.

"I don't know much more about it than you do," Sally averred; "but I 've done some guessing!" she ended significantly.

"But how did you ever come to discover it?" cried Doris, off on another tack. "I could have searched Slipper Point for years and never have come across this."

"Well, it was just an accident," Sally admitted. "You see, Genevieve and I have n't much to do most of the time but roam around by ourselves, so we 've managed to poke into most of the places along the shore, the whole length of this river, one time and another. It was last fall when we discovered this. We'd climbed down here one day, just poking around looking for beech-plums and things, and right about here I caught my foot in a vine and went down on my face right into that lot of vines and things. I threw out my hands to catch myself, and instead of coming against the sand and dirt, as I'd expected, something gave way, and, when I looked, there was nothing at all there but a hole.

"Of course, I poked away at it some more, and found that there was a layer of planking back of the sand. That seemed mighty odd, so I pushed the vines away and banged some more at the opening, and it suddenly gave way. because the boards were so old, I guess, and I found this!"

Doris sighed ecstatically. "What a perfectly glorious adventure! And what did you do then?"

"Well," went on Sally, simply, "although I could n't make very much out of what it all was, I decided that we'd keep it for our secret, Genevieve and I, and we would n't let another soul know about it. So we pulled the vines and things over the opening the best we could; and we came up next day and brought some boards and a hammer and nails—and a candle. Then I fixed up the broken boards of this opening,—you see it works like a door, only the outside is covered with vines and things so you'd never see it,—and I got an old padlock from Dad's boat-house, and I screwed it on the outside so's I could lock it up, besides, and covered the padlock with vines and sand. Nobody'd ever dream there was such a place here, and I guess nobody ever has, either. That's my secret."

"But, Sally!" exclaimed Doris, "how did it ever come here to begin with? Who made it? It must have some sort of history."

"There you 've got me!" answered Sally.

"Some one must have stayed here," mused Doris, half to herself. "And what's more, they must have hidden here, or why should they have taken such trouble to keep it from being discovered?"

"Yes, they 've hidden here, right enough," agreed Sally. "It's the best hiding-place any one ever had, I should say. But the question is, what did they hide here for?"

"And also," added Doris, "if they were hiding, how could they make such a room as this, all finished with wooden walls, without being seen doing it? Where could they have got the planks?"

"Do you know what that timber is?" asked Sally.

"Why, of course not," laughed Doris, "how should I?"

"Well, I do," said her companion. "I know something about lumber, because Dad builds boats and he's shown me. I scratched the mold off one place,—here it is,—and I discovered that this planking is real, seasoned oak, such as they build the best ships of. And do you know where I think it came from? Some wrecked vessel down on the beach. There's plenty of them cast up, off and on, and always have been."

"But gracious!" cried Doris, "how did it get here?"

"Don't ask me," replied Sally. "The beach is miles away."

They stood for some moments in silence, each striving to piece together, from the meager facts they saw about them, the story of the strange little retreat.

At last Doris spoke.

"Sally," she asked, "was this all you found here? Was there absolutely nothing else?"

Sally started, as if surprised at the question, and hesitated a moment. "No," she acknowledged finally. "There was something else. I was n't going to tell you right away, but I might as well now. I found this under this the mattress of the bed."

She went over to the straw pallet, lifted it, searched a moment, and, turning, placed something in Doris's hands.

 

CHAPTER II

MYSTERY

Doris received the object from Sally, and stood looking at it by the light of the candle It was a small, square, flat, tin receptacle of some kind, rusted and moldy, and about four inches long and wide. Its thickness was probably not more than a quarter of an inch.

"What in the world is it?" she questioned wonderingly.

"Open it and see!" answered Sally. Doris pried it open with some difficulty. It contained only a scrap of paper, which fitted exactly into its space. The paper was brown with age and stained beyond belief. But on its surface could be dimly discerned a strange and inexplicable design.

"Of all things!" breathed Doris, in an awe-struck voice. "This certainly is a mystery, Sally. What do you make of it?"

"I don't make anything of it," Sally averred. "That's just the trouble. I can't imagine what it means. I 've studied and studied over it all winter, and it does n't seem to mean a single thing."

It was indeed a curious thing, this scrap of stained, worn paper, hidden for who knew how many years in a tin box underground. For the riddle on the paper was this:

"Well, I give it up!" declared Doris, after she bad stared at it for several more silent moments. "It's the strangest puzzle I ever saw. But, do you know, Sally, I'd like to take it home and study it out at my leisure. I always was crazy about puzzles, and I'd enjoy working over this, even if I never made anything out of it. Do you think it would harm to remove it from here?"

"I don't suppose it would," Sally replied; "but somehow I don't like to change anything here, or take anything away, even for a little while. But you can study it out all you wish, though, for I made a copy of it a good while ago, so's I could study it myself. I usually have it with me. Here it is."

And Sally pulled from her pocket a duplicate of the strange design, made in her own handwriting.

At this point Genevieve suddenly became restless, and, clinging to Sally's skirts, demanded to "go out and play in the boat."

"She does n't like to stay in here very long," explained Sally.

"Well, I don't wonder!" declared Doris. "It's dark and dreary and weird. It makes me feel kind of curious and creepy myself. But, oh! it's a glorious secret, Sally the strangest and most wonderful I ever heard of. Why, it's a regular adventure to have found such a thing as this! But let's go out and sit in the boat and let Genevieve paddle. Then we can talk it all over and see whether we can make anything out of this puzzle."

Sally returned the tin box and its contents to the hiding-place under the mattress. Then she blew out the candle, remarking, as she did so, that she'd brought a lot of candles and matches and always kept them there. In the pall of darkness that fell on them, she groped for the entrance, pushed it open, and they all scrambled out into the daylight. After that, she padlocked the opening and buried the key in the sand near by and announced herself ready to return to the boat.

During the remainder of that sunny afternoon they sat together in the stern of the boat, golden head and auburn one bent in consultation over the strange combination of letters and figures, while Genevieve, barefooted, paddled in silent ecstasy in the shallow water rippling over the bar.

"Sally," exclaimed Doris, at length, suddenly straightening and looking her companion in the eyes, "I believe you have some idea about all this that you have n't told me yet! Several remarks you 've dropped make me think so. Now, honestly, have n't you? What do you believe is the secret of this cave and this queer jumble of letters and things, anyway?"

Sally, thus faced, could no longer deny the truth. "Yes," she acknowledged. "there is something I 've thought of, and something else I have n't told you about, too. I was scraping the old moss and stuff off of one of those oak planks one day, just to see what was underneath, and all at once I came on the words, in raised letters, just as they have them on the sterns of vessels:

THE ANNE ARUNDEL

ENGLAND, 1843

Then I knew. Some one had made this cave from the wreck of that vessel, and do you know what I was sure it must have been? Pirates!"

Doris almost tumbled out of the boat in her wonder at hearing this curious solution.

"But it was n't that, after all," went on Sally. "For I asked Grandfather (he's awfully old, nearly ninety!) if he remembered anything about a vessel called the Anne Arundel. And he knew all about how she was wrecked here, one time, and even helped to rescue the people. She was n't a pirate ship at all. But he said a queer thing about her, and that was that her timbers lay about on the beach for two or three months, and then suddenly they all disappeared in one night, and nobody could make out where they'd gone, for there had n't been any storm, or high tide, or that kind of thing. They'd just gone! But he got to telling me something else that gave me my idea. He said there used to be a lot of smugglers around here, who used to work a little farther down the coast. They would run in to some of the small rivers with a schooner they had, hide in an old deserted house the goods they'd taken off the big ocean vessels, and sell them afterward. By and by the government officers got after them and caught them all."

She stopped significantly, but Doris did not appear to see the connection.

"But don't you see?" she continued. "It's as plain as can be. This is a smuggler's cave, made from those old timbers, and somewhere about it is hidden the treasure, whatever it is, and that bit of paper, if we could make anything out of it, is to tell just where to get at it. Probably the smugglers all got caught somewhere, and never got back to their treasure, and never told where it was. Now you know all my secret!"

The magnitude of the thing was so overpowering to Doris that she could make no adequate reply, and only stammered brokenly:

"Oh, Sally—it's wonderful. It's the strangest secret I ever heard of a girl having. Thank you—a thousand times—for letting me into it. Perhaps,—who knows?—we can puzzle it out together!"

CHAPTER III

ROUNDTREE'S

It was the beginning of a close friendship for the two girls. Morning, noon, and evening, during the ensuing month, were they together, always accompanied by Genevieve, who seemed to be entirely in Sally's charge. They exchanged ideas and thoughts, hopes and expectations, on many subjects, but chiefly were they concerned with the curious secret that Sally had imparted on that first memorable day.

Slipper Point was ever the goal of their excursions, and many an hour they spent poring over the strange and cryptic old paper that was evidently the key to all their hopes. But for several weeks they could make nothing of it, turn and twist it as they would. It was Doris, at last, who confided to Sally, one morning, in considerable excitement, that she thought she'd struck something at last.

"I'm not really certain," she declared, "but it just occurred to me that the fact of its being square and the little cave also being square might have some connection. Suppose the floor were divided into squares, just as this paper is. Now, do you notice one thing? Read the letters in their order up from the left hand diagonally. It reads, r-i-g-h-t-s-. and the last square is blank. Now why could n't that mean 'right,' and the last 's' stand for 'square,'—'right square' being that blank one in the extreme corner? All the rest of those letters and figures might then be just a blind, or to fill up the spaces. But I 've noticed this, too. You see the outside lines of squares that lead up to the empty square are just numbers—not letters at all. Now I 've added the number of each line together, and find that the sum of each side is exactly twenty-one. Why would n't it be possible that it means the sides of this empty square are twenty-one—something—inches probably, in length, measured of course, on the floor of the cave. I think the treasure lies in one corner of the cave, in a space twenty-one inches square."

"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Sally, enthusiastically. "I believe you 've struck it, Doris. Let's go up and look it over right now." They jumped into old "45" without an instant's delay, bundling Genevieve unceremoniously into the stern, and were off in a jiffy.

But their hopes were doomed to considerable disappointment, after a careful examination of the cave. No corner of the flooring exhibited the least trace of anything suggestive, and Sally finally rendered the following disgusted opinion:

"If it's anywhere, it's buried under the boards, I suppose, and they 'll just have to be sawed in two. We 'll come up here to-morrow with some of Dad's tools and begin on it; but it 'll be some piece of work, if you believe me!"

And as there seemed nothing more to be said on the subject, they filed disconsolately out and began roaming about aimlessly in the pine grove at the summit of Slipper Point. Presently, after a long silence, Doris exclaimed:

"Do you realize, Sally, that I 've never yet explored a bit of this region above ground with you? I 've never seen a thing except this bit right about the cave. Why not take me all around here for a way. It might be quite interesting."

Sally looked both surprised and scornful. "There's nothing at all to see around here that's a bit interesting," she declared. "There's just this pine grove and the underbrush, and back there, quite a way back, is an old country road. It is n't even worth getting all hot and tired going to see."

"Well, I don't care, I want to see it!" insisted Doris. "I somehow have a feeling that it would be worth while. And if you are too tired to come with me, I 'll go by myself. You and Genevieve can rest here."

"No, I want to go wis Dowis!" declared Genevieve, scenting a new diversion.

"Well, I 'll go too," laughed Sally. "I'm not as lazy as all that; but I warn you, you won't find anything worth the trouble."

They set off together, scrambling through the scrub-oak and bay-bushes, stopping now and then to pick and devour wild strawberries or gather a great handful of sassafras to chew. All the while Doris gazed about her curiously, asking every now and then a seemingly irrelevant question of Sally.

"‘WHY IT'S A ROOM!' SHE GASPED

Presently they emerged from the pine woods and crossed a field covered only with wild blackberry-vines, still bearing their white blossoms. At the farther edge of this field they came upon a sandy road. It wound away in a hot ribbon, till a turn hid it from sight, and the heat of the morning tempted them no farther to explore it.

"This is the road I spoke of," explained Sally, with an "I-told-you-so" expression. "You see it is n't anything at all, only an old back road leading to Manituck. Nobody much comes this way if they can help it—it's so sandy."

"But what's that old house there?" demanded Doris, pointing to an ancient, tumble-down structure not far away. "And is n't it the queerest looking place, one part so gone to pieces and unkept, and that other little wing all nicely fixed up and neat and comfortable!"

It was indeed an odd combination. The structure was a large, old-fashioned farm-house, evidently of a period dating well back in the nineteenth century. The main part had fallen into disuse, as was quite evident from the closed and shuttered windows, the peeling, blistered paint, the unkempt air of being not inhabited. But a tiny ell at one side bore an aspect as different from the main building as could well be imagined. It had lately received a coat of fresh white paint. Its windows were wide opened and daintily curtained with some pretty, but inexpensive, material; the little patch of flower garden in front was trim and orderly.

"I don't understand it," went on Doris. "What place is it?"

"Oh, that's only Roundtree's," answered Sally, indifferently. "That's old Miss Roundtree now, coming from the back. She lives there all alone."

As she was speaking, the person in question came into view from around the back of the house, a basket of vegetables in her hand. She had evidently just been picking them in the vegetable garden, a portion of which was visible at the side of the house. She sat down presently on her tiny front porch, removed her large sunbonnet, and began to sort them over. From their vantage-point behind some tall bushes at the roadside, the girls could watch her unobserved.

"I like her looks," whispered Doris, after a moment. "Who is she, and why does she live in this queer little place?"

"I told you her name was Roundtree—Miss Camilla Roundtree," replied Sally. "Most folks around here call her old Miss Camilla. She's awfully poor, though they say her folks were quite rich at one time, and she's quite deaf, too. That big old place was her father's, and I s'pose it's hers now, but she can't afford to keep it up, she has so little money. So she just lives in that small part, and she knits for a living—caps and sweaters and things like that. She does knit beautifully and gets quite a good many orders, especially in summer; but even so, it hardly brings her in enough to live on. She's kind of queer, too, folks think. But I don't see why you 're interested in her."

"I like her looks," answered Doris. "She has a fine face. Somehow she seems to me like a lady—a real lady."

"Well, she sort of puts on airs, folks think, and don't care to associate with everybody," admitted Sally. "But she's awfully good and kind, too. Goes and nurses people when they 're sick or have any trouble, and never charges for it, and all that sort of thing. But, at the same time, she always seems to want to be by herself. She reads lots, too, and has no end of old books. They say they were her father's. Once she lent me one or two, when I went to get her to make a sweater for Genevieve."

"Oh, do you know her?" cried Doris. "How interesting!"

"Why yes, of course I know her. Every one does around here. But I don't see anything very interesting about it."

To tell the truth. Sally was quite puzzled by Doris's absorption in the subject. It was Genevieve who broke the spell.

"I's sirsty!" she moaned. "I want a djink. I want Miss Camilla to gi' me a djink!"

"Come on!" cried Doris to Sally. "If you know her, we can easily go over and ask her for a drink. I'm crazy to meet her."

Still wondering, Sally led the way over to the tiny garden, and the three proceeded up the path toward Miss Roundtree.

"Why, good morning!" exclaimed that lady, looking up. Her voice was very soft, and a little toneless, as is often the case with the deaf.

"Good morning!" answered Sally in rather a loud tone, and, a trifle awkwardly, presented Doris. But there was no awkwardness in the manner with which Miss Camilla acknowledged the new acquaintance. Indeed, it was suggestive of an old-time courtesy, now growing somewhat rare. And Doris had a chance to gaze, at closer range, on the fine, high-bred face framed in its neatly parted gray hair.

"Might Genevieve have a drink?" asked Doris, at length. "She seems to be very thirsty."

"Why, assuredly!" exclaimed Miss Camilla. "Come inside, all of you, and rest in the shade." So they trooped indoors into Miss Camilla's tiny sitting-room, while she herself disappeared into the still tinier kitchen at the back. While she was gone, Doris gazed about with a new wonder and admiration in her eyes.

The room was speckless in its cleanliness, and full of many obvious home-made contrivances and makeshifts. Yet there were two or three beautiful pieces of old mahogany furniture, of a satiny finish and ancient date. And on the mantel stood one marvelous little piece of china that, even to Doris's untrained eye, gave evidence of being a rare and costly bit. But Miss Camilla was now coming back, bearing a tray on which stood three glasses of water, a plate of cookies, and three little dishes of delicious strawberries.

"You children must be hungry after your long morning's excursion," she said. "Try these strawberries of mine. They have just come from the garden."

Doris thought she had never tasted anything more delightful than that impromptu little repast. And when it was over she asked Miss Camilla a question, for she had been chatting with her all through it, in decided contrast to the rather embarrassed silence of Sally.

"What is that beautiful little vase, Miss Roundtree, may I ask? I 've been admiring it."

A wonderful light shone suddenly in Miss Camilla's eyes. Here, it was plain, was her hobby.

"That's a Sèvres of the Louis XV period," she explained, patting it lovingly. "It is marvelous, is n't it, and all I have left of a very pretty collection. It was my passion once, this china, and I had the means to indulge it. But they are all gone now, all but this one. I used to carry it about with me wherever I traveled. I shall never part with it." The light died out of her eyes as she placed the precious piece back on the mantel.

"Good-by! Come again!" she called after them, as they took their departure. "I always enjoy talking to you children."

When they had retraced their way to the boat, pushed off, and were making all speed for the hotel, Sally suddenly turned to Doris and demanded: "Why in the world are you so interested in Miss Camilla? I 've known her all my life, and I never talked so much to her in all that time as you did this morning."

"Well, to begin with," replied Doris, shipping her oars and facing her friend for a moment, "I think she's a lovely and interesting person. But there's something else beside." She stopped abruptly, and Sally, filled with curiosity, demanded impatiently: "Well?"

Doris's reply almost caused her to lose her oars in her astonishment.

"I think she knows all about that cave!"

(To be continued)

CHAPTER IV.

BEHIND THE OAK PLANK

"Well, for gracious sake!" was all Sally could reply to this astonishing remark. And, a moment later, "How on earth do you know?"

But Doris' reply to this query was even more astonishing: "Don't ask me, Sally, at least not just yet. And I want to talk with your grandfather as soon as possible—this very afternoon." And, in response to an imploring look in Sally's eyes: "It was the little Sèvres vase that set me to thinking. I happen to know just a tiny bit about old porcelains, because my own grandfather is interested in them and has done quite a bit of collecting. It was that—and the way she spoke. Now do be a dear and not ask me to explain just now!"

And falling in with her wish, Sally was silent.

Two o'clock that same afternoon found the girls at the Landing, which was always deserted at that hour save for the presence of old Captain Carter, seated in his accustomed corner, his wooden leg resting on another chair. Flattered by an audience at that unusual time of day, he was only too ready to talk. After a desultory conversation on other matters, Doris suddenly made the following (apparently) unpremeditated remark:

"I wonder why some people about here keep a part of their houses all nicely fixed up and live in that part and let the rest get all run down and fall to pieces?"

The old sea-captain pricked up his ears.

"Who do that, I'd like to know?" he snorted. "I hain't seen any of 'em!"

"Well, I passed a place this morning, and it looked that way," Doris went on. "I thought maybe it was customary in these parts."

"Where was it?" demanded the captain, on the defensive for his native region.

"’Way up the river," she answered, indicating the direction of Slipper Point.

"Oh, that!" he exclaimed in patent relief. "That's only Miss Roundtree's, and I guess you won't see another like it in a month of Sundays."

"Who is she and why does she do it?" asked Doris, with a great (and this time real) show of interest.

And thus, finding what his soul delighted in, a willing and interested listener, Captain Carter launched into a history and description of Miss Camilla Roundtree. He had told all that Sally had already imparted, when Doris broke in with some skilfully directed questions.

"How do you suppose she lost all her money?"

"Blest if I know, or any one else either!" he grunted. "And what's more. I don't believe she lost it at all. I think it was her father and her brother before her that did the trick. They were great folks around here, 'high and mighty,' we called 'em. Nobody among us down at the village was good enough for 'em. This here Miss Camilla,—her mother died when she was a baby,—she used to spend most of her time in New York with a wealthy aunt. Some swell, she was. Used to go with her aunt pretty nigh every year to Europe, and we did n't set eyes on her once in a blue moon. Her father and brother had a fine farm and were making money, but she did n't care for this here life.

"Well, one time she come back from Europe and things did n't seem to be going right down here at her place. I don't know what it was, but there were queer things whispered about the two men-folks and all the money seemed to be gone suddenly, too. I was away at the time on a three years' cruise, so I did n't hear nothin' about it till long after. But they say the brother he disappeared and never came back and the father died suddenly of apoplexy or something, and Miss Camilla was left to shift for herself, on a farm mortgaged pretty nigh up to the hilt.

"She was a bright woman as ever was made, though; I 'll say that for her, and she kept her head in the air and took to teaching school. She taught right good, too, for a number of years, and got the mortgages off the farm. And then, all of a sudden, she began to get deaf like, and could n't go on teaching. Then she took to selling off a lot of their land lying round, and got through somehow on that for a while. But times got harder and living higher priced, and finally she had to give up trying to keep the whole thing decent, and just scrooged herself into those little quarters in the ell. She's made a good fight, but she never would come down off her high horse nor ask for any help nor let anyone into what had come to her folks."

"How long ago did all that happen?" asked Doris.

"Oh, about forty or fifty years, I should think," he replied, after a moment's thought. "Yes, fifty or more, at least."

"You say they owned a lot of land around their farm?" interrogated Doris, casually.

"Surest thing! One time old Caleb Roundtree owned pretty nigh the whole side of the river up that way, but he'd sold off a lot of it himself before he died. She owned a good patch for a while, though, several hundred acres, I guess. But she hain't got nothin' but what lies right around the house, now."

"Did n't you ever hear what happened to the brother?" demanded Doris.

"Never a thing. He dropped out of life here as neatly and completely as if he'd suddenly been dropped into the sea. And by the time I'd got back from my voyage, the nine days' wonder about it all was over, and I never could find out any more on the subject. Never was particularly interested to, either. Miss Camilla hain't nothing to me. She's always kept to herself and most folks have almost forgotten who she is."

As the captain had evidently reached the end of his information on the subject, Doris let the talk drift into other topics, and after a while the girls took their departure.

"Well, what did you find out?" demanded Sally, eagerly, as soon as they were out of earshot. "Anything?"

"Yes," said Doris, gravely. "I did. He told us enough to make me sure I'm right—almost sure, that is. Only one thing I can't seem to fit into it. I think Miss Camilla has had trouble in her family—awful trouble somewhere, probably connected with that brother who disappeared so mysteriously. Perhaps he did something wrong—stole or embezzled money or forged checks or something, and had to hide away, probably in that cave. And she knew all about it and kept him there till he could escape after the trouble blew over. And, if that's the case, Sally—" she stopped impressively for a second, "we ought never to enter that cave again or do another thing toward trying to find out the secret. It would n't be fair to Miss Camilla."

"Oh—Doris!" was Sally's protesting cry as she received this blow to all her treasure-hunting hopes.

"Wait a moment, though," went on Doris. "There's just one thing that makes me think I might be mistaken. It's that paper. I just can't seem to make it fit into things anywhere, if this is so. And just because it does n't seem to fit, I think we might give that plan of ours one try—saw out the corners of the cave, as we thought, and see if we find anything hidden there. If we don't, then the smuggler theory is all wrong, and the other right, and we 'll never go near it again. Do you agree?"

Sally did, most emphatically.

"Then we 'll go up to-morrow morning and try it out."

They set out on the following morning. Elaborate preparations had been made for the undertaking; and so that they might have ample time undisturbed, Doris had begged her mother to allow her to picnic for the day with Sally and not come back to the hotel for luncheon. As Mrs. Craig had come to have quite a high opinion of Sally, her judgment and knowledge of the river and vicinity, she felt no hesitation in trusting Doris's safety to her.

Sally had provided the sandwiches, and Doris was armed with fruit and candy and books to amuse Genevieve. In the bow of the boat, Sally had stowed away a number of tools borrowed from her father's boat-house. Altogether, the two girls felt as excited and mysterious and adventurous as could well be imagined.

"I wish we could have left Genevieve at home," whispered Sally, as they were embarking. "But there's no one to take care of her for all day, so of course it was impossible. But I'm afraid she's going to get awfully tired and restless while we 're working."

"Oh, never you fear!" Doris encouraged her. "I 've brought a few new picture books and we 'll manage to keep her amused somehow."

"CAPTAIN CARTER LAUNCHED INTO A HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF MISS CAMILLA ROUNDTREE"

Once established in the cave, and Genevieve settled with a hook, the girls set to work in earnest.

"I'm glad I thought to bring a dozen more candles," said Sally. "We were down to the end of the last one. Now shall we begin on that corner at the extreme right hand away from the door? That's the likeliest place. I 'll measure a space around it twenty-one inches square."

She measured off the space on the floor carefully with a folding ruler, while Doris stood over her, watching with critical eyes. Then, having drawn the lines with a piece of chalk, Sally proceeded to begin on the sawing operation with one of her father's old and somewhat rusty saws.

It was a heartbreakingly slow operation. Turn and turn about they worked away, encouraging each other with cheering remarks. The planks of the old Anne Arundel were very thick and astonishingly tough. At the end of an hour they had but one side of the square sawn through, and Genevieve was beginning to grow fractious. Then they planned it that, while one worked, the other should amuse the youngest member of the party by talking, singing, and showing pictures to her.

This worked well for a time, and a second side at last was completed. By the time they reached the third, however, Genevieve flatly refused to remain in the cave another moment, so it was agreed that one of them should take her outside while the other remained within and sawed. This proved by far the best solution yet, as Genevieve very shortly fell asleep on the warm pine-needles. They covered her with a shawl, and then both went back to the undertaking, of which they were now, unconfessedly, very weary.

It was shortly after the noon hour when the saw made its way through the fourth side of the square. In a hush of breathless expectation, they lifted the piece of timber, prepared for—who could tell what wondrous secret beneath it?

The space it left was absolutely empty of the slightest suggestion of anything remarkable. It revealed the sandy soil of the embankment into which the cave was dug, and nothing else whatever. The disgusted silence that followed, Doris was the first to break.

"Of course, something may be buried down here, but I doubt it awfully. I'm sure we'd have seen some sign of it, if this had been the right corner. However, give me that trowel, Sally, and we 'll dig down a way." She dug for almost a foot into the damp sand, and finally gave it up.

"How could any one go on digging down in the space of only twenty-one inches?" she exclaimed in despair. "If one were to dig at all, the space ought to be much larger. No, this very plainly is n't the right corner. Let's go outside and eat our lunch, and then, if we have any courage left, we can come back and begin on another corner. Personally, I feel as if I should scream if I had to put my hand to that old saw again."

But a hearty luncheon and, after it, a half-hour of idling in the sunlight above ground, served to restore their courage and determination. Sally was positive that the corner diagonally opposite was the one most likely to yield results, and Doris was inclined to agree with her. Genevieve, however, flatly refused to re-enter the cave, so they were forced to adopt the scheme of the morning, one remaining always outdoors with her, as they did not dare let her roam around by herself. Sally volunteered to take the first shift at the sawing, and after they had measured off the twenty-one inch square in the opposite corner she set to work, while Doris stayed outside with Genevieve.

Seated with a picture-book open on her lap, and Genevieve cuddled close by her side, she was suddenly startled by a muffled, excited cry from within the cave. Obviously, something had happened. Springing up, she hurried inside, Genevieve trailing after her. She beheld Sally standing in the middle of the cave, candle in hand, dishevelled and excited, pointing to the side near which she had been working.

"Look, look!" she cried. "What did I tell you?" Doris looked, expecting to see something about the floor in the corner to verify their surmises, the sight that met her eyes was as different as possible from that.

A part of the wall of the cave, three feet in width and reaching from top to bottom, had opened and swung outward, like a door on its hinges.

"What is it?" she breathed, in a tone of real awe.

"It's a door, just as it looks!" explained Sally, "and we never even guessed it was there. I happened to be leaning against that part of the wall as I sawed, balancing myself against it, and sometimes pushing pretty hard. All of a sudden it gave way, and swung out like that, and I almost tumbled in. I was so astonished I hardly knew what had happened."

"But what's behind it?" cried Doris, snatching the candle and hurrying forward to investigate. They peered together into the blackness back of the newly revealed door, the candle held high above their heads.

"Why, it's a tunnel!" exclaimed Sally. "A great, long tunnel winding away. I can't even see how far it goes. Did you ever?"

The two girls stood looking at each other and at the opening in a maze of incredulous speculation. Suddenly Sally uttered a satisfied cry.

"I know! I know, now! We never could think where all the rest of the wood from the Anne Arundel went. It's right here." It was evidently true. The tunnel had been lined, top and bottom and often at the sides, with the same planking that had lined the cave, and at intervals there were stout posts supporting the roof of it. Well and solidly had it been constructed in that long-ago period, else it would never have remained intact so many years.

"Doris," said Sally presently, "where do you suppose this leads to?"

"I have n't the faintest idea," replied her friend, "except that it probably leads to the treasure, or the secret, or whatever it is. That much I'm certain of now."

"So am I," agreed Sally; "but here's the important thing—are we to go in there and find it?"

Doris shrank back an instant. "Oh, I don't know!" she faltered. "I'm not sure whether I dare to—or whether Mother would allow me to—if she knew. It—it might be dangerous. Something might give way and bury us alive."

"Well, I 'll tell you what I 'll do," announced Sally courageously. "I 'll take a candle and go in a way by myself and see what it's like. You stay here with Genevieve, and I 'll keep calling back to you, so you need n't worry about me." Before Doris could argue the question with her, she lighted another candle and stepped bravely into the gloom.

Doris, at the opening, watched her progress nervously, till a turn in the tunnel hid her from sight.

"Oh, Sally, do come back!" she called. "I can't stand this suspense."

"I'm all right," Sally shouted back. "After that turn it goes on straight for the longest way. I can't see the end. But it's perfectly safe. the planks are as strong as iron yet. There is n't a sign of a cave-in. I'm coming back in a moment." She presently reappeared.

"Look here," she demanded, facing her companion. "Are you game to come with me? We can bring Genevieve along. It's perfectly safe. If you 're not, you can stay here with her and I 'll go by myself. I'm determined to see the end of this."

Her resolution fired Doris. After all, it could not be so very dangerous, since the tunnel seemed in such good repair. Forgetting all else in her enthusiasm, she hastily consented.

"We must take plenty of candles and matches," declared Sally. "We would n't want to be left in the dark in there. It's lucky I brought a lot to-day. You Genevieve, you behave yourself and come along like a good girl, and we 'll buy you some lollypops when we get back home."

Genevieve was plainly reluctant to add her presence to the undertaking, but, neither, on the other hand, did she wish to be left behind, so she followed disapprovingly.

Each with a candle lit, they stepped down from the floor of the cave and gingerly progressed along the narrow way. Doris determinedly turned her eyes from the slugs and snails and strange insects that could be seen on the ancient planking, and kept them fastened on Sally's back as she led the way. On and on they went, silent, awe-stricken, and wondering. Genevieve whimpered and clung to Doris's skirts, but no one paid any attention to her, so she was forced to follow on, willy-nilly.

So far did this strange, underground passage proceed, that Doris half-whispered: "Is it never going to end, Sally? Ought we to venture any further?"

"I'm going to the end!" announced Sally, stubbornly. "You can go back if you like."

And they all went on again in silence.

At length it was evident that the end was in sight, for the way was suddenly blocked by a stone wall, apparently, directly across the passage. They all drew a long breath and approached to examine it more closely. It was unmistakably a wall of stones, cemented like the foundation of a house, and beyond it they could not proceed.

"What are we going to do now?" demanded Doris.

"The treasure must be here," said Sally, "and I 've found one thing that opened when you pushed against it. May be this is another. Let's try. Perhaps it's behind one of these stones. Look! the plaster seems to be loose around these in the middle." She thrust the weight of her strong young arm against it, directing it at the middle stone of three large ones, but without avail. They never moved the fraction of an inch. Then she began to push all along the sides where the plaster seemed loose. At last she threw her whole weight against it—and was rewarded.

The three stones swung round, as on a pivot, revealing a space only large enough to crawl through with considerable squeezing.

"Hurrah! hurrah!" she shouted. "What did I tell you, Doris? There's something else behind here,—another cave, I guess. I'm going through. Are you going to follow?"

Handing her candle to Doris, she scrambled through the narrow opening. And Doris, now determined to stick at nothing, set both candles on the ground, and pushed the struggling and resisting Genevieve in next. After that, she passed in the candles to Sally, who held them while Doris clambered in herself.

And once safely within, they stood and stared about them.

"Why, Sally!" suddenly breathed Doris, "this is n't a cave. It's a cellar! Don't you see all the household things lying around? Garden tools, and vegetables, and—and all that? Where in the world can we be?"

A great light suddenly dawned on her. "Sally Carter, what did I tell you? This cellar is Miss Camilla's. I know it. I'm certain of it. There's no other house any where near Slipper Point. I told you she knew about that cave!"

Sally listened, open-mouthed. "It can't be!" she faltered. "I'm sure we did n't come in that direction at all."

"You can't tell how you 're going—underground," retorted Doris. "Remember, the tunnel made a turn, too. Oh, Sally! Let's go back at once, before anything is discovered, and never, never let Miss Camilla or any one know what we 've found. It's none of our business."

Sally, now convinced, was about to assent, when Genevieve suddenly broke forth.

"I won't go back! I won't go back—in that dark place!" she announced, at the top of her lungs.

"Oh, stop her!" whispered Doris. "Do stop her, or Miss Camilla may hear." Sally stifled her resisting sister by the simple process of placing her hand forcibly over her mouth—but it was too late. A door opened at the top of a flight of steps, and Miss Camilla's astounded face appeared in the opening.

"What is it? Who is it?" she called, obviously frightened to death herself at this unprecedented intrusion.

Huddled in a corner, they all shrank back for a moment, then Doris stepped forward.

'It's only ourselves. Miss Camilla," she announced. "We have done a very dreadful thing, and we had n't any right to do it. But, if you 'll let us come upstairs, we 'll explain it all, and beg your pardon, and promise never to speak of it or even think of it again."

She led the others up the cellar steps, and into Miss Camilla's tiny, tidy kitchen. Here, still standing, she explained the whole situation to that lady, who was still too overcome with astonishment to utter a word. And she ended her explanation thus:

"So you see, we did n't have the slightest idea we were going to end at this house. But, all the same, we sort of felt that this cave was a secret of yours and that we really had n't any right to be interfering with it. But won't you please forgive us, this time, Miss Camilla? And we 'll really try to forget that it ever existed."

And then Miss Camilla suddenly found words. "My dear children," she stuttered, "I—I really don't know what you 're talking about. I have n't the faintest idea what this all means. I never knew till this minute that there was anything like a cave or a tunnel connected with this house!"

And in the astounded silence that followed, the three stood gaping, open-mouthed, at each other.

CHAPTER V.

SOME BITS OF ROUNDTREE HISTORY

"But come into the sitting-room," at length commanded Miss Camilla, "and let us talk this strange thing over. You must be tired and hungry, too, after the adventure of coming through that dreadful tunnel. You must have some of this hot gingerbread and a glass of lemonade." And while she bustled about on hospitable thoughts intent, they heard her muttering to herself:

"A cave—and a tunnel—and connected with this house! What can it all mean?"

They sat in restful silence for a time, munching the delicious hot gingerbread and sipping cool lemonade. Never did a repast taste more welcome, coming as it did after the adventures and uncertainties of that eventful day. And while they ate, Miss Camilla sat wiping her glasses and putting them on and taking them off again, and shaking her head over the perplexing news that had been so unexpectedly thrust upon her.

"I simply cannot understand it all," she began at last. "As I told you, I 've never had the slightest idea of such a strange affair, nor can I imagine how it came there. When did you say that Anne Arundel vessel was wrecked?"

"Grandfather said in 1850," answered Sally.

"Eighteen hundred and fifty," mused Miss Camilla. "Well, I could n't have been more than four or five years old, so of course I would n't be likely to remember it. Besides, I was not at home here a great deal. I used to spend most of my time with my aunt who lived in New York. She used to take me there for long visits, months at a time. If this cave and tunnel were made at that time, it was probably done while I was away. My father and brother and one or two colored servants were the only ones in the house, most of the time. I had a nurse, an old Southern colored 'mammy,' who always went about with me. She died about the time the Civil War broke out."

There was no light on the matter here. Miss Camilla relapsed again into puzzled silence, which the girls hesitated to intrude upon by so much as a single word, lest Miss Camilla should consider that they were prying into her past history.

"Wait a moment!" she suddenly exclaimed, sitting up very straight and wiping her glasses again in great excitement. "I believe I have the explanation." She looked about at her audience a minute, hesitatingly. "I shall have to ask you girls please to keep what I am going to tell you entirely to yourself. Few, if any, have ever known of it, and, though it would do no harm now, I have other reasons for not wishing it discussed publicly. Since you have dicovered what you have, however, I feel it only right that you should know."

"You may rely on us, Miss Camilla," said Doris, speaking for them both, "to keep anything you may tell us a strict secret."

"Thank you," replied their hostess. "I feel sure of it. Well, I learned, very early in my girlhood, that my father and also my brother, who was several years older than I, were both very devoted and enthusiastic abolitionists. While slavery was still a national institution in this country, they were firm advocates of the freedom of the colored people. And, so earnest were they in the cause, that they became members of the great 'Underground Railway' system."

"What was that?" interrupted both girls at a breath.

"Did you never hear of it?" exclaimed Miss Camilla, in surprise. "Why, it was a great secret system of assisting runaway slaves from the Southern States to escape from their bondage and get to Canada, where they could no longer be considered any one's property. There were many people in all the Northern States who, believing in freedom for the slaves, joined this secret league, and in their houses runaways would be sheltered, hidden, and quietly passed on to the next house of refuge, or 'station,' as it was called, till at length the fugitives had passed the boundary of the country. It was, however, a severe legal offense to be caught assisting these fugitives, and the penalty was heavy fines and often imprisonment. But that did not daunt those whose hearts were in the cause. And so very secret was the whole organization that few were ever detected in it.

"'IT'S ONLY OURSELVES, MISS CAMILLA," DORIS ANNOUNCED"

"It was in a rather singular way that I discovered my father to be concerned in this matter. I happened to be at home here, and came downstairs one morning rather earlier than usual to find our kitchen filled with a number of strange colored folks, in various stages of rags and hunger and evident excitement. I was a girl of ten or eleven at the time. Rushing to my father's study, I demanded an explanation of the strange spectacle. He took me aside and explained the situation to me, acknowledging that he was concerned in the 'Underground Railway' and warning me to maintain the utmost secrecy in the matter or it would imperil his safety.

"When I returned to the kitchen, to my astonishment, the whole crowd had mysteriously disappeared, though I had not been gone fifteen minutes. And I could not learn from any one a satisfactory explanation of their lightning disappearance. I should certainly have seen them had they gone away above ground. I believe now that the cave and tunnel must have been the means of secreting them, and I have n't a doubt that my father and brother had it constructed for that very purpose. A runaway, or even a number of them, could evidently be kept in the cave several days and then spirited away at night, probably by way of the river and some vessel out at sea that could take them straight to New York or even Canada itself. Yes, it is all clear as daylight to me now."

"But how do you suppose they were able to build the cave and tunnel and bring all the wood from the wreck on the beach without being discovered?" questioned Doris.

"That probably was not so difficult then as it would seem now," answered Miss Camilla. "To begin with, there were not so many people living about here, and therefore less danger of being discovered. If my father and brother could manage to get men enough to help and a number of teams of oxen or horses, such as he had, they could have brought the wreckage from the beach here over what must have been a very lonely and deserted road without much danger of discovery. If it happened that, at the time, they were sheltering a number of escaped slaves, it would have been no very difficult matter to press them into assisting on dark nights when they could be so well concealed. Yes, I think that was undoubtedly what happened."

They all sat quietly for a moment, thinking it over. Miss Camilla's solution of the cave and tunnel mystery was clear beyond all doubting, and it seemed as if there were nothing further for them to wonder about. Suddenly, however, Sally leaned forward eagerly.

"But did we tell you about the strange piece of paper we found under the old mattress, Miss Camilla? I 've really forgotten what we did say."

Miss Camilla looked perplexed. "Why, no, I don't remember your mentioning it. Everything was so confused, at first, that I 've forgotten it if you did. What about a piece of paper?"

"Here is a copy of what was on it," said Sally. "We never take the real piece away from where we first found it in the cave, but we made this copy. Perhaps you can tell what it all means."

She handed the paper to Miss Camilla who stared at it for several moments in blank bewilderment. Then she shook her head.

"I can't make anything of it," she acknowledged. "It must have been something left there by one of the fugitives. I don't believe it concerns me at all."

She handed the paper back, but as she did so, a sudden idea occurred to Doris.

"Might n't it have been some secret directions to the slaves, left there for them by your father or brother?" she suggested. "Maybe it was to tell them where to go next, or something like that."

"I think it very unlikely," said Miss Camilla. "Most of them could neither read nor write, and they would hardly have understood an explanation so complex. No, it must be something else. I wonder—" She stopped short and stood thinking intently a moment, while her visitors watched her anxiously. A pained and troubled expression had crept into her usually peaceful face, and she seemed to be reviewing memories that caused her sorrow.

"Can you get the original paper for me?" she suddenly exclaimed in great excitement. "Now—at once? I have just thought of something."

"I 'll get it!" cried Sally, and she was out of the house in an instant, flying swift-footed over the ground that separated them from the entrance to the cave by the river. While she was gone, Miss Camilla sat silent inwardly reviewing her painful memories.

In ten minutes Sally was back, breathless, with the precious, rusty tin box clasped in her hand. Opening it, she gave the contents to Miss Camilla, who stared at it for three long minutes in silence.

When she looked up her eyes were tragic. But she only said very quietly:

"It is my brother's writing."

(To be continued)

CHAPTER VI.

LIGHT DAWNS ON MISS CAMILLA

"Sally Carter, I have a new idea!" It was Doris who spoke. the two girls were sitting in the pine grove on the heights of Slipper Point. Each was knitting—an accomplishment they had recently learned. Genevieve was paddling in the water on the golden sand-bar below.

"What is it?" asked Sally, scowling over her work. She had come to some difficult purling in the khaki sweater and wished Miss Camilla were near to help her out. It was Miss Camilla who had taught them to knit, urging that every one should be so occupied in strenuous war time.

"It's nearly a month now," went on Doris, "since that day you gave the paper to Miss Camilla, and she's never said a word about it since. And she asked us not to mention the subject any more and forgive her silence, as the matter seemed to concern something that was painful to her."

"Yes, I know," agreed Sally, breathing a sigh of relief as she managed successfully to pick up the dropped stitch; "and she kept the paper, though I'm positively certain she has never been able to puzzle it all out; and all our hopes of finding buried treasure are over!" she ended with a regretful smile. "But what's your big idea?"

"Why, it's just this," explained Doris. "She said that paper was in her brother's handwriting. Now, ever since then, I 've supposed it must be a note or something that he left for her. It's quite natural that he would have wanted to leave her something to explain things, is n't it?"

Sally agreed.

"And, of course, he would want to do it in a way no one else would understand. There may have been an important reason for it at the time. Well, all along, I 've been thinking that scrap of paper was the note—and now I'm just sure it is n't!"

Sally stared. "What in the world is it, then?" she demanded.

"I read a book once," went on Doris, with apparent irrelevance, "a detective story. I never thought of it till to-day, but it had a lot in it about a secret code by which people could communicate with each other, those who understood it, and no one else could guess what the writing was all about. The code was n't a bit like this thing," she pulled the bit of paper from her pocket, "but it started me to thinking that this might be a code to read a note by, and not the real note at all."

Sally grasped the idea at once and jumped up in wild and admiring excitement. "Oh, Doris, you 're a wonder to have thought of such a thing! Rut how can we ever puzzle it all out, and where do you suppose the real note is?"

"Miss Camilla must have the note somewhere, if there really is one," admitted Doris, "and the only way I can see to puzzle it out would be to put the two together and try and make some sense out of them."

"But how are we going to do that?" demanded Sally. "Certainly we could n't very well ask her to let us see it, especially after what she said to us that day."

"No, we could n't, I suppose," said Doris, thoughtfully. "And yet,—" she hesitated,—"I somehow feel perfectly certain that Miss Camilla does n't know the meaning of all this yet, has n't even guessed what we have about this paper. She does n't act so. Maybe she does n't even know there is a note—you can't tell. If she has n't guessed, it would be a mercy to tell her, would n't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Sally dubiously. "But I would n't know how to go about it. Would you?"

"I could only try and do my best, and beg her to forgive me if I were intruding," said Doris. "Yes, I believe she ought to be told. You can't tell how she may be worrying about all this. She acts awfully worried, seems to me. Not at all as she did when we first knew her. I believe we ought to tell her right now. Call Genevieve and we 'll go over."

Sally called to Genevieve, who was playing in the boat on the beach below, and that young lady soon came scrambling up the bank. Hand in hand, all three started to the home of Miss Camilla, and, when they had reached it, found her sitting on her tiny porch knitting in apparently placid content. But true to Doris's observation, there were anxious lines in her face that had not been seen a month ago. She greeted them, however, with real pleasure, and, with her usual hospitality, proffered refreshments, this time in the shape of some early peaches she had gathered only that morning.

But Doris, who with Sally's consent had constituted herself spokesman, before accepting the refreshment began:

"Miss Camilla, I wonder if you 'll forgive us for speaking of something to you? It may seem as if we were intruding, but we really don't intend to."

"Why, speak right on!" exclaimed that lady in surprise. "You are too well bred to be intrusive, that I know. If you feel you must speak of something to me, I know it is because you think it wise or necessary."

Much relieved by this assurance, Doris went on, explaining how she had suddenly had a new idea concerning the mysterious paper and detailing what she thought it might be. As she proceeded, a new light of comprehension seemed to creep into the face of Miss Camilla, who had been listening intently.

"So we think it must be a code,—a secret code,—Miss Camilla. And if you happen to have any queer sort of note or communication that you 've never been able to make out, why, this may explain it," she ended.

When she had finished, Miss Camilla sat perfectly still—thinking. She thought so long and so intently that it seemed as if she must have forgotten completely the presence of the three on the porch with her. And after what seemed an interminable period, she did a strange thing. Instead of replying with so much as a word, she got up and went into the house, leaving them open-mouthed and wondering.

"Do you suppose she's angry with us?" whispered Sally. "Do you think we ought to stay?"

"No, I don't think she is angry," replied Doris, in a low voice. "I think she is so—so absorbed that she hardly realizes what she's doing or that we are here. We'd better stay."

They stayed. But so long was Miss Camilla gone that even Doris began to doubt the wisdom of remaining any longer.

But presently she came back. Her recently neat dress was grimy and disheveled. There was a streak of dust across her face and a cobweb lay on her hair. Doris guessed at once that she had been in the old, unused portion of her house. But in her hand she carried something, and resuming her seat, she laid it carefully on her knee. It was a little book about four inches wide and six or seven long, with an old-fashioned brown cover, and it was coated with what seemed to be the dust of years. The two girls gazed at it curiously; and when Miss Camilla had got her breath, she explained:

"I can never thank you enough for what you have told me to-day. It throws light on something that has never been clear to me—something that I have even forgotten for long years. If what you surmise is true, then a mystery that has surrounded my life for more than fifty years will be at last explained. It is strange that the idea did not occur to me when first you girls discovered the cave and the tunnel, but even then it remained unconnected in my mind with—this." She pointed to the little book in her lap. Then she went on:

"But now, in the circumstances, I feel that I must explain it all to you, relying still on your discretion and secrecy. For I have come to know that you are both unusually trustworthy young folks. There has been a dark shadow over my life, a darker shadow than you can, perhaps, imagine. I told you before of my father's opinions and leanings during the years preceding the Civil War. When that terrible conflict broke out, he insisted that I go away to Europe with my aunt and stay there as long as it lasted, providing me with ample funds to do so. I think he did not believe at first that the struggle would be so long.

"I went with considerable reluctance, but I was accustomed to obeying his wishes implicitly. I was gone two years, and in all that time I received the most loving and affectionate letters constantly, both from him and from my brother. They assured me that everything was well with them. My brother had enlisted at once in the Union army and I had learned that he had fought gallantly through a number of campaigns. My father remained here, but was doing his utmost, so he said, in a private capacity to further the interests of the country. Altogether, their reports were glowing. And though I was often worried as to the outcome and apprehensive for my brother's safety, I spent the two years abroad very happily.

"Then, in May of 1863, my first calamity happened. My aunt died very suddenly and unexpectedly, while we were in Switzerland, and, as we had been alone, it was my sad duty to bring her back to New York. After her funeral, I hurried home here, wondering very much that my father had not come on to be with me, for I had sent him word immediately upon my arrival. My brother, I suspected, was away with the army.

"I was completely astounded and dismayed, on arriving home, at the condition of affairs I found here. To begin with, there were no servants about. Where they had gone or why they had been dismissed, I could not discover. My father was alone in his study when I arrived, which was rather late in the evening. He was reserved and rather taciturn in his greeting of me, and did not seem very much pleased to have me back. This grieved me greatly after my long absence, but I could see that he was worried and preoccupied and in trouble of some kind. I thought that perhaps he had had bad news about my brother Roland, but he assured me that Roland was all right.

"Then I asked him why the house was in such disorder and where the servants were, but he only begged me not to make inquiries about that matter at present, but to go to my room and make myself as comfortable as I could, and he would explain it all later. I did as he asked me and went to my room. I had been there about an hour, busying myself with unpacking my grip, when there was a hurried knock at my door. I went to open it, and gave a cry of joy, for there stood my brother Roland.

"Instead of greeting me, however, he seized my hand and cried: 'Father is very ill. He has had some sort of a stroke. Hurry downstairs to him at once. I must leave immediately. I can't even wait to see how he is. It is imperative!'

"‘But, Roland!' I cried, 'surely you won't go leaving Father like this!' But he only answered. 'I must, I must. It's my duty!' He seized me in his arms and kissed me, and was gone without another word. But before he went, I had seen—a dreadful thing. He was enveloped, from head to foot in a long, dark military cape of some kind, reaching almost to his feet. But as he embraced me, under the light of the hall lamp, the cloak was thrown aside for an instant and I had that terrible glimpse—my brother was wearing a uniform of Confederate gray under the concealing cloak!

"I almost fainted at the sight, but he was gone before I could utter a word, without probably even knowing what I had seen. This then, was the explanation of the mysterious way they had treated me. They had gone over to the enemy. They were traitors to their country and their faith, and they did not want me to know. For this they had even sent me away out of the country!

"But I had no time to think about that then. I hurried to my father and found him on the couch in his study, inert in the grip of a paralytic stroke that had deprived him of the use of his limbs and also of coherent speech. I spent the rest of the night trying to make him easier, but the task was difficult. I had no one to send for a doctor, and could not leave him to go myself, for, of course, the nearest doctor was several miles away. There was not even a neighbor who could be called upon for assistance.

"All that night, however, my father tried to tell me something. His speech was almost absolutely incoherent, but several times I caught the sounds of words like 'note-book' and 'explain.' But I could make nothing of it, and in the early morning he passed away very quietly in my arms.

"I can scarcely bear, even now, to recall the days that followed. After the funeral, I retired very much into myself and saw almost no one. I felt cut off and abandoned by all humanity. I did not know where my brother was, could not even communicate to him the death of our father. Had he been in the Union army I would have inquired. But the glimpse I had had that night of his rebel uniform was sufficient to seal my lips forever. There was no one in the village whom I knew well enough to discuss any such matters with, nor any remaining relative with whom I was in sympathy. I could only wait for my brother's return to solve the mystery.

"But my brother never returned. In all those years I have neither seen him nor heard of him, and I know beyond doubt that he is long since dead. And I have remained here by myself like a hermit, because I feel that the shame of it all has hung about me and enveloped me, and I cannot get away from it. Once, a number of of years ago, an old village gossip here, now long since gone, said to me: 'There was something queer about your father and brother, now was n't there, Miss Camilla? I 've heard tell as how they were Rebs on the quiet during the big war awhile back. Is that so?' Of course, the chance remark only served to confirm the suspicions in my mind, though I said to her that it was impossible.

"I also found to my amazement, when I went through the house after all was over, that many things I had loved and valued had strangely disappeared. All the family silver, of which we had had a valuable set inherited from Revolutionary forefathers, was gone. Some antique jewelry that I had picked up abroad and prized highly was also missing. But chief of all, my whole collection of precious porcelains and pottery was nowhere to he found. I searched in every conceivable nook and cranny in vain. And at last the disagreeable truth was forced on me that my father and brother had sold or disposed of them, for what ends I could not guess. But it only added to my bitterness to think they could do such a thing without so much as consulting me.

"SHE LAID IT OPEN AND THEY EXAMINED ITS PAGES"

"But now, at last, I come to the note-book. I found it among some papers in my father's study desk, a while after his death, and, I frankly confess, I could make nothing of it whatever. It seemed to be filled with figures, added and subtracted, and, as my father had always been rather fond of dabbling with figures and mathematics, I put it down as being merely some calculations of his own that had no bearing on anything concerning me. I laid it carefully away with his other papers, however, and there it has been, in an old trunk in the attic of the unused part of the house all these years. When you spoke of a 'secret code,' however, it suddenly occurred to me that the note-book might be concerned in the matter. Here it is."

She held it out to them, and they pressed eagerly to her side. But as she laid it open and they examined its pages, a disappointed look crept into Sally's eyes.

"Why, there's nothing here but numbers!" she exclaimed. And it was even so. The first few lines were as follows:

56+14—63+43+34+54+64+43+16—
52+66+52+15+23—66+24—15+44+43—
43+64+43+-24+15—61+53—36+24+14
51+15+53+54+43+52+42+43+15
16+66+52+36+52+15+43+23—

And all the rest were exactly like them in character.

But Doris, who had been quietly examining it, with a copy of the supposed code in her other hand, suddenly uttered a delighted cry:

"I have it! At least, I think I'm on the right track. Just examine this code a moment, Miss Camilla. If you notice, leaving out the line of figures at the top and right of the whole square, the rest is just the letters of the alphabet and the figures one to nine and another 'o' that probably stands for 'naught.' There are six squares across and six squares down, and those numbers on the outside are just one to six, only all mixed up. Don't you see how it could be worked? Suppose one wanted to write the letter T. It could be indicated by the number 5 (meaning the square it comes under according to the top line of figures) and 1 (the number according to the side line). Then 51 would stand for letter T, would n't it?"

THE KEY TO THE MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE

"Great!" interrupted Sally, enthusiastically, who had grasped the method even more quickly than Miss Camilla. "But suppose it worked the other way, reading the side line first? Then T would be 15."

"Of course, that's true," admitted Doris. "I suppose there must have been some understanding between those who invented this code about which line to read first. The only way we can discover it is to puzzle it out both ways, and see which makes sense. One will and the other won't."

It all seemed as simple as rolling off a log, now that Doris had discovered the explanation. Even Miss Camilla was impressed with the value of the discovery.

"But what is the meaning of these plus and minus signs?" she queried. "I suppose they stand for something."

"I think that's easy," answered Doris. "In looking over it, I see there are a great many more plus than minus signs. Now, I think the plus signs must be intended to divide the numbers in groups of two, so that each group stands for a letter. Otherwise they'd be all hopelessly mixed up. And the minus signs divide the words. And every once in a while, if you notice, there's a multiplication sign. I imagine those are the periods at the end of sentences."

They all sat silent a moment after this, marveling at the simplicity of it all. But at length Doris suggested:

"Suppose we try to puzzle out a little of it and see if we are really on the right track? Have you a piece of paper and a pencil, Miss Camilla?" Miss Camilla went indoors and brought them out, quivering with the excitement of the new discovery.

"Now, let's see," began Doris. "Suppose we try reading the top line first. 56 would be 1 and 14 would be 2. Now, if that is 'twelve' it may stand for a word or it may not. Now let's try it the other way. Side line first. Then 56 is m, and 14 is y. 'My' is a real word, anyway, and not a number, so perhaps we 're on the right track. Let's go on."

From the next series of letters she spelled the word "beloved" and after that "sister." It was plain beyond all doubting that at last they had stumbled on a wonderful discovery.

But she got no farther than the words, "My beloved sister," for no sooner had Miss Camilla taken in their meaning than she huddled back in her chair and, very quietly, fainted away.

CHAPTER VII.

WORD FROM THE PAST

None of the three had ever seen any one unconscious before. Sally stood back, aghast and helpless. Genevieve expressed herself as she usually did in emergencies, with a loud and resounding howl. But Doris rushed into the house, fetched a dipper of cold water and dashed it into Miss Camilla's face. Then she began to rub her hands and ordered Sally to fan her as hard as she could. The simple expedients worked in a short time, and Miss Camilla came to herself.

"I—I never did such a foolish thing before!" she gasped, when she realized what had happened. "But this is all so—so—amazing and startling! It almost seemed like my brother's own voice, speaking to me from the past." Again she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, but this time only to regain her poise.

And then Doris did a very tactful thing.

"Miss Camilla," she began, "we 've discovered how to read the note-book now, and I'm sure you won't have any trouble with it. I think we had better be getting home, for it is nearly five o'clock. So we 'll say good-by for to-day, and hope you won't feel faint any more."

Miss Camilla gave her a grateful glance. Greatly as she wished to be alone with this message from a brother whose fate she did not dare to guess, yet she was too courteous to dismiss these two girls who had done so much toward helping her solve the problem. And she was more appreciative of Doris's thoughtful suggestion of departure than she could have put into words.

"'THERE IS NOT A MOMENT TO LOSE'" (SEE NEXT PAGE)

"Thank you, dear," she replied, "and come again to-morrow, all of you. Perhaps I shall have—something to tell you then."

And with many a backward glance and much waving of hands, they took their departure across the fields.

It was with the wildest impatience that they waited for the following afternoon to obey Miss Camilla's behest and "come again." But promptly at two o'clock they were trailing through the pine woods and the meadow that separated it from the Roundtree farm-house.

"Do you know," whispered Sally, "crazy as I am to hear all about it, I almost dread it too. I'm so afraid it may have been bad news for her."

"I feel just the same," confided Doris, "and yet, I'm just bursting with impatience. Well, let's go on and hear the worst. If it's very bad, she probably won't want to say much about it."

But their first sight of Miss Camilla convinced them that the news was not, at least, "very bad." She sat on the porch as usual, knitting serenely, but there was a new light in her face, a sweet, satisfied tranquillity that had never been there before.

"I'm glad you 've come," she greeted them. "I have much to tell you."

"Was it—was it all right?" faltered Doris, taking the outstretched hand.

"It was more than 'all right'," she replied. "It was wonderful! But I am going to read the whole thing to you. I spent nearly all last night deciphering the letter,—for a letter it was,—and I think it is only right you should hear it, after what you have done for me." She went inside the house and brought out several large sheets of paper on which she had transcribed the meaning of the mysterious message.

"Listen," she said. "It is as strange as a fairy-tale. And how I have misjudged him!" and she read:

"My beloved Sister:

"In the event of any disaster befalling us before your return, I want you to know the danger and the difficulties of what we have undertaken. It is only right that you should, and I know of no other way to communicate it to you than by the roundabout means of this military cipher which I am using. You are far away in Europe now, and safe, and Father intentionally keeps you there, because of the very dangerous enterprise in which we have been and still are involved.

"Contrary to any appearances, or any thing you may hear said in the future, I am a loyal and devoted soldier of the Union. But I am serving it in the most dangerous capacity imaginable—as a scout or spy in the Confederate army, wearing its uniform, serving in its ranks, but in reality spying on every move and action and communicating all its secrets that I am capable of obtaining to the Government and our own commanders. I stand in hourly danger of being discovered—and for that there is but one end! You know what it is. Of course, I am not enlisted under my own name, so that if you never hear word of my fate, you may know it is the only one possible for those who are serving as I serve.

"Father is also carrying on the task, but in a slightly different capacity. There is a set of Confederate workers up here, secretly engaged in raising funds and planning new campaigns for the South. Father has identified himself with them, and they hold many meetings at our house to discuss plans and information. Apparently he is hand in glove with them, but in reality is all the while disclosing their plans to the Government. They would doubtless kill him without scruple if they suspected it, and get away to the safety of their own lines unscathed before anything was discovered. So you see, he also stands hourly on the brink of death.

"For nearly two years we have carried on this work unharmed, but I suppose it cannot go on forever. Some day my disguise will be penetrated, and all will be over with me. Some day Father will meet with some violent end when he is alone and unprotected, and no one will be found to answer for the deed. But it will all be for the glory of the Union we delight to serve. Now do you understand the situation?

"I do not get home here often, and never except for the purpose of conveying some message that will best be sent to headquarters through this channel. My field of service is with the armies south of the Potomac. But while I am here now, Father and I have consulted as to the best way of communicating this news to you and have decided on this means. We cannot tell how soon our end may come. Father tells me there are rumors about here that we are serving the Confederate side. Should you return unexpectedly and find us gone, and perhaps hear these rumors, you would certainly be justified in putting the worst construction on our actions.

"So we have decided to write and leave you this message. It will be left carelessly among Father's papers, and without the cipher code will, of course, be unreadable by any one. But we have not yet decided where to conceal the code where there is no danger of its being discovered. That is a military secret, and, if it were disclosed, would be fatal and far-reaching in its consequences."

Miss Camilla stopped there, and her spellbound listeners drew a long breath.

"Is n't it wonderful!" breathed Doris. "And they were loyal and devoted to the Union all the time. How happy you must be, Miss Camilla!"

"I am happy—beyond words!" she replied. "But that is not quite all of it. So far, it was evidently written at one sitting, calmly and coherently. There is a little more, but it is hasty and confused and somewhat puzzling. It must have been added at another time, and, I suspect now, probably just at the time of my return. There is a blank half-page, and then it goes on:

"In a great hurry. Most vital and urgent business has brought me back to see Father. Just learned you were here. There is grave, terrible danger. The rebels are invading. I am with them, of course. Not far away. Must return to-night, at once, to lines, if I ever get there alive. Have a task before me that will undoubtedly see the end of me. In this rig and in this place am open to danger from friend and foe alike. But there is no time to change. Hope for best. Forgive haste, but there is not a moment to lose. Father seems ill and unlike himself. He saw two or three Confederate spies at the house to-day. Always suspect something is wrong after such a meeting. Don't be surprised at state of the house. Unavoidable, but all right. Father will explain where I have hidden this cipher code.

"Always your loving brother,

"Roland."

"And there is one more strange line," ended Miss Camilla. "It is this:

"‘In case you should forget, or Father does n't tell you, right-hand side from house behind 27.’

"That is all."

Then she quietly folded up the paper and sat looking away over the meadow, as did the others, in the awed silence that followed naturally the receipt of this message of long ago from one whose fate could be only too well guessed.

"And he never came back?" half whispered Doris, at last.

"No, he never came back," answered Miss Camilla, softly. "I have n't a doubt but that he met the fate he so surely predicted. I have been thinking back and reading back over the events of that period, and I can pretty well reconstruct what must have happened. It was in the month of June, 1863, when Lee suddenly invaded Pennsylvania. From that time until his defeat at Gettysburg, there was the greatest panic all through this region, and every one was certain that it spelt ruin for the entire North, especially Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I suppose my brother was with his army, and had made his way over home here to get or communicate news. How he came or went, I cannot imagine and never shall know. But I can easily see that his fate would be certain were he seen by any of the Federal authorities in a Confederate uniform. Probably with many of them no explanation would save him; for that was the risk run by every scout—to be the prey of friend and foe alike unless he could get hold of some high authority in time. He has doubtless lain for all these years in an unknown grave, either in this State or in Pennsylvania."

"But—your father?" hesitated Sally. "Do you—do you think any thing queer—happened to him?"

"That I shall never know, either," answered Miss Camilla. "His symptoms looked to me like apoplexy, at the time. Now that I think it over, they might possibly been caused by some slow and subtle poison having a gradually paralyzing effect. You see, my brother says he had seen some of the Confederate spies that day. Perhaps they had begun to suspect him and had taken this means to get him out of the way. I cannot tell. As I could not get a doctor at the time, the village doctor, who had known us all our lives, took my word for it next day that it was apoplexy. But, whatever, it may have been, I know that they both died in the service of the country they loved, and that is enough for me. It has removed the burden of many years of grief and shame from my shoulders. I can once more lift up my head among my fellow-countrymen."

And Miss Camilla did actually seem to radiate happiness with her whole attractive personality.

"But I cannot make any meaning out of that queer last line," mused Sally after a time. "Will you read it to us again, Miss Camilla, please?"

And Miss Camilla repeated the odd message: "‘In case you should forget, or Father does not tell you, right-hand side from house, behind twenty-seven.’"

"Now what in the world can that mean?" Sally demanded. "At first, I thought perhaps it might mean where they had hidden the code; but that could n't be, because we found that under the old mattress in the cave. Your brother probably went out that way that night, and left it there on the way."

"Wait a minute," suddenly interrupted Doris. "Do you remember, just before the end he says: 'Do not be surprised at the state of the house. Unavoidable, but all right.' Now what could he mean by that? Do you know what I think? I believe he was apologizing because things seemed so upset and—and many of the valuable things were missing, so Miss Camilla said. If there was such excitement about and fear of Lee's invasion, why is n't it possible that they hid those valuable things somewhere, so they would be safe, whatever happened, and this was to tell her, without speaking too plainly, that it was all right? The brother thought his father would explain; but in case he did n't, or it was forgotten, he gave the clue where to find them."

Miss Camilla sat forward in renewed excitement, her eyeglasses brushed awry. "Why, of course, of course! I 've never thought of it—not once since I read this letter. The other was so much more important. But naturally that is what they must have done—hidden them to keep them safe. They never, never would have disposed of them in any other way or for any other reason. But where in the world can that place be? 'Right-hand side from the house behind twenty-seven' means nothing at all—to me!"

"Well, it does to me!" suddenly exclaimed Sally, the natural-born treasure-hunter of them all. "Where else could they hide anything so safely as in that cave or tunnel? Nobody would ever suspect in the world! And I somehow don't think it meant the cave. I believe,"—and Sally's voice trembled with eagerness, "—I believe it means somewhere in the tunnel, on the right-hand side as you enter it from the cellar."

"But what about twenty-seven?" demanded Miss Camilla. "That does n't seem to mean anything, does it?"

"No, of course it does n't mean anything to you, because you have n't been through the tunnel and would n't know. But every once in a while, along the sides, are planks from that old vessel, put there to keep them more firm, I guess. There must be seventy-five or a hundred on each side. Now I believe it means that if we look behind the twenty-seventh one from the cellar entrance, on the right-hand side, we'll find the—the things hidden there!"

Then Miss Camilla rose, standing erect and alert, the light of younger days shining adventurously in her eyes.

"If that's the case, we 'll go and dig them out to-morrow!" she announced gaily.

(To be concluded)

CHAPTER VIII.

THE REAL BURIED TREASURE

It had been a very dull day indeed for Genevieve. Had she been able to communicate her feeling adequately, she would have said she was heartily sick and tired of the program she had been forcibly obliged to follow. As she sat solitary on the porch of Miss Camilla's tiny abode, thumb in mouth and tugging at the lock of hair with her other hand, she thought it all over resentfully.

Why should she be commanded to sit here all by herself, in a spot that offered no attractions whatever, and told, nay ordered, not to move from the location, when she was bored beyond expression by the entire proceeding. True, they had left her eatables in generous quantities (but she had already disposed of these) and picture-books of many attractive descriptions, to while away the weary hours. But the picture-books were an old story now, and the afternoon was growing late. She longed to go down to the shore and play in the row-boat, and dabble her bare toes in the water, and indulge in the eternally fascinating experiment of catching crabs with a piece of meat tied to a string and her father's old crab-net. What was the use of living when one was doomed to drag out a wonderful afternoon on a tiny, hopelessly uninteresting porch out in the backwoods? Existence was nothing but a burden.

To be sure, the morning had not been without its pleasant moments. They had rowed up the river to their usual landing-place, a trip she always enjoyed, though it had been somewhat marred by the fear that she might be again compelled to burrow into the ground like a mole, forsaking the glory of sunshine and sparkling water for the dismal dampness of that unspeakable hole in the earth. But, to her immense relief, this sacrifice was not required of her. Instead they had made at once through the woods and across the fields to Miss Camilla's, albeit burdened with many strange and, to her mind, useless tools and other impedimenta.

Miss Camilla's house offered attractions not a few, chiefly in the way of unlimited cookies and other eatables. But her enjoyment of the cookies was tempered by the fact that the whole party suddenly took it into their heads to proceed to the cellar, and, what was even worse, to attempt again the loathsome undertaking of scrambling through the narrow place in the wall and the journey beyond. She herself accompanied them as far as the cellar, but further than that she refused to budge. So they left her with a candle and a seat conveniently near a barrel of apples.

It transpired, however, that they did not proceed far into the tunnel. She could hear them talking and exclaiming excitedly, and discussing whether "this was really twenty-seven," and "Had n't we better count again?" and, "Shall we saw it out?" and other equally pointless remarks of a similar nature. Wearying of listening to such idle chatter, and replete with cookies and russet apples, she had finally put her head down on the edge of the barrel and had fallen fast asleep.

When she had awakened, it was to find them all back in the cellar, and Miss Camilla making the pleasant announcement that they would have luncheon now and get to work in earnest afterward. A soul-satisfying interval followed, the only really bright spot in the day for Genevieve. But gloom had settled down upon her once more when they had risen from the table. Solemnly they had taken her on their laps (at least Miss Camilla had!) and ominously Sally had warned her:

"Now, Genevieve, we 've got something awfully important to do this afternoon. You don't like to go down in that dark place, so we 've decided not to take you with us. You'd rather stay up here in the sunshine, would n't you?" And she had nodded vigorously an unqualified assent to that proposition. "Well then," Sally had continued, "you stay right on this porch or in the sitting-room, and don't you dare venture a foot away from it. Will you promise?" Again Genevieve had nodded. "Nothing will hurt you if you mind what we say, and by and by we 'll come back and show you something awfully nice." Genevieve had seriously doubted the possibility of this latter statement, but she was helpless in their hands.

"And here's plenty of cookies and a glass of jam," Miss Camilla had supplemented, "and we 'll come back to you soon, you blessed baby!" Then they had all hugged and kissed her and departed.

Well, they had not kept their word. She had heard the little clock in the room within strike and strike and strike, sometimes just one bell-like tone, sometimes two and three and four. She could not yet "tell the time," but she knew enough about a clock to realize that this indicated the passing of the moments. And still there had been no sign of return on the part of the exploring three.

Genevieve whimpered a little and wiped her eyes, sad to say, on her sleeve. Then she thrust her hand for the fortieth time into the cooky-jar. But it was empty. And then, in sheer boredom and despair, she put her head down on the arm of her chair, tucked her thumb into her mouth and closed her eyes to shut out the tiresome scene before her. In this position she had remained for what seemed a long, long time, and the clock had sounded another bell-like stroke, when she was suddenly aroused by a sound quite different.

At first she did not give it much thought, but it came again, louder this time, and she sat up with a jerk. Was some one calling her? It was a strange, muffled sound, and it seemed as if it were like a voice trying to pronounce her name.

"Genev—! Genev—!" That was all she could distinguish. Did they want her, possibly to go down into the horrible cellar and hole? She went to the door giving on the cellar steps and listened. But, though she stood there fully five minutes, she heard not so much as a breath. No, it could not be that. She would go out doors again.

But no sooner had she stepped on the porch than she heard it again, fainter this time, but undeniable. Where could it come from? They had commanded her not to venture a step from the porch, but surely, if they were calling her, she ought to try and find them. So she stepped down from the veranda and ran around to the back of the house. This time she was rewarded. The sound came clearer and more forcefully:

"Genevieve!—Genev—ieve!" But where still, could it come from? There was not a soul in sight. The garden (for it was Miss Camilla's vegetable garden) was absolutely devoid of human occupation. But Genevieve wisely decided to follow the sound, so she began to pick her way gingerly between the rows of beans, which were climbing on quite a forest of tall poles. It was when she had passed these that she came upon something that caused her a veritable shock.

The ground in Miss Camilla's cucumber-patch, for the space ten or twelve feet square, had sunk down into a strange hole, as if in a sudden earthquake! What did it all mean? And as Genevieve hesitated on its brink, she was startled almost out of her little shoes to hear her name called faintly and in a muffled voice from its depths.

"Genev—ieve!" It was the voice of Doris, though she could see not the slightest vestige of her.

"Here I am!" answered Genevieve, quaveringly. "What do you want, Dowis?"

"Oh, thank God!" came the reply. "Go get—some one! Quick. We 're—buried in here! It—caved in. Hurry—baby!"

"Who s'all I get?" asked Genevieve. And well she might, for, as far as any one knew, there was not a soul within a mile of them.

"Oh—I don't—know!" came the answering voice. "Go find—some one—any one. We 'll die—here—if you don't!"

Genevieve was not sure she knew just what that last remark meant, but it evidently indicated something serious.

"All wight!" she responded. "I 'll twy." And she trotted off to the front of the house.

Here, however, she stopped to consider. Where was she to go to find any one? She could not go home—she did not know the way. She could not go back to the river—the path was full of pitfalls in the shape of thorny vines that scratched her face and tripped her feet; and besides, Sally had particularly warned her not to venture in that direction—ever. After all, the most likely place to find any one was surely along the road, for she had, very rarely, when sitting on Miss Camilla's porch, observed an occasional wagon driven past. She would walk along the road and see if she could find anybody.

Had Genevieve been older and with a little more understanding, she would have comprehended the desperate plight that had befallen her sister and Doris and Miss Camilla. And fear would have lent wings to her feet and she would have scurried to the nearest dwelling as fast as those feet would carry her. But she was scarcely more than a baby. The situation, though peculiar, did not strike her so much as a matter for haste as for patient waiting till the person required should happen along. As she did n't see any one approaching in either direction, she decided to return to the house and keep a strict eye on the road.

So she seated herself on the porch steps, tucked her thumb in her mouth—and waited. There was no further calling from the curious hole in the back garden, and nothing happened for a long, long time. Genevieve had just about decided to go back and inquire of Doris what else to do, when suddenly the afternoon stillness was broken by the chug chug of a motor-car and the honking of its horn. And before Genevieve could jump to her feet, a big automobile had come plowing down the sandy road and stopped right in front of the gate.

"Here's the place!" called out the chauffeur, and jumping down, walked around to open the door at the side for its occupants to get out. A pleasant-looking man stepped out and gave his hand to the lady beside him, and, to Genevieve's great astonishment, the lady proved to be none other than the mother of "Dowis."

"Well, where's every one?" inquired the gentleman. "I don't see a soul but this wee tot sitting on the steps."

"Why, there's Genevieve!" cried Mrs. Craig, who had seen the baby many times before. "How are you, dear? Where are the others? Inside?"

"No," answered Genevieve. "In de garden. Dowis, she said, 'Come. Find some one!’"

"Oh, they 're in the garden, are they! Well, we 'll go around there and give them a surprise, Henry. Doris will simply be bowled over to see her 'daddy' here so unexpectedly. And I'm very anxious to meet this Miss Camilla she has talked so much about. Come and show us the way, Genevieve."

The baby obediently took her hand and led her around to the back of the house, the gentleman following.

"But I don't see any one here!" he exclaimed, when they had reached the back. "Are n't you mistaken, honey?" This to Genevieve.

"No, they in 'big hole!'" she announced gravely. The remark aroused considerable surprise and amused curiosity.

"Well, lead us to the 'big hole,’" commanded Mrs. Craig, laughingly. "Big hole, indeed! I 've been wondering what in the world Doris was up to lately, but I never dreamed she was engaged in excavating!"

Genevieve, still gravely, led the way through the forest of bean-poles to the edge of the newly sunk depression.

"What's all this?" suddenly demanded Mr. Craig. "It looks as if there had been a land-slide here. Where are the others, little girl? They 've probably gone elsewhere."

But Genevieve was not to be moved from her original statement. "They in dere!" she insisted, pointing downward. "Dowis called. She say, 'Go find some one!’" The baby's persistence was not to be questioned.

Mr. Craig looked grave, and his wife grew pale and frightened. "Oh, Henry, what do you suppose can be the matter?" she quavered. "I do believe Genevieve is telling the truth."

"There's something mighty queer about it." he answered hastily. "I can't understand how in the world it has come about, but if that child is right, there's been a land-slide or a cave-in of some sort here, and Doris and the rest are caught in it. Good heavens! If that's so, we can't act too quickly!" And he ran round to the front of the house shouting to the chauffeur, who had remained in the car:

"There's been an accident! Drive like mad to the nearest house and get men and ropes and spades—anything to help dig out some people from a cave-in!"

The car had shot down the road almost before he had ceased speaking, and he hurried back to the garden.

The next hour was a period of indescribable suspense and terror to all concerned—all, at least, save Genevieve, who sat placidly on Mrs. Craig's lap (Mr. Craig had brought out a chair from Miss Camilla's kitchen) and, thumb in mouth, watched the men furiously hurling the soil in great shovelfuls from the curious "hole." She could not understand why Mrs. Craig should sob softly at intervals, under her breath, nor why the strange gentleman should pace back and forth so restlessly and give such sharp, hurried orders. And when he jumped into the hole, with a startled exclamation, and seized the end of a heavy plank, she wondered at the unnecessary excitement.

It took the united efforts of every man present to move that plank, and when they had forced it aside, Mr. Craig stooped down with a smothered cry.

"‘WHO S'ALL I GET?' DEMANDED GENEVIEVE"

And the next thing Genevieve knew, they had lifted out some one and laid her on the ground, inert, apparently lifeless, and so covered with dirt and sand as to be scarcely recognizable. But from the light golden hair, Genevieve knew it to be Doris. Before she realized where she was, Genevieve found herself cascaded from Mrs. Craig's lap, and that lady bending distractedly over the prostrate form.

Again the men emerged from the pit, carrying between them another form which they laid beside Doris. And, with a howl of anguish, Genevieve recognized the red-bronze pigtail of her sister Sally.

By the time Miss Camilla had been extricated from the debris, as lifeless and inert as the other two, the chauffeur had returned at mad speed from the village, bringing with him a doctor and many strange appliances for resuscitation. A pulmotor was put into immediate action, and another period of heartbreaking suspense ensued.

It was Doris who first moaned her way back to life, and, at the physician's orders, was carried into the house at once for further ministrations.

Sally was next to show signs of recovery, but over poor Miss Camilla they had to work hard and long, for, in addition to having been almost smothered, her foot had been caught by the falling plank and badly bruised. But she came back to consciousness at last, and her first words on opening her eyes were:

"Do you think we can get that Spode dinner-set out all right?"

A remark that vastly bewildered Mr. Craig, who chanced to be the only one to hear it!

"But how on earth did you and Mother happen to be there, Father, just in the nick of time?" marveled Doris, two days later from the depths of several pillows with which she was propped up in bed.

She had been detailing to her parents at great length the whole story of Sally and the cave and the tunnel and Miss Camilla and the hazardous treasure-hunt that had ended her adventure. And now it was her turn to be enlightened.

"Well," returned her father, smiling whimsically, "it was a good deal like what they call 'the long arm of coincidence' in the story-books, and yet it was very simple, after all. I'd been disappointed so many times in my plans to get down here to see you and your mother, and at last the chance came, the other day, when I could make at least a flying trip, but I had n't even time to let you know I was coming. I arrived at the hotel about lunch-time and gave your mother the surprise of her life by walking in on her unexpectedly. But I was quite disgusted not to find you anywhere about. Your mother told me how you had gone off for the day with your bosom pal, Sally, to visit a mysterious Miss Camilla, and I suggested that we take the car and go to hunt you up. As she was agreeable to the excursion, we started forth, inquiring our way as we went.

"It was a merciful providence that got us there not a moment too soon; and if it had n't been for that little cherubic Genevieve, we should have been many minutes too late. So the next time you go treasure-hunting, young lady, kindly allow your useless and insignificant dad to accompany you!" And he gave her ear a playful tweak.

"Daddy, it was awful—simply awful when that old plank gave way and the earth came sliding down on us!" she confided to him, snuggling down in the arm he had placed around her. "At first we did n't think it would amount to much. But more and more earth came pouring down, and then another plank loosened and Miss Camilla lost her footing and fell, and we could n't make our way out past it in either direction, and still the dirt poured in all around us; and Sally and I tried to struggle up through the top, but we could n't make any progress. And at last that third plank bent over and shut us in so we could n't budge, and Sally and Miss Camilla did n't answer when I spoke to them, and I knew they'd fainted, and I felt as if I was going to faint too. But I called and called Genevieve, and at last she answered me. And after that I did n't remember anything more!" With a shudder, she hid her face in her father's sleeve. It had been a very horrible experience.

"Don't think of it any more, honey. It turned out all right, in the end. Do you know that Sally is around as well as ever, now, and came up to the hotel to inquire for you this morning? She's as strong as a little ox, that child!"

"But where is Miss Camilla?" suddenly inquired Doris. "She hurt her foot, did n't she?"

"She certainly did, but she insisted on remaining in her own home, and Sally begged her mother to be allowed to stay there with her and the undetachable Genevieve, of course, and take care of her and wait on her. So there they are, and there you will proceed in the automobile this afternoon, if you feel well enough to make the visit."

"But what about the treasure?" demanded Doris, her eyes beginning to sparkle.

"If you refer to the trunks and the chestful of articles that we excavated from that interesting hole in Miss Camilla's garden, you do well to speak of it as 'treasure'!" answered her father laughingly; "for beside some valuable old family silver and quite rare articles of antique jewelry, she had there a collection of china and porcelain that would send a specialist on that line into an absolute spasm of joy. I really would not care to predict what it would be worth to any one interested in the subject.

"And you can tell your friend Sally, of the adventurous spirit, that she's got 'Treasure Island' licked a mile (to use a very inelegant expression) and right here on her own native territory, too! I take off my hat to you both. You 've done better than a couple of boys who have been playing at pirates and hunting for their treasure all their youthful days. Henceforth, when I yearn for blood-curdling adventures and hairbreadth escapes, I 'll come to you two to lead the way!"

But under all his banter, Doris knew that her father was serious in the deep interest he felt in her strange adventure and all that it had led to.

"A FULL MID-SEPTEMBER MOON PAINTED ITS RIPPLING PATH ON THE WATER"

CHAPTER IX.

THE SUMMER'S END

They sat together in the canoe, each facing the other, Doris in the bow and Sally in the stern. A full, mid-September moon painted its rippling path on the water and picked out in silver every detail of shore and river. The air was full of the heavy scent of the pines, and the only sound was the ceaseless lap-lap of the lazy ripples at the water's edge. Doris, with her paddle resting on her knees, was drinking in the radiance of the lovely scene.

"I simply cannot realize I am going home to-morrow and must leave all this!" she sighed.

Sally dipped her paddle disconsolately and answered with almost a groan: "If it bothers you, how do you suppose it makes me feel?"

"We have grown close to each other, have n't we?" mused Doris. "Do you know, I never dreamed I could make so dear a friend in so short a time. I have plenty of acquaintances and good comrades, but usually it takes me years to make a real friend. How did you manage to make me care so much for you?"

"‘Just because you 're you!’" laughed Sally, quoting a popular song. "But do you realize, Doris Craig, what a different girl I 've become since I knew and cared for you?"

She was, indeed, a different girl, as Doris had to admit. To begin with, she looked different. The clothes she wore were neat, dainty, and appropriate, indicating taste and care both in choosing and wearing them. Her parents were comparatively well-to-do people in the village and could afford to dress her well and give her all that was necessary, within reason. It had been mainly lack of proper care, and the absence of any incentive to seem her best, that was to blame for the original careless Sally. And not only her looks, but her manners and English were now as irreproachable as they had once been provincial and faulty.

"Why, even my thoughts are different!" she suddenly exclaimed, following aloud the line they had both been unconsciously pursuing. "You 've given me more that's worth while to think about, Doris, in these three months, than I ever had before in all my life."

"I'm sure it was n't I that did it," modestly disclaimed Doris, "but the books I happened to bring along and that you wanted to read. If you had n't wanted different things yourself, Sally, I don't believe you would have changed any, so the credit is all yours.

"Do you remember the day you first quoted 'The Ancient Mariner' to me?" she went on. "I was so astonished I nearly tumbled out of the boat. It was the lines, 'We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea.’"

"Yes, they are my favorite lines," replied Sally. "And with all the poems I 've read and learned since, I love that best, after all."

"My favorite is the lines, 'The moving moon went up the sky and nowhere did abide,’" said Doris; "and I love it all as much as you do."

"And Miss Camilla," added Sally, "says her favorite is,

"The selfsame moment I could pray.
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off and sank
Like lead into the sea."

"She says that's just the way she felt when we girls made that discovery about her brother's letter. Her 'albatross' had been the weight of supposed disgrace she had been carrying about, all these fifty years."

"Oh, Miss Camilla!" sighed Doris, ecstatically. "What a darling she is! and what a wonderful, simply wonderful adventure we 've had, Sally! Sometimes, when I think of it, it seems too incredible to believe. It's like something you'd read of in a book and say it was probably exaggerated. Did I tell you that my grandfather has decided to buy as much of her collection of porcelains as she is willing to sell, and the antique jewelry, too?"

"No," answered Sally, "but Miss Camilla told me. And I know how she hates to part with any of them. Even I shall feel a little sorry when they 're gone. I 've washed them and dusted them so often and Miss Camilla has told me so much about them. I 've even learned how to know them by the strange little marks on the back of them. And I can tell English Spode from old Worcester, and French Faience from jeweled Sèvres and a lot beside. And what's more, I 've really come to admire and appreciate them. I never supposed I should.

"Miss Camilla will miss them all, for she's been so happy with them since they were restored to her. But she says they 're as useless in her life now as a museum of mummies, and she needs the money for other things."

"I suppose she will restore the main part of her house and live in it and be very happy and comfortable," remarked Doris.

"That's just where you are entirely mistaken," answered Sally, with unexpected animation. "Don't you know what she is going to do with it?"

"Why, no!" said Doris in surprise. "I had n't heard."

"Well, she only told me to-day," replied Sally, "but it nearly bowled me over. She's going to put the whole thing into Liberty Bonds, and go on living precisely as she has before. She says she has gotten along that way for nearly fifty years and she guesses she can go on to the end. She says that if her father and brother could sacrifice their safety and their money and their very lives, gladly, as they did when their country was in need, she guesses she ought n't to do very much less. If she were younger, she'd go to France right now, and give herself in some capacity to help out in this horrible struggle. But as she can't do that, she is willing and delighted to make every other sacrifice within her power. And she's taken out the bonds in my name and Genevieve's, because she says she 'll never live to see them mature, and we 're the only chick or child she cares enough about to leave them to. She wanted to leave some to you, too, but your father told her no, that he had already taken some for you."

Doris was quite overcome by this flood of unexpected information and by the wonderful attitude and generosity of Miss Camilla.

"I never dreamed of such a thing!" she murmured. "She insisted on giving me the little Sèvres vase, when I bade her good-by to-day. I did n't like to take it, but she said I must, and that it could form the beginning of a collection of my own, some day when I was older and times were less strenuous. I hardly realized what she meant then, but I do now, after what you 've told me."

"But that is n't all," said Sally. "I 've managed to persuade my father that I'm not learning enough at the village school and probably never will. He was going to take me out of it this year, anyway, and, when summer came again, have me wait on the ice-cream parlor and candy counter in the pavilion. I just hated the thought. Now I 've made him promise to send Genevieve and me every day to Miss Camilla to study with her, and he's going to pay for it just the same as if I were going to a private school. I'm so happy over it, and so is Miss Camilla, only we had hard work persuading her that she must accept any money for it. And even Genevieve is delighted. She has promised to stop sucking her thumb if she can go to Miss Camilla and 'learn to wead 'bout picters,' as she says."

"It's all turned out as wonderfully as a fairy-tale," mused Doris as they floated on. "I could n't wish a single thing any different. And I think what Miss Camilla has done is—well, it just makes a lump come in my throat even to speak of it. I feel like a selfish wretch beside her. I'm just going to save every penny I have this winter and give it to the Red Cross and work like mad at the knitting and bandage-making. But even that is no real sacrifice. I wish I could do something such as she has done. That's the kind of thing that counts!"

"We can only do the thing that lies within our power," said Sally, grasping the true philosophy of the situation, "and if we do all of that, we're giving the best we can."

They drifted on a little further in silence, and then Doris glanced at her wrist-watch by the light of the moon. "We 've got to go in," she mourned. "It's after nine o'clock, and Mother warned me not to stay out later than that. Besides I must finish packing."

They dragged the canoe up on the shore, and turned it over in the grass. Then they wandered for a moment down to the edge of the water.

"Remember, it is n't so awfully bad as it seems," Doris tried to hearten Sally by reminding her. "Father and I are coming down again to stay over Columbus Day, and you and Genevieve are coming to New York to spend the Christmas holidays with us. We 'll be seeing each other right along, at intervals."

Sally looked off up the river to where the dark pines on Slipper Point could be dimly discerned above the wagon bridge. Suddenly her thoughts took a curious twist.

"How funny—how awfully funny it seems now," she laughed, "to think we once were planning to dig for pirate treasure—up there!" she nodded toward Slipper Point.

"Well, we may not have found any pirate loot," Doris replied, "but you 'll have to admit we discovered treasure of a very different nature—and a good deal more valuable. And, when you come to think of it, we did discover buried treasure, at least Miss Camilla did, and we were nearly buried alive ourselves trying to unearth it, and what more of a thrilling adventure could you ask for than that?" But she ended seriously:

"Slipper Point will always mean to me the spot where I spent some of the happiest moments of my life."

"And I say—the same!" echoed Sally.

THE END.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.