of the night." Phil told his story, and in the
speaking of it, recollected the torn piece of paper that the old man
with his dying words had given him. He pulled it from his pocket, and
the three boys, as well as Nate, spread it out on the table and began to
examine it. It seemed to be a rough, crudely drawn map with a dotted
line, running from the spot marked by a figure 1, with a circle drawn
around it. The dotted line, however, unfortunately ran direct to the
part that had been torn off when Phil seized the paper from the old
man's assailant. On the reverse of the paper, written in a laborious and
cramped hand, was the following inscription: "The lost mine lies 100
paces from the spot marked 2. The land mark noted on the map as figure
1, is a ravine, exactly two miles east of the Shohela River, at the
point where it makes a sharp turn above the town of Jennings. Start at
the mouth of that ravine and travel directly north for about two miles
and one-half, until you come to----"

Here the boys found that the missing part of the note corresponded to
the portion which had been torn off during the struggle.

"Well," said Nate, "the pesky map doesn't mean to do you much good now,
does it? I know of the place mentioned in that note, but I have never
been there, so I can't tell you much about what the old something or
other might be. Without wanting to throw any cold water upon your
plans, I should say to forget about the whole business. I know the Maine
woods pretty well, and I never heard tell of any mines which have been
found in this part of the country, except, maybe, limestone mines, and
surely nobody would have a secret map as to where a limestone mine would
be, so I think you had better just tuck that piece of paper away and
forget all about it."

The boys, however, with romantic ideas of finding a lost gold mine
hidden away somewhere in the wilds of the Maine woods, refused to be
discouraged by Nate's pessimistic remarks, and each one decided, that at
the first opportunity, they would visit the scene told of in the map,
and see if possible they could not discover the secret of the lost mine.

"Now boys," said Nate, "we might as well get over the main business of
the evening, that being to tell you about what I know about Hobart. It
has been a good many years since I was in that part of the woods, but I
remember it as well as though I had been there only yesterday. Hobart is
a small town, nowhere near the size of