the door inward a distance of half an inch
and set one of her bright old eyes to the crack. She saw the skipper
kneeling in a corner of the kitchen, with his back to her and a candle
on the floor beside him. He seemed to be working busily and heavily, but
not a sound of his toil reached her eager ears.

"He bes hidin' something'," she reflected. "Shiftin' some o' his wracked
gold, maybe? But why bes he so sly about it to-night, a-spyin' in on his
old grandmother to see if she bes sound asleep or no?"

Presently, she closed the door and crept back to her bed. Next morning,
as soon as the skipper and young Cormick had left the house, she
examined the corner of the floor where the skipper had been at work. She
had to pull aside a wood-box to get at the spot. One of the narrow,
dusty planks showed that it had been tampered with. She pried it up with
a chisel, dug into the loose earth beneath and at last found a small box
covered with red leather. She opened it and gazed at the diamonds and
rubies in frightened fascination. Ignorant as she was of such things,
she knew that the value of these stones must be immense. At last she
closed the casket, returned it to the bottom of the hole and replaced
the earth, the plank and the wood-box. Where, when and how had the
skipper come by that treasure? she wondered. She hobbled over to Pat
Kavanagh's house and told Mary all about it.

CHAPTER XIX

MARY AT WORK AGAIN

Pierre Benoist, the survivor of the French brig, arrived at Mother
McKay's shebeen in good order, with the borrowed blanket draped over his
broad shoulders and the borrowed sealing-gun under his arm. All birds of
Pierre's variety of feather seemed to arrive naturally at Mother
McKay's, sooner or later. The French sailor found Dick Lynch; a Canadian
trapper with Micmac blood in his veins, who had come out of the woods
too soon for his own good; three men from Conception Bay and half a
dozen natives of the city, all talking and swearing and drinking Mother
McKay's questionable rum and still more questionable whiskey. Pierre
laid aside his blanket and musket, shouted for liquor and then studied
the assembled company. It did not take him long to decide that they were
exactly the material he required. He took a seat at Dick Lynch's elbow
and in such English as he was master of, remarked that any man who
worked for his living was no better than a fool.

"Sure," said Lynch, "by the looks o' yerself ye should know."