nows!"

XV

Treasure-Trove

The August moon swung high in the heavens, and the crickets chirped
unbearably. The luminous dew lay heavily upon the surrounding fields, and
now and then a stray breeze, amid the overhanging branches of the trees
that lined the roadway, aroused in the consciousness of the single
wayfarer a feeling closely akin to panic. When he reached the summit of
the hill, he was trembling violently.

In the dooryard of the Jack-o'-Lantern, he paused. It was dark, save for a
single round window. In an upper front room a night-lamp, turned low, gave
one leering eye to the grotesque exterior of the house.

With his heart thumping loudly, Mr. Bradford leaned against a tree and
divested himself of his shoes. From a package under his arm, he took out a
pair of soft felt slippers, the paper rattling loudly as he did so. He put
them on, hesitated, then went cautiously up the walk.

"In all my seventy-eight years," he thought, "I have never done anything
like this. If I had not promised the Colonel--but a promise to a dying man
is sacred, especially when he is one's best friend."

The sound of the key in the lock seemed almost like an explosion of
dynamite. Mr. Bradford wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead,
turned the door slowly upon its squeaky hinges, and went in, feeling like
a burglar.

"I am not a burglar," he thought, his hands shaking. "I have come to give,
not to take away."

Fearfully, he tiptoed into the parlour, expecting at any moment to arouse
the house. Feeling his way carefully along the wall, and guided by the
moonlight which streamed in at the side windows, he came to the wing
occupied by Mrs. Holmes and her exuberant offspring. Here he stooped,
awkwardly, and slipped a sealed and addressed letter under the door,
heaving a sigh of relief as he got away without having wakened any one.

The sounds which came from Mrs. Dodd's room were reassuringly suggestive
of sleep. Hastily, he slipped another letter under her door, then made his
way cautiously to the kitchen. The missive intended for Mrs. Smithers was
left on the door-mat outside, for, as Mr. Bradford well knew, the ears of
the handmaiden were uncomfortably keen.

At the foot of the stairs he hesitated again, but by the time he reached
the top, his heart had ceased to beat audibly. He tiptoed down the
corridor to Uncle Israel's room, then, further on, to Dick's. The letter
intended for Mr. Perkins was slipped under