velous I have ever seen.

"Marmaduke Duval."

For a moment, they stood staring at one another too astonished to
speak.

"My Lord!" Macloud finally ejaculated. "To think that it was here, all
the time!"

Croyden caught up the lamp.

"Come on!" he said.

They trooped down to the cellar, Croyden leading the way. Moses was off
for the evening, they had the house to themselves. As they passed the
foot of the stairs, Macloud picked up a mattock.

"Me for the digging!" he said. "Which is the south-east corner,
Davila?"

"There, under those boxes!" said she.

They were quickly tossed aside.

"The ground is not especially hard," observed Macloud, with the first
stroke. "I reckon a yard square is sufficient.--At a depth of two feet
the memorandum says, doesn't it?"

No one answered. Fascinated, they were watching the fall of the pick.
With every blow, they were listening for it to strike the stones.

"Better get a shovel, Croyden, we'll need it," said Macloud, pausing
long enough, to throw off his coat.... "Oh! I forgot to say, I wired
the Pinkerton man to recover the package you buried this morning."

Croyden only nodded--stood the lamp on a box, and returned with the
coal scoop.

"This will answer, I reckon," he said, and fell to work.

"It seems absurd!" remarked Macloud, between strokes. "To have hunted
the treasure, for weeks, all over Greenberry Point, and then to find it
in the cellar, like a can of lard or a bushel of potatoes."

"You haven't found it, yet," Croyden cautioned. "And we've gone the
depth mentioned."

"No! we haven't found it, yet!--but we're going to find it!" Macloud
answered, sinking the pick, viciously, in the ground, with the last
word.

Crack!

It had struck hard against a stone.

"What did I tell you?" Macloud cried, sinking the pick in at another
place.

Crack!

Again, it struck! and again! and again! The fifth stroke laid the stone
bare--the sixth and seventh loosened it, still more--the eighth and
ninth completed the task.

"Give me the shovel!" said he.

When the earth was away and the stone exposed, he stooped and, putting
his fingers under the edges, heaved it out.

"The rest is for you, Croyden!" and stepped aside.

The iron box was found!

For a moment, Croyden looked at it, rather dazedly. Could it be the
jewels were _there_!--within his reach!--under that lid! Suddenly, he
laughed!--gladly, gleefully, as a boy