what tale you please and we will
prove another!"

Then the terrible reality resolved itself back into a shadow, and was
gone. Braxton Wyatt sprang to his feet, clapped his hand to his mangled
waistcoat where the precious package had been, and uttered a strangled
cry. Then he ran through the trees to the house of Alvarez.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later Oliver Pollock was sitting at his own window in
the little office and his thoughts were not happy. He wished his fleet of
supply canoes to start on the great river journey at once, but it could
not depart while such storms were threatening. Alvarez was too serious a
danger, and he must be removed. But the merchant realized that he had made
little progress. Alvarez seemed to be secure in his plot.

There came a knock at his door, and in reply to his request to enter, a
clerk said that the young man, Mr. Ware, had returned. Mr. Pollock rose to
his feet as Henry came in. Henry carefully closed the door behind him,
advanced, and put a small package in Mr. Pollock's hand.

"There they are!" he said, "the maps drawn up by Braxton Wyatt, and with
notes on them in handwriting, which I take to be that of Francisco
Alvarez."

The merchant stared at first in astonishment and delight. Then he ran to
the lamp and spread out the sheets of fine, thin deerskin. He looked at
them, one by one, and laughed with delight.

"Yes," he said, "the notes are in the handwriting of Francisco Alvarez! I
know it--I have seen it often enough--and Bernardo Galvez will know it,
too! Oh, it is a great find! a great find! It is not conclusive proof,
but it will go far toward swaying belief! How did you get them?"

Henry had recovered from all signs of his struggle with the renegade, and
was now sitting placidly in a chair.

"I took them," he said. "I found Braxton Wyatt in the grove around the
house of Alvarez, and I seized him. I found these in the lining of his
waistcoat."

"You did not kill him?"

"Oh, no. He is not hurt."

"It is well. I did not wish any unnecessary violence, but we had a right
to seize these documents which mean so much to us and Bernardo Galvez. You
will leave them with me."

"Of course," said Henry. "And now that this task is finished, I'll go back
to prison with my comrades."

"It's unnecessary for you to join them there," said the merchant still
laughing in his pleasure. "I'll have them out to join you, and that
speedily, to