grandfather was to keep hold of them. Then it told how he (Gaines) had
taken the box down here that night and tried first to conceal it in the
bungalow. But no place in the house seemed safe enough to him. He tried
to dig up a brick in the fireplace and bury it there, but gave it up
after he had broken his knife in the attempt. Then he had the inspiration
to bury it in the sand somewhere outside, and he described where he _did_
locate it, right by that log. If Gaines had known much about the tides
here, he wouldn't have thought that a very good scheme. He didn't,
though, and thought he'd found an excellent place. He then turned to walk
back to the hotel, but hadn't gone more than a mile (it was storming
hard, if you remember) when a terrific blow on the back of the head
knocked him senseless. He never knew another thing until he came to,
after what must have been a number of days, to find himself a prisoner in
a house he judged to be somewhere in New York. And from his description
I've located it about west Sixty-first street.

"He appeared to be in the keeping of a Chinaman who dressed American
fashion and spoke good English. He was told that he was a prisoner and
that it was hopeless to try to communicate with any one until he had
reported exactly where and how those letters had been concealed. He
begged for a day or two to consider the matter and was granted it, but
told that if he did not comply with their wishes he would disappear for
good and no one would ever be the wiser.

"In the meantime, he managed to get together a few scraps of paper, and
with the stub of a pencil he happened to have about him, he wrote this
letter to me, describing the location of the letters and how he had
hidden them in a bronze box wrapped in a burlap bag. He urged me to go
and get them at once, and then, later, he could safely describe to his
captors where he had hidden them. Perhaps you wonder how he expected to
get this letter to me, since he was so carefully guarded. He said that he
was on the third floor, front, of the house, near a corner where he could
see a post-box. He happened to have a solitary stamp in his pocket, which
he put on the letter. Then, at some hour when he thought his captors were
busy elsewhere, he expected to attract the attention of some children
playing in the street and offer to throw them some money if they would
mail the letter in the nearby box. As I received the letter, no doubt his
plan worked successfu