ou darling thing! I think you're too unselfish for
words! It makes me feel ashamed of my own selfish, foolish little wish.
Wouldn't it be gorgeous if we could find four or five thousand dollars
lying around on the beach? Wouldn't it just--" She stopped abruptly.

"What's the matter?" inquired Leslie. "Anything wrong?"

"No--something just occurred to me. What if that wretched little dragon
of ours was guarding just such a fortune? It might be jewels or
bank-notes or--or _something_ equally valuable! I'm going to get it right
away and make another try at opening it. It makes me furious, every time
I think of it, to be so--so balked about getting at anything!"

"But, Phyllis," objected Leslie, "even if there _were_ any such thing, I
don't believe we'd have a right to keep it. It must belong to _somebody_,
and we ought to make an effort to find out who. Don't you think so?"

"Oh, yes, if it's any _real_ person--I suppose so," admitted Phyllis.
"But what if--" She stopped significantly.

"Now _don't_ tell me it was hidden there by _ghosts_!" And Leslie's
infectious laugh pealed out.

"Oh, hush! or Ted will hear. He can't be far away," implored Phyllis,
guiltily. "Of course, I don't say what or whom it was hidden by, but
there's something mighty queer to me about an empty bungalow being
inhabited by _living folks_--"

"What about burglars?" interrupted Leslie, quickly.

"Never _was_ such a thing around these parts, in any one's experience!"
Phyllis hastened to assure her, much to her secret relief.

"Then perhaps it's the people who own the cottage," offered Leslie.

"No chance. They've all gone off to spend the winter in California--every
one. Ted had a letter from Leroy Danforth, who is a great chum of his,
last week."

"Well, I _know_ there is some other explanation besides a--a ghostly
one!" declared Leslie, nothing daunted. "But anyway, we might have
another look at the dragon."

Phyllis went and got it out from its hiding-place in her trunk, and they
spent a fruitless half-hour wrestling with its secret fastening. They
broke their finger-nails trying to pry it open, they pressed and poked
every inch of it in an endeavor to find a possible secret spring; they
rattled and shook it, rewarded in this case by the dull thud of something
shifting about. It was this last sound only that kept up their courage.
Finally they gave it up.

"I believe we could break it open with an ax, perhaps; but you don't seem
to a