intricate, much more rapidly than most men.

"I'll do it!" he said, to himself. "I'll offer her a good price for the
cottage and the land, and when the papers are drawn up for her signature,
I'll take good care that all the other land is included in the plot
mentioned. I can make the papers so confusing that she won't know the
difference, and she'll sign them without knowing their real contents.
Glorious!"

Then came a knock on the door.

"Dinner is ready, sir," said the housekeeper.

"Very well; I will be there in a few minutes," he returned.

Then he gazed out of the window thoughtfully.

"But what if those papers should turn up? I must watch out for them, and
get the land in my name before that occurs--if it ever does occur. What a
fool I was to trust them in the mails to have them certified to by that old
woman in New York!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON THE ISLAND.

Meanwhile, what of poor Ralph? Was it true that he had been dashed to his
death over the high cliff?

Happily, it was not true. Yet, for a long while after he was pushed over,
the boy knew nothing of what had happened.

He went down and down, clutching vainly at rocks and bushes as he passed.
Then his head struck a stone and he was knocked senseless.

How long he remained in this state he did not know. When he came to all was
dark around him and silent.

Putting his hand to his face he found it covered with blood. There was a
large bruise on his left temple, and his head ached as it never had before.

"Where am I?" was his first thought. "What has hap---- Oh!"

With something akin to a shock he remembered the truth--how he had stood on
the edge of the cliff, and how Martin and Toglet had bumped up against him
and shoved him over.

"I believe they did it on purpose," he thought. "The villains! What was
their object?"

By the darkness Ralph knew it was night, but what time of night he could
not tell. Luckily, he had not worn his new watch. The old one was
battered, and had stopped.

Presently the bruised and bewildered boy was able to take note of his
surroundings, and then he shuddered to think how narrowly he had escaped
death.

He had caught in a small tree which grew half way down the side of the
cliff, and his head struck on a stone resting between two of the limbs of
the tree. Below him was a dark space many feet in depth, above him was a
projecting wall of the cliff which hid the top from view.

What to do he did not know. He