possessions had filled their souls
with curious wonder.

Maggie was responsible for the story about a certain chest.

"It's as big"--here Maggie had stretched truth to the snapping
point--"as this! And it's all thick with iron strips, and it has a lock
as big as my head. Once I saw him open it--I was in the next room--"

"What was in it?" St. Ange youth whispered.

"That's telling," Maggie had sniffed.

But after all the earthly wealth that St. Ange greed then held in the
way of strings, old postage stamps, etc., had been laid at her feet,
Maggie revealed what she had _not_ seen.

"There's hundreds of dollars of gold. Umph! And candy
and--and"--Maggie's imagination in those days had been awakened by
Gaston's fairy-lore--"and a box tied up with a blood-stained cord! And a
gun, and a knife, with queer spots on it, and things that made me turn
sick as I looked!"

As Billy viewed the chest now--somewhat dwindled as to size--the old
story moved him.

There was no low curiosity of a thieving kind in his feverish longing
to test the truth of that old story of Maggie's. Money had no lure for
him, candy he was surfeited with, but he'd chance much to get a glimpse
of the box tied with the blood-stained cord, and the knife with the
queer spots.

Joyce had apparently gone on an errand. Billy stepped back into the
living room, then went to the wood-shed, and all around the house.

Perhaps she had gone to the store by a back path--she had a love for
unfrequented places.

Billy returned to the shack, laid the letter on the table of the outer
room, and tiptoed back to the lean-to.

The particular kind of thrill he experienced then was delicious. Quite
different was it from the one that had driven him almost mad with fear
as he listened to Jude and Birkdale a time back. This was a thriller
that appealed to the familiar in him,--the impishness that died hard.

He went across to the chest and leaned over it. The fire crackled--and
he leaped back! Then, loathing himself for his weakness, he knelt before
the treasure trove and tried the key in the lock.

It turned easily, and the lid flew back; for the chest was filled to the
brim. Several small articles, like letters, pictures and books, fell
onto the floor; but Billy heeded them not. He was after bigger game. He
tossed the contents hurriedly out. Maggie had lied foully--not a blood
stain anywhere, nor knife, string, nor box! Not even a gun, nor candy
nor gold dollars.