the stones at first, and not a stick of timber left,
except a log lying outside the foundation. The older feller sat down and
began to talk.

"I left this country in '65," he said, "for California, and now I'm back
to Menard County, Illinois, to die and be buried with my people over at
Rock Creek. And I'm goin' about seein' the old places onct again. You
see, there ain't anything left of the village of Salem, but it all comes
back to me, and I can close my eyes and see the people that used to walk
around here, and see Linkern. And I'll tell you a story of a man who
found treasure here."

Mitch looked awful eager and bright-eyed, and the old feller twisted off
some tobacco and began to chew and get the thread of his story.

"It was this a way," he began. "There was a man here who was clerkin' in
one of the stores; and one day a feller drove up and said 'hallow' and
this clerk came out of the store and says, 'What is it?' The traveler
says, 'Here's a barl I have no use for and don't want to carry on my
wagon any furder, and I'll sell it to you.' And the clerk says, 'I ain't
got no use for the barl.' 'Well,' says the traveler, 'you can have it
for fifty cents, and it will accommodate me; and besides I don't want to
just throw it away.' So the clerk says all right, and gave him fifty
cents and took the barl in the store and put it in the corner. It was
kind of heavy too--had somethin' in it--had treasure in it, as you'll
see. And after a few days this here clerk took the barl and turned it
upside down and there was treasure."

"How much?" said Mitch. "Gee, but that was wonderful."

"Well," said the old feller, "you can believe it or not, it was treasure
too much to count. You've heard of a man bein' suddenly rich and not
realizin' it, or havin' somethin' given to him that he didn't know the
value of, and findin' out afterwards. It was just this way."

"Well," said Mitch, "why didn't he count it, right away, or was it
diamonds or rubies?"

"He couldn't count it all right there. It couldn't be done, because it
had to be weighed and tested and tried out, and put on the market; for
you might say some of it was rubies, and to know what rubies are worth
takes experience and time and a lot of things."

Mitch got more and more interested and I did too. Then the old feller
went on.

"But that ain't sayin' that this clerk didn't know it was treasure--he
did--but it was treasure that he had to put work on to bring out all i