pper's ready," came Rupert's voice from the hall.

Val half turned to go. "I've got to go now. But I'll be back later," he
promised.

"Yo'll tell him?" Jeems stabbed a finger at the door.

"Yes; after supper. I promise."

With a little sigh Jeems relaxed and burrowed down into the softness of
the pillow. "Ah'll be awaitin'," he said.

CHAPTER XIII

ON SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS--

It had been on of those dull, weepy days when a sullen drizzle clouded
sky and earth. In consequence, the walls and floors of Pirate's Haven
seemed to exude chill. Rupert built a fire in the hall fireplace, but
none of the family could say that it was a successful one. It made a
nice show of leaping flame accompanied by fancy lighting effects but
gave forth absolutely no heat.

"Val?"

The boy started guiltily and thrust his note-book under the couch
cushion as Charity came in. Tiny drops of rain were strung along the
hairs which had blown free of her rain-cape hood like steel beads along
a golden wire.

"Yes? Don't come here expecting to get warm," he warned her bitterly.
"We are very willing but the fire is weak. Looks pretty, doesn't it?" He
kicked at a charred end on the hearth. "Well, that's all it's good for!"

"Val, what sort of a mess have you and Jeems jumped into?" she asked as
she handed him her dripping cape.

"Oh, just a general sort of mess," he answered lightly. "Jeems had
callers who forgot their manners. So Ricky and I breezed in and brought
the party to a sudden end--"

"As I can see by your black eye," she commented. "But what has Jeems
been up to?"

Val was suddenly very busy holding her cape before that mockery of a
blaze.

"Why don't you ask him that?"

"Because I'm asking you. Rupert came over last night and sat on my
gallery making very roundabout inquiries concerning Jeems. I pried out
of him the details of your swamp battle. But I want to know now just
what Jeems has been doing. Your brother is so vague--"

"Rupert has the gift of being exasperatingly uncommunicative," his
brother told her. "The story, so far as I know, is short and simple.
Jeems knows a secret way into this house. In addition, his grandfather
told him that the fortune of the house of Jeems is concealed
here--having been very hazy in his description of the nature of said
fortune. Consequently, grandson has been playing haunt up and down our
halls trying to find it.

"His story is as full of holes as a sieve but somehow one c