to question my story." He smiled reminiscently. "Judge Henry
Lane had to see every line of written proof this morning before he would
admit that the tale might be true."

"But where did you find this 'proof'?" Val demanded as Jeems pulled up
chairs for the lawyer and Creighton.

"In that chest of Jeems' which you brought out of the swamp on the night
of the storm," he replied promptly. "And, young man," he said to Jeems
indignantly, "if you had let me see those papers of yours a month ago,
instead of waiting until last week, we would have had this matter
cleared up then--"

"But then we might never have found the Luck!" Val protested.

"Humph, that piece of steel is historically interesting, no doubt,"
conceded Creighton, "but hardly worth risking your life for."

"No? Well, you heard what that man said just now--that we had found our
luck. It's so; we have had good luck since. But I'm sorry; do get on
with the story of Jeems' box."

"Ah gave it to him Monday," said the swamper slowly. "But, Mistuh
Creighton, there weren't nothin' in that chest but some books full of
handwritin'--most in some funny foreign stuff--an' a French
prayer-book."

"Plenty to establish your right to the name and a quarter interest in
the estate," snapped LeFleur. Val thought the lawyer rather resented the
fact that it was Creighton and not he who had found the way out of their
difficulties.

"Two of those books were ships' logs, kept in the fashion of diaries,
partly in Latin," explained the New Yorker. "The log of the ship
_Annette Marie_ for the years 1814 and 1815 gave us what we wanted. The
master was Captain Roderick Ralestone, although he concealed his name in
a sort of an anagram. After his quarrel with his brother he apparently
went to Lafitte and purchased the ship which he had once commanded for
the smuggler. Then he sailed off into the Gulf to become a free-trader,
with his headquarters first in Georgetown, British Guiana, then in Dutch
Curacao, and finally at Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It was there that he met
and fell in love with Valerie St. Jean de Roche, the only living child
and heir of the Comte de Roche, who had survived the Terror of the
French Revolution only to fall victim to the rebel slaves on his Haitian
estates.

"Horribly injured, the Comte de Roche had been saved from death by the
devotion of his daughter and her nurse, a free woman of color. These two
women not only saved his life, but managed to keep him and