poor Carey knew any more about it
than you do!"

"I'm sure he didn't. There are holes here and there in these woods that
he dug in his search. He had an idea that it might be found in the ruins
of grandfather's house, but that stood where I built the camp hall and I
had the old cellar thoroughly explored. Why!" she exclaimed, stopping
short and glancing about thoughtfully, "that's strange."

"We're lost, I hope!"

"Not lost; but there was a fork in the trail and I must have made the
wrong turn. I don't remember that I ever saw that fallen tree before."

At some time, perhaps several years earlier, a storm had evidently
centered its fury about the place where they stood, and a big hemlock
crushing in its fall several smaller trees lay prone across the trail.

"That old fellow must have made a mighty crash when he went down. I'm
sure that I never came this way before."

"Here's an old scar," said Archie, "where some one must have blazed the
tree years and years ago. It's the mark of an ax or hatchet. And look!
Three other big trees bear the same mark. They define a square and must
have been made for some purpose!"

Discussion of the markings brought them immediately into accord. Isabel
was perplexed to find herself in a spot she had never visited before
though she had spent the previous summer on the land, planning the
camp, and thought she knew every foot of it. She peered into the pit
torn by the roots of the huge tree. The sunlight glinted brightly upon
something that lay half hidden in the earth.

"Oh, how wonderful!" she cried and placed a gold piece in his hands.

They knelt together, tearing up the weeds and loosening the earth. It
was Archie who quickly found a second coin, a ten-dollar gold piece
stamped 1859. With a stick he dug into the hole and soon they had made a
little heap of bright coins, laughing like children with each discovery.
A deeper probe resulted in the unearthing of a splintered cedar plank
evidently torn from a chest that had contained the money.

"Of all the astonishing things that ever happened this is the most
utterly paralyzing!" exclaimed Archie jubilantly.

Using the board as a spade he scooped out a capful of coins--gold,
American, English and French, which the Southerner had buried in the
northern wilderness.

"It won't do to leave this place unprotected, and we must stop or we'll
have more than we can carry. We must bring Putney back to help. It's my
guess that there's a