de another discovery. Drawn up in a
miniature cove not far from the hut was a trim and trig white motor boat,
seemingly, from her long narrow shape and powerful engines, capable of
great speed.

Here was a discovery! A motor boat meant gasolene and companionship.

With a soft cry of joy Peggy was dashing forward toward the hut, from
which they could now hear proceeding the hum of human voices, when Roy
suddenly checked her. From the doorway there had suddenly issued the
figure of Morgan, the Bancrofts' butler. He gazed about him with a look
of half alarmed suspicion on his flabby face. The young aviators
instinctively crouched back behind a screen of green brush. They felt a
suddenly aroused premonition that everything was not as it should be.

"H'its nothink," said Morgan, addressing someone within the hut, after he
had gazed about a little more without seeing anything to further alarm
his suspicions.

"All right, if that's the case come back in here," came another voice
from inside the hut.

"Giles!" recognized the astonished Peggy. But another and a greater
surprise was yet in store for them when they heard another voice strike
into the conversation. There was no mistaking the tones for any others
than Fanning Harding's.

"You chaps are nervous as kittens," he was saying, "who on earth would
come to this island? We are as private here as if we were in the South
Seas. Now go ahead, Morgan, with what you were saying."

"Well, what h'I says is this," spoke up the English butler, "a fair
diwision and no favoritism. You say you want a third? You ain't
h'entitled to h'it. H'it was h'only by h'accident that you found h'out
h'our secret h'and h'I thinks you ought to be content with what you can
get."

"Very well," was the rejoinder, "but as you fellows know, I've got you in
my power. You daren't make a move without consulting me. If you try any
monkey tricks I'll crush you so quick you won't know what struck you. The
police are still carrying on their investigation, and----"

But here the voices sank so low that the eager young listeners could hear
no more. But their eyes shone as they exchanged glances. Somehow both
Peggy and Roy felt that the conversation had related to the mysterious
vanishing of the jewels. This at least appeared clear from Fanning
Harding's reference to the police.

"We'd better get back to the other side of the island before they come
out and see us," counseled Peggy. "If they were to find