; and the stream such a stream as
tumbles through many an English deer-park. The whole scene might
have been transplanted from England but for a wall of naked cliff,
sharply serrated, which enclosed the valley on the left. And under
it, like a smooth military terrace at the foot of a fortress, the
glade curved upward and out of sight.

The scene, I have said, was almost typically English--but to the eye
only.

"Faugh!" exclaimed Miss Belcher, looking about her and sniffing
suspiciously. "A pretty place enough, but full of malaria, or I'm a
Dutchwoman! And what a horrible silence!"

"Malaria?" said Mr. Rogers, quietly. "There's better scent than
malaria in this valley, and we're hot on it. Here's the river, and--
What does the chart say, boy? Five trees, a mile and a half from the
creek-head? We must have come a mile already. Keep your eyes
skinned, and give me a nudge if you see such a clump."

But there was no need to keep my eyes skinned. At the next bend of
the glade he and I caught sight of it simultaneously--a clump of
noble pines that would have challenged notice even had we not been
searching for them. My heart stood still as I counted them.
Yes; there were five!

"I haven't often wanted to put a knife into a man's back," grunted
Mr. Rogers, with a gloomy glance ahead at Dr. Beauregard.

For an instant I made sure the Doctor had overheard him. He halted
suddenly, and turned to us with a proprietary wave of the hand
towards the trees.

"A fine group, sirs, is it not? I have often regretted that
the cliff yonder just cuts off the view of it from my windows.
Indeed, I had almost altered the site of the house to include it.
But health before everything--hey, ladies? There is always a certain
amount of fever in these valleys, and you will own, presently, that
the site I prepared has its compensations."

He resumed his way past the trees, and--a quarter of a mile beyond
them--past an angle of the cliff where the ridge bent sharply back
from the river and revealed a narrow gorge, its entrance choked with
pines, running up towards the mountain. Here he paused again, and
with another wave of the hand.

High on the right of the gorge, on a plateau above the dark
pine-tops, a white-painted house looked down on us--a long, low house
with a generous spread of shadow under its verandah and a dazzle of
light where the upper windows took the sun.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

WE FIND THE TREASURE.

"I'v