nt shifted about
ninety degrees, and God knows how many feet, while the trees will have
long since disappeared."

"Or the whole Point may be built over with houses!" Macloud responded.
"Why not go the whole throw-down at once--make it impossible to
recover rather than only difficult to locate!" He made a gesture of
disbelief. "Do you fancy that the Duvals didn't keep an eye on
Greenberry Point?--that they wouldn't have noted, in their
endorsements, any change in the ground? So it's clear, in my mind,
that, when Colonel Duval transferred this letter to you, the Parmenter
treasure could readily be located."

"I'm sure I shan't object, in the least, if we walk directly to the
spot, and hit the box on the third dig of the pick!" laughed Croyden.
"But let us forget the old pirate, until to-morrow; tell me about
Northumberland--it seems a year since I left! When one goes away for
good and all, it's different, you know, from going away for the
summer."

"And you think you have left it for good and all?" asked Macloud,
blowing a smoke-ring and watching him with contemplative eyes--"Well,
the place is the same--only more so. A good many people have come back.
The Heights is more lively than when you left, teas, and dinners, and
tournaments and such like.--In town, the Northumberland's resuming its
regulars--the theatres are open, and the Club has taken the bald-headed
row on Monday nights as usual. Billy Cain has turned up engaged, also
as usual--this time, it's a Richmond girl, 'regular screamer,' he says.
It will last the allotted time, of course--six weeks was the limit for
the last two, you'll remember. Smythe put it all over Little in the
tennis tournament, and 'Pud' Lester won the golf championship. Terry's
horse, _Peach Blossom_, fell and broke its neck in the high jump, at
the Horse Show; Terry came out easier--he broke only his collar-bone.
Mattison is the little bounder he always was--a month hasn't changed
him--except for the worse. Hungerford is a bit sillier. Colloden is the
same bully fellow; he is disconsolate, now, because he is beginning to
take on flesh." Whereat both laughed. "Danridge is back from the North
Cape, via Paris, with a new drink he calls _The Spasmodic_--it's made
of gin, whiskey, brandy, and absinthe, all in a pint of sarsaparilla.
He says it's great--I've not sampled it, but judging from those who
have he is drawing it mild.... Betty Whitridge and Nancy Wellesly have
organized a Sinners Clas