he should have been met by a pack of
hungry wolves just as it seemed that he was on the threshold of success.

But the more he thought the matter over, the more reasonable did it seem
to him that, even if that were the location of Batavsky's buried
treasure, it was only natural that wolves should rendezvous there. But
how superstition should locate money there was more than he could
understand.

Then the thought came to his mind--what if that gold had been discovered
by someone and removed? In what other way could the legend of bloody
gold have come into existence?

But speculation was not congenial to his temper just then. He had gone,
so far, and nothing short of success or failure would satisfy him now.

That night his wounds pained when he lay down, and he slept but little.
Indeed, it was nearly morning before anything like sound slumber fell
upon his eyelids.

And even then he dreamed wild, exciting dreams, occasioned, of course,
by the events of the day before. But in one of them he thought he saw
Batavsky, and he smiled upon him, and while uttering no word, encouraged
him by his looks to persevere. With this he awoke, and the thread of the
dream ran through his mind again.

"This will never do," said he, calling his servant to light a candle.
"There is something in the very air of mountainous Germany that is not
real, and that kindles superstition. I will read until morning."

But after reading awhile on a drowsy romance he fell asleep again, and
the sun was shining in at the lattice when he awoke.

When the surgeon had dressed his wounds again that day, he felt so much
better that he was assisted to a chair that stood under a broad
linden-tree, where, a part of the time, he read and restudied Batavsky's
queer diagram until it was fairly burned into his memory.

Then he would smoke, and make glad the landlord's heart by indulging in
a bottle of wine, and again employ his servant in setting up targets for
him to practice upon with his pistol.

Already he had become somewhat famous for his eccentricities, but when
the landlord and his one or two guests saw with what ease he shot a hole
through the Ace of Spades at fifty paces, they were unbounded in their
applause.

Barnwell was indeed a wonderful shot, both with a rifle and a pistol,
having won several prizes in shooting tournaments at home, and it seemed
as though the experiences he had gone through during the previous two or
three years had toughene