t that we don't scare for a cent! And I
have thought of a scheme as good as his!--Do you know what I did when I
went back there? I took a pencil and _printed_ on the bottom of that
paper just this:

"'_The article will be returned to its hiding-place_.'

"Now here's what I'm going to do next. In my trunk I have a little
jewel-case, very much the size and shape and weight of the Dragon's
Secret. It's one of those antimony things you've often seen, covered with
a kind of carving that might easily pass for what's on that other one, if
it weren't _seen_. I'm going to-morrow to make a burlap bag, just like
the one we found, and sew the jewel-case in it, and it will be a sharp
person who can tell the difference between them till the bag is opened.
Then we'll bury it in the place where Rags dug up the other, some time
to-morrow when the coast is clear. After that we'll wait and see what
happens next! Now what do you think of my scheme?"

"It sounds splendid to me," admitted Leslie, then she added uneasily:
"But there's something you haven't explained yet. You think Ted wrote
that thing, yet it is _type-written_! How do you explain _that_?"

"Oh, that's simple enough! We have an old typewriter down here that
Father uses occasionally, and Ted frequently practises on it."

"But did you notice the paper?" Leslie insisted. "It was queer, thin,
almost foreign-looking stuff. Do you folks use that kind, or happen to
have it about?"

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose he got it somewhere. What does it matter,
anyway?" answered Phyllis, sleepily. And in two minutes more she was in
the land of dreams.

But Leslie, still unconvinced, tossed the night through without closing
her eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MAN WITH THE LIMP

Two days had passed. To Leslie it was a constant marvel, considering the
secret tension under which she lived, that outwardly her life went on in
the same peaceful groove. She rose and dressed as usual, prepared the
meals, ate and chatted with Aunt Marcia, walked on the beach or down to
the village, fished occasionally with Phyllis and the Kelvins, took a dip
in the ocean when it was not too chilly, read and slept and idled, as if
there were nothing in the world but what was quiet and normal and in the
ordinary course of things.

Aunt Marcia suspected nothing. Even Ted, who, she was certain, suspected
many things, laughed and chatted with and teased he