lly. At any rate, I got it a week ago and started on
the trail immediately.

"I landed out here one morning while it was still dark, and dug all
around the spot mentioned, but couldn't find a trace of the bag or box."

"Oh, I saw you that morning!" cried Leslie. "But when you walked away you
seemed to stoop and had a bad limp! I don't understand!"

"I know you saw me," he smiled, "or, at least, that _some_ one did, for
as I happened to glance back at this house, it was growing just light
enough for me to realize there was some one watching at the window. So I
adopted that stoop and limp as I walked away, just so you would not be
likely to recognize me if you saw me again. It is a ruse I've often
practised."

"But it didn't work _that_ time," laughed Leslie, "for I recognized you
again this afternoon by the way you dusted the sand off your hands and
threw away the stick!"

"Well, you are certainly a more observing person than most people!" he
answered gravely. "But to go on. Of course, I was very much disappointed,
but I remained here, staying at the village hotel, and kept as close a
watch on the place as was possible, pretending all the time that I was
here on a fishing excursion. I tried very hard to keep out of sight of
these bungalows, in the daytime, anyway. The day you all went off on the
auto ride the coast seemed clear, and I went through the place. But I
hadn't been out of it long and walked down to the beach, when I saw the
two men drive up in a car and enter the bungalow also, and later come out
to dig by that old log. Of course, they didn't see me about! I took care
of that. And I knew, beyond a doubt, that they were Gaines's Chinamen,
come to find the booty.

"Of course they didn't find it, any more than I had, and I felt sure they
would go back and make it hot for Gaines, and I judged that he would
probably try to gain time in some way. I went back to my hotel that night
to think it all over and make further plans, and didn't visit the
bungalow again till next evening, when I found to my astonishment a queer
note, type-written, on the table there--a warning that the article stolen
from its hiding-place had better be returned. And under it, a reply,
printed in lead-pencil, saying it would be returned."

"I couldn't make head or tail of the business. I judged the type-written
part to have been left by the Chinese. But who had scribbled the other
was a dark-brown mystery. At any rate, I concluded that