or was locked--the key returning to
Polly's sweater pocket, and the two went back to the dining-room.

"Say, was that guy tryin' to get fresh with you?" demanded Matt, as they
went along. "I set out there on the steps because I thought mebbe you
wanted to chat with the crittur, being acquaintances like, but if I'd of
thought that he----"

"No, no, he was trying to bribe me to let him go."

"Let him go? Well, if he ain't got a nerve! What'd he offer you--a castle
in Spain?"

"No," replied the girl, "a buried treasure in New Mexico."

"What? Well, say, he must have thought you was green to fall for that
stuff. A bright, wide-awake girl like you, too. Was it under an elm tree
fifty paces off by moonlight?"

"Why? Couldn't there be a buried treasure in New Mexico?"

"Well, I suppose there could if there's been a fool to bury it; but it
seems to me I'd of tried something snappier if I'd been him. An oil well,
or shares in a gold mine, or somethin' first class in the bunk line."

CHAPTER IX

AT LIBERTY

Polly and Matt continued their walk in silence until they reached the
dining-room. They found Scott sitting as they had left him, smoking and
thinking; while, through the hole in the wall, Mrs. Van Zandt could be
seen and heard busy with the dishes.

"Well, did His Nobs enjoy his tea?" asked Scott.

"He did that! Kicked into it like a little man," replied Matt, cheerfully.
"Also he made the young lady a real sporting proposition."

"What?"

"Oh, don't be absurd!" snapped Polly, disgustedly. "Anybody'd suppose you
were college boys at the dansant." And she went into the kitchen.

"Well, you see what you get, Matt; you would horn in. What do you mean--a
sporting proposition?"

"Oh, a rich one. Buried treasure up in New Mexico--secret chart handed
down to Juan Pachuca by a maiden aunt--I don't know what all--just to get
the key of the office, but she was too sharp for him."

"I should hope so. Is that Hard?" Scott went to the window as the sound of
hoof-beats was heard. Down the street came a man on horseback. Silhouetted
against the moonlight, the tall Bostonian acquired a picturesqueness
lacking in daylight. "I've got to take Hard out one of these days and
teach him how to ride," remarked Scott, meditatively. "Jolt some of that
Boston stiffness out of him."

"You can't," replied the Irishman, placidly. "It's in his blood. His
ancestors brought it over in the _Mayflower_ with 'em from England. I'll