found Betty's sled, after some search, where they had left it
between two trees, and together they began to thread the tortuous maze
of the cave again, Bob going ahead and dragging the sled after him.
Betty thought despairingly that she had never known what it meant to be
tired before.

"I'll wrap the little things in my middy tie," she said when they came
out in the chasm at last and found the heap of treasure where they had
piled it, "and we can fasten down the rest of the stuff with the belt
from my coat."

Their fingers were stiff with cold, but they managed to get everything on
the sled and lash it securely with a rope and the leather belt from
Betty's coat. Then, once more, they started back through the cave.

The sled was heavy and the way seemed twice as long as the first time
they had followed it, but they kept doggedly on. It was dark when they
emerged on the familiar hillside.

"Sit on the sled, and I'll pull you, Betty," offered Bob, looking a
little anxiously at his companion's white face.

But Betty resolutely refused, and she trotted beside him all the way,
helping to pull the sled, till the gray buildings of Shadyside loomed up
before them.

She insisted that Bob must come in with her, and they told their story to
Mrs. Eustice, breathlessly and disconnectedly, to be sure, but the rope
of emeralds and the gleaming diamonds filled in all gaps in the
narrative. Before she went to sleep Betty had the satisfaction of knowing
that Norma and Alice had been told the good news and that a telegram was
speeding off to the home folks.

The discovery and recovery of the missing treasure created a wave of
excitement when it became generally known. A few girls, who valued
worldly possessions above everything else, made overtures of friendship
to the sisters whom previously they had ignored. Their old friends
heartily rejoiced with them and Norma and Alice went about in a dream of
bliss compounded of joy for their grandmother and parents, plans for new
frocks and the proposed holiday trip to Washington.

"It's the nicest thing that ever happened," Betty wrote her uncle. "Now
Norma and Alice can graduate from Shadyside, and Grandma Macklin can
spend the rest of the winter in Florida and dear Doctor and Mrs. Guerin
can doctor and nurse half the county for nothing, if they please."

* * * * *

Doctor Guerin and his wife wrote that Norma and Alice should go happily
with the Littell