d
tightly nailed to the stout posts that had supported the foundation. The
fire that had swept the neighbourhood had somehow failed to consume it,
though subsequent developments had buried it under piles of bracken and
dead brushwood. It was an amazing discovery, and under the circumstances
the luckiest one imaginable. At the very least it enabled me to place
one of the fixed points that were vital to the discovery of the plunder.
At the same time it showed me how I might be able, with a little extra
luck, to locate the sight of the burnt tree.

I went on with my digging.

Half an hour later I finished my self-imposed task, swung the spade over
my shoulder, and prepared to return to the cave. I could see Moira in
the distance moving towards me, and I guessed that my prolonged absence
had made her feel somewhat uneasy.

"Where have you been all the time, Jim?" was her greeting. "I was just
beginning to fear that something had happened to you."

"Something has," I answered, "but not in the way you mean. I've located
the exact position of the hut. That piece of wood you tripped over must
have been only a log that escaped being fully consumed. We're well on
the way towards finding the treasure now."

She eyed me keenly before she spoke again, and I knew what she was going
to ask me almost before she put her thoughts into words.

"Was that all you went to do?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I came out mainly to bury the dead."

She gave a little shudder at that, but her voice was steady enough as
she said, "And you did? All of them?"

I shook my head. "Not him," I said ungrammatically.

"Why?" she demanded, with Heaven knows what idea at the back of the
question.

"Because," I said distinctly, "because he wasn't there."

"Jim, whatever do you mean?" she cried.

"I can't say any more than I've just said," I told her. "When I went to
look I found he wasn't where I'd left him last night, and, though I
searched the valley from end to end, I couldn't find sign or sight of
him."

"It's impossible," she asserted. "You can't make a dead man fade into
thin air like that. If he's not in the valley, he's been taken out of
it."

"And who's taken him out?" I countered. "There's only two ways out.
Nobody's passed us during the night, and anyone that went out through
the wattles would leave a trail like an elephant."

"That's true enough," she admitted crestfallenly. And then she turned on
me swiftly. "Jim," she cried, "it