er lads to bring each his share to me. I will look
after it and see that ye dinna lose anything. You see, although ye
found the treasure, you lads, it doesn't rightly belong to you. No
doubt ye'll be rewarded in some way for your find; but I must tell
you that the law will not let you keep it to yoursels. A person
finding treasure of this sort can have only a third part of its
value. Is that not so, Mr. Gordon?"

"Yes," said the captain, "I fancy you're right, Mr. Drever. Of
course you refer to the law of treasure trove?"

"Exactly," agreed the master. Then turning to me, he continued:

"You see, Halcro, the Crown will claim a share of it, and the laird
gets another part. So ye'd better let the other lads ken about
this. Let them understand that they are breaking the law if they
keep their discovery a secret."

"Yes, sir, I'll tell Rosson and Hercus before school time in the
morning."

"And Kinlay?" said Mr. Drever, looking questioningly in my face.

"Maybe you'd better speak to him yoursel, sir," I returned, almost
afraid to say that my companionship with Tom was at an end.

"Hello! what's in the wind in that quarter? A quarrel, eh? I have
noticed that scratch on your cheek. Has that anything to do with
Kinlay?"

I put my hand to my cheek and found that there was blood there. I
had received a scratch that I was before unconscious of.

"Well, sir," I said, "Kinlay and I did have a bit of a fight over
at Bigging. There was a dispute over the sharing of the treasure."

And then I thought of the small black stone that Tom had given me
as an equivalent of the bar of silver he had appropriated for
himself. It was not amongst the articles I had shown to the
schoolmaster and the captain. I thought that I had perhaps left it
lying on the gravestone; but searching my pockets, I at last found
it in one of them, where I had carelessly thrust it when the fight
began. I placed it on the table before Captain Gordon, who examined
it curiously.

"What d'you make of this, sir?" asked he, turning to the dominie.
"The stone, if it is a stone at all, looks worthless; and yet I see
this ring round it is the only piece of metal that is neither
silver nor bronze, but gold."

"Gold!" I exclaimed, bending over to look at it.

"Yes, gold undoubtedly," said the captain.

Grace Drever, who had said little during the examination of the
store of silver coins and ingots beyond asking questions as to the
manner of our finding it, an