re, the Lady Richanda?" Rupert smiled. "Perhaps they do. No,
leave the bags here, Val. Let's see the house first."

Together the Ralestones crossed the terrace and came to stand by the
front door which still bore faint scars left by Indian hatchets. But
Rupert stooped to insert a very modern key into a very modern lock.
There was a click and the door swung inward before his push.

"The Long Hall!" They stood in something of a hesitant huddle at the end
of a long stone-floored room. Half-way down its length a wooden
staircase led up to the second floor, and directly opposite that a great
fireplace yawned mightily, black and bare.

A leather-covered lounge was directly before this, flanked by two square
chairs. And by the stairs was an oaken marriage chest. Save for two skin
rugs, these were all the furnishings.

But Ricky had crossed hesitatingly to that cavernous fireplace and was
standing there looking up as her brothers joined her.

"There's where it was," she said softly and pointed to a deep niche cut
into the surface of the stone overmantel. That niche was empty and had
been so for more than a hundred years--to their hurt. "That was where
the Luck--"

"How hold ye Lorne?" Rupert's softly spoken question brought the
well-remembered answer to Val's lips:

"By the oak leaf, by the sea wave, by the broadsword blade, thus hold we
Lorne!"

"The oak leaf is dust," murmured Ricky, "the sea wave is gone, the
broadsword is rust, how now hold ye Lorne?"

Her brothers answered her together:

"By our Luck, thus hold we Lorne!"

"And we've got to get it back," she said. "We've just got to! When the
Luck hangs there again, we--"

"Won't have anything left to worry about," Val finished for her. "But
that's a very big order, m'lady. Short of catching Rick's ghost and
forcing him to disclose the place where he hid it, I don't see how we're
going to do it."

"But we are going to," she answered confidently. "I know we are!"

"A good thing," Rupert broke in, a hint of soberness beneath the
lightness of his tone as he looked about the almost bare room and then
at the strained pallor of Val's thin face. "The Ralestones have been
luckless too long. And now suppose we take possession of this commodious
mansion. I suggest that we get settled as soon as possible. I don't like
the looks of the western sky. We're probably going to have a storm."

"What about the car?" Val asked as his brother turned to go.

"Harrison used t