lverware at the same time. What do you think?" Ignoring both
Ricky and Val, he turned to Charity.

"You are right. But it seems a pity to send it all away before we have a
chance to rub it up and see what it really looks like!"

"By all means, take it at once!" Val urged promptly. "We can always
clean it later."

Rupert grinned. "Now that might be a protest against the suggestion
Ricky made a few minutes ago. But I'll save you some honest labor this
time, Val; I'll take it to town this afternoon."

Ricky laughed softly.

"And why the merriment?" her younger brother inquired suspiciously.

"I was just thinking what a surprise the visitor who dropped his
handkerchief here is going to get when he finds the cupboard bare," she
explained.

Rupert rubbed his palm across his chin. "Of course. I had almost
forgotten that."

"Well, I haven't! And I wonder if we have found what he--or they--were
hunting," Val mused as he helped Rupert wrap up the spoil again.

CHAPTER VIII

GREAT-UNCLE RICK WALKS THE HALL

Sam had produced a horse complete with saddle and a reputed
skittishness. That horse was the pride of Sam's big heart. It had once
won a small purse at some country fair or something of the sort, and
since then it had been kept only to wear the saddle at rare intervals.
Not that Sam ever rode. He drove a spring-board behind a thin, sorrowful
mule called "Suggah." But the saddle horse was rented at times to white
folk of whom Sam approved.

Soon after the arrival of the Ralestones at Pirate's Haven, Sam had
brought this four-footed prodigy to their attention. But claiming that
the family were his "folks," he indignantly refused to accept hire and
was hurt if one of them did not ride at least once a day. Ricky had
developed an interest in the garden and had accepted the loan of Sam's
eldest son, an earth-brown child about as tall as the spade, to help her
mess about. Rupert spent the largest part of his days shut up in
Bluebeard's chamber. Which of course left the horse to Val.

And Val was becoming slightly bored with Louisiana, at least with that
portion of it which immediately surrounded them. Charity was hard at
work on her picture of the swamp hunter, for Jeems had come back without
warning from his mysterious concerns in the swamp. There was no one to
talk to and nowhere to go.

LeFleur had notified them that he believed he was on the track of some
discreditable incident in the past of their rival