he wasn't carrying it like he'd carry a gun. It was short--and
seemed more like a spade."

"A spade!" she gasped quickly in a low voice. "A spade! Are you certain
of that?"

"No, not at all certain. We only had an instantaneous glance of them.
We were unfortunately too late to see them face to face."

"The back of one of the men, the tall fellow in the brown suit, was
broad and square--the back of someone who is familiar to me, only for
the moment I can't recollect whose it resembles." She only spoke in a
whisper, fearing lest we should be discovered.

I longed to scramble down and rush after the intruders, only the belief
that one of them carried a spade and the other an iron bar struck me as
curious, while at the same moment my eye caught sight of a portion of
the ground below us at the base of the rock which had evidently been
recently disturbed.

"It is a spade the man is carrying!" I cried excitedly. "Look down
there! They've just been burying something!"

Her quick eyes followed the direction I indicated, and she answered:

"I really believe they have concealed something!"

Then when we had allowed the men to get beyond hearing, we both slipped
down to the other side of the boulder and there discovered many signs
that the earth had been hurriedly excavated and only just replaced.

Quicker than it takes to describe the exciting incident which followed,
we broke down the branch of a tree and with it commenced moving the
freshly disturbed earth, which was still soft and easily removed.

Muriel found a dead branch in the vicinity, and both of us set to work
with a will, eager to ascertain what was hidden there. That something
had certainly been concealed was, to us, quite evident, but what it
really was we could not surmise. The hole they had dug did not seem
large enough to admit a human body, yet leaves had been carefully strewn
over the place which, if approached from any other point than the
high-up one whence we had seen it, would arouse no suspicion that the
ground had ever been interfered with.

Digging with a piece of wood was hard and laborious work and it was a
long time before we removed sufficient earth to make a hole of any size.
But Muriel exerted all her energy, and both of us worked on in dogged
silence full of wonder and anticipation. With a spade we should have
soon been able to investigate, but the earth having apparently been
stamped down hard prior to the last covering being put upon i