Saxe folded the sheets, and replaced the letter in his pocket. Then, he sank back into his chair, and surveyed his friends quizzically.
“Well?” he demanded.
David Thwing beamed happily through the heavy lenses of his eyeglasses, as he spoke:
“And so you want us to go with you, and of course we will.” He gazed benignantly on his fellow guests, then opened his mouth, and trolled in a musical baritone, “A hunting we will go!” Roy swung into the measure with a nicety of accord in the tenor that told of old-time practice. Saxe added his bass, and the song rang out in an harmonious prophecy of success.
As the refrain ceased, Billy Walker expressed himself whimsically:
“This comes as a great relief to me,” he explained, grinning cheerfully. “I’m all tied up with commission for erudite essays I’ve promised to write. I’ve been unable to figure any way in which I could fulfill my obligations. Now, by cutting the whole thing, the difficulty will be removed. I shall simply disappear with you. Saxe, old boy, I thank you. When do we start?”
“And you, Dave?” the host questioned eagerly, though this friend had already given consent for the three.
“I haven’t a blessed thing to do,” was the contented answer. “Apart from the pleasant thrill incident to this questing for hidden treasure, your wish for my assistance gives me a new feeling of self-respect, due to the fact of having something in the nature of business to attend to. When do we start?”
Roy Morton nodded amiably, as Saxe turned in his direction.
“Of course,” he declared. “When do we start?”
“You’re trumps, all of you,” the host declared, gratefully. “I knew I could depend on you, but to have your assurance takes a weight off my mind all the same. I’d feel infernally helpless, alone on the job. With you chaps standing by, I know we’ll win out. As for starting, well, time is important—there’s a bit less than a month now left to us. I’ve looked up trains. There’s a good one that starts in the afternoon. I know it’s awfully short notice, but, if you could manage to make it tomorrow, why—” he halted doubtfully, to stare at his friends.
“Tomorrow it is!” boomed Billy Walker; and the others echoed agreement.
CHAPTER II
THE SECRETARY
IN THE performance of her secretarial duties, May Thurston duly drummed on her machine the remarkable letter to Saxe Temple, in which the old miser made known his intended disposition of a golden treasury. Because she possessed an excellent New England conscience, the girl maintained silence, despite the urgings of a feminine desire to share the secret. This reticence on her part was the more admirable inasmuch as, just at this time, her affections were becoming strongly engaged by a suitor.
Hartley Masters, the man in the case, was a civil engineer employed in the neighborhood with a survey for an electric road. On one occasion, he had stopped at Abernethey’s cottage for a glass of water from the well. The master of the house was absent at the time, but the secretary was present, and, by some chance, out of doors that pleasant May morning. Conventions seemed rather absurd in that remote region. The young engineer admired the charming face and slender form, and hastened to engage her in conversation. She responded without reluctance, rather with pleasure in this diversion from the monotony of her days. Afterward, a considerable intimacy developed between the two. May Thurston had much of her time free, and Masters contrived so to arrange his work as to take full advantage of her leisure. That his heart was touched seriously may be doubted, but his courtship lacked nothing in the evidences of intensity and sincerity. He made a deep impression on the girl, who was both ingenuous and tender. Masters was the first to whom she had given more than the most casual heed, and, almost at the outset, she found her affections engaged. She regarded him as astonishingly handsome—as, in truth, he was—in a melodramatic fashion of his own, with huge dark eyes, long-lashed and glowing, a sweep of black mustache, and thick, clustering hair, which was always artistically tousled. In fact, the whole appearance of the man was blatantly artistic, in the bohemian acceptation of the word, and he was scrupulous to wear on all occasions a loose bow of silk at his throat. He was tall, too, and broad enough, but there was too much slope to his shoulders, his neck was too long, his head bulked too large for harmony. His voice was agreeable, his manners were suave, quickened by a jauntiness, which was perhaps assumed to harmonize with the insouciant air of the cravat. May Thurston, who had read her Byron, thought of him as The Corsair, and her heart fluttered.
It is easily understood that the secretary’s keeping silence concerning her employer’s remarkable testamentary plans showed her the possessor of some strength of character, as well as a sense of honor. She even managed to keep her own counsel after Masters openly declared his love, and besought her to become his wife—at some vague time in the future, when he should have arrived at a position of independence. She yielded readily to his ardor, and had plighted troth, all a-tremble with maidenly confusion and womanly raptures. Then, a few days later, Abernethey died. She felt now that she was at liberty to reveal the circumstances of the will to her lover. As they strolled on the lake shore, the evening of the day after the miser’s death, May told the story, to which Masters listened with absorbed attention.
“Mad as a hatter!” he ejaculated, contemptuously, as the girl brought her narrative to a close. Yet, though his voice was mocking, there was manifest in his expression an eagerness that puzzled the girl.
She would not permit his comment to go unrebuked:
“No,” she declared firmly, “Mr. Abernethey was not mad. He was eccentric, of course—very! That was all, however. He wasn’t crazy—unless every miser is crazy. He had a sense of humor, though, and he didn’t quite know what to do with his money. So he finally worked out the scheme I’ve told you of.”
“Then, he really did it as a sort of joke,” Masters suggested eagerly.
“As much that as anything else,” May answered, and her tone was thoughtful. “There was sentiment on account of Saxe Temple’s mother and the old love-affair. And, of course, this young man’s interest in music made it seem like a good disposal of the money. But I have a suspicion, too, that Mr. Abernethey really enjoyed hiding the money—making it hard for anyone else to get hold of it, you know. That idea appealed to his miserly instincts, I think. How he hated to leave it! ‘No pockets in a shroud!’ I’ve heard him mutter a hundred times. It was horrible—and pitiful.”
“Yes, miserliness is an awful vice,” Masters agreed. His tone was perfunctory, although his inflections were energetic enough.
There fell a little silence between the lovers. Where they sat on the west shore, beneath the rampart of wooded hills, it was already deep dusk, but out on the open space of water shone a luminous purple light, shot over with rose and gold, a reflected sunset glow over the eastern mountains. May Thurston stared happily at the wide, dancing path over the water that led to the newly risen full moon, and she dreamed blissfully of the glory of life that was soon to come to her beside the man who had chosen her as his mate. Masters, on the contrary, while equally enthusiastic in his musings, was by no means sentimental, as he gazed unseeingly across the lake’s level, now wimpling daintily at touch of the slow breeze. The young engineer’s thoughts were, truth to tell, of a sort sordid, even avaricious, covetous; and, at last, after a period of profound reflection, he uttered his thought:
“May, dearest,” he said softly, with a tender
