## The Project Gutenberg eBook of The treasure on the beach

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Title: The treasure on the beach

Author: Julian Street

Frank Finney

Illustrator: Leon de Bernebruch

Sewell Collins

Harrison Fisher

Will Grefé

Avery Guilford Wallys

C. D. Williams

Release date: March 18, 2025 [eBook #75653]

Language: English

Original publication: Portsmouth: The Seaboard Air Line Railway, 1906

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREASURE ON THE BEACH ***

Avery Guilford Wallys' Idea of the Heroine.

#
The
TREASVRE
on the
BEACH

by STREET &
FINNEY

THE SEABOARD
AIR LINE RAILWAY
Passenger Department
PORTSMOUTH VA

Copyright, 1906,
by STREET
& FINNEY
New York

Published for the Passenger
Department Seaboard Air Line
Railway, Portsmouth, Va.

The
TREASVRE
on the
BEACH

He was always a queer old codger—my Great Uncle Abner. I had never laid eyes on him myself, but his eccentricities were tradition to me, and when I thought of him at all, it was as a half-cracked old fellow living alone in a shack, on a sandy key, somewhere off the coast of Florida. Naturally one doesn't get close-range impressions of uncles of this sort, especially if one's own life runs in very different channels, and if one has enough money to get along on, and one's "sandy-key-uncle" is not thought to have much of this world's goods.

On the morning that Uncle Abner's letter came I had gone downstairs to breakfast feeling rather beastly. I saw the large legal-looking envelope beside my plate, but, hardly having an appetite for eggs and coffee, I naturally felt no enthusiasm for mail.

Drinking my coffee, I observed that the envelope was bulky—the sort of envelope that might contain specifications for a breach of promise suit. After a few sips of coffee I found the energy to open it.

Dear Sir:—You will find enclosed herewith a sealed letter, which we are forwarding to you in accordance with instructions of your late uncle, Abner Barker, before his death, which occurred, as you are of course aware, at Lone Palm Key, Florida, December 20th. Our instructions were to forward the enclosed letter to you one month after your uncle's death, and to inform you that another letter—an exact duplicate in every way of this one—has been sent simultaneously to the only other surviving relative of Abner Barker, namely: Graham Stewart, of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Trusting that we may hear from you in case we may be of any service, we remain,

Yours very truly,
Blackmar, Mathews & Blackmar.

Harrison Fisher's Idea of the Heroine.

The letter enclosed by Blackmar, Mathews & Blackmar was in a dirty, home-made, yellow envelope, sealed with five large blobs of red wax. It read as follows:

Nephew Allen Spencer:—I send you a chart with this letter. If you are a young man of any energy or ability—which I very much doubt—it will be worth your while to investigate this chart, and put it to whatever use it may suggest.

I shall send another chart exactly like this one to Graham Stewart, of Brooklyn, who is the only other relative to survive me. This letter will be held by my attorneys until one month after the day of my death and will then be forwarded to you. I shall watch your use of it with interest, from the spirit-land. I understand that you are a frivolous, idle youth, who are not likely to seize your opportunities.

Your uncle,
Abner Barker.

I unfolded the chart. It was a queer looking thing, carefully drawn upon yellow wrapping paper. It conjured up recollections of Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and pictures of savage-looking buccaneers, and desolate, sandy beaches. There was a square marked "House," with a dotted line running through the middle of it. Then there were innumerable other spots, and dots, and lines signified variously. The word "spring" was written at one point; "Lone Palm Tree" at another. In the centre of a circle, to which led dotted lines, my eyes were arrested by the words: "Treasure buried here."

I had imagined Uncle Abner a prosaic man; now it seemed I was wrong. He was a dreamer on his sandy key; he lived with the shades of corsairs and saw ghostly galleons riding at anchor off his strip of coast. Poor old Uncle Abner! There was something grimly grotesque in the situation. One does not associate charts and buried treasure with a light noon breakfast in a clubhouse on Fifth Avenue.

I think it was a flurry of cold rain upon the window which first turned my thoughts seriously toward Lone Palm Key. New York is a beastly place in a January thaw. I imagined the sun shining warmly at Palm Beach, girls in pretty summer dresses and men in tennis flannels. Then again I heard the swish of the rain against the window, and looking out, saw a cab horse slip and fall upon the asphalt.

"Buried treasure or no buried treasure," I said to myself, "Uncle Abner has given me a good idea. I'll go to Florida this very afternoon."

A line from Blackmar, Mathews & Blackmar's letter caught my eye:

——The only other surviving relative of Abner Barker, namely Graham Stewart, of Brooklyn, N.Y.——

Who was Graham Stewart? I had never heard of him before. Most probably a relative on the other side of Uncle Abner's family. Had he received his letter? Perhaps even now he was hurrying South ahead of me!

I had Henry look up trains at once and sent word upstairs to have my trunk and bag packed with nice, summery things for Florida.

An hour later, as I drove to the 23rd Street Ferry, and saw the cold rain streaking down the carriage windows, I felt genuinely grateful to old Uncle Abner for bequeathing me this excellent excuse for getting out of town.

After all, there was something like sport in going down to Florida to look for treasure. The idea appealed to me more and more. I felt that I was in a race with Graham Stewart. As the Seaboard Florida Limited drew out of the Pennsylvania Terminal, and started on its run toward warmth, sunshine and Uncle Abner's treasure—perhaps Uncle Abner's treasure—I settled myself and began a close inspection of my fellow-travellers. If Graham Stewart was on the train I wished to pick him out. And something told me he was on the train. I made a mental inventory of my fellow-passengers. Was he Graham—that slim youth in section twelve? He had pale hair and wore glasses, and looked at though he might live in Brooklyn.

But no; he was calm. Graham would be nervous.

The keen-faced old man in section five was a likelier specimen; men with gray beards and smooth shaven upper lips are usually seekers for treasure, either buried or unburied. I leaned forward and tried to get a glimpse of the letter he was reading, but as I looked he tucked it away in an inside vest pocket. I would hunt him up later and ply him with talk of "Treasure Island," old coins and things of that sort.

Sewell Collins' Idea of the Heroine.

By all odds the most interesting passenger was the girl in section seven—the girl with the big, blue eyes and long dark fringe for lashes. Every time I looked at her my interest in the buried treasure dwindled. I wished that she sat opposite instead of several sections off, for I have a rather useful set of plans that often work, when girls sit opposite in Pullman Cars. But alas! How seldom the pretty girls do sit opposite! I always draw a fat man in a skull cap, or a wheezy old lady who uses peppermint! There always is a pretty girl, but she is invariably placed far from where I sit. On this particular occasion she was so pretty—so very pretty—that I grew morbid on the subject. What a dull, stupid thing a bachelor life can be! I have no doubt I stared at her, as I reflected thus, for presently she brought me to with a frosty little look. Pulling myself together hastily I went into the combination car to drink and smoke and think it over—no, not the girl, the buried treasure!

The old man I had picked out for Graham Stewart came in not long after, and sitting near me, lit a very bad cigar. We drifted into conversation and, quite casually, I managed to speak of "Treasure Island."

He said he had never heard of it—or Stevenson.

I told him of the book; of the map in the front of it, that showed where the gold was hidden. Then I professed great interest in old coins.

My efforts were rewarded by the strange side-long glance he gave me and when, shortly after, I began to speak of pirates he left me suddenly. Later, I noticed the porter and the Pullman Car conductor regarding me with interest. When, before the trip was over, I gained the porter's confidence (at reasonable cost) I learned that the old man with the white whiskers had told them I was crazy—that I talked wildly of most extraordinary things. Evidently the old boy was not Uncle Abner's heir, after all.

That evening after dinner I took out the letter and the map and studied them with care. The more I did so the more ridiculous they seemed. There is something indescribably grotesque in starting off to hunt for buried treasure in an electric lighted Limited. I felt that I ought to be dressed in Oriental togs with a red handkerchief about my head and a pair of flint-lock pistols in my belt. When the girl with the long lashes passed and glanced in my direction with cold, unseeing eyes, I felt more ridiculous than ever. How could a man hunt gold, I asked myself, with girls like that abroad?

And immediately two impulses seized me.

"Graham Stewart and the treasure be hanged!" I resolved, crumpling Uncle Abner's chart in my hand. "I'll go back in the Pullman and have a look at the young lady—even if I can't talk with her."

But as I walked through the train I smoothed out the map and laid it away in my wallet. When convention and the girl frown, I might as well have something, I thought, to fall back on.

She was sitting with some magazines in her lap, gazing vacantly into the night. I passed without apparently noticing her and sat dejectedly in my section. Man's sadness will awaken a woman's interest where nothing else will, you know. And before long the corners of my eyes caught a suspicion of sympathy in her regard, as if she read trouble in the countenance I was furrowing for her, and was sorry.

Without seeming to look in her direction I sighed the manliest sigh I could muster. I seemed to feel her sympathy deepen to pity and then—crash! Her magazines slid to the floor. I sprang to collect them for her. But confound these women prigs!—that was all. She thanked me haughtily, rang for the porter and ordered her berth made up.

I went forward for a smoke, was drawn into a game, and forgot about treasure and stingy, sneaking cousins and disagreeable eye-lash girls until late the next morning.

Leon de Bernebruch's Idea of the Heroine.

I did feel a good deal hurt, however, when I went by the young person on my way to breakfast that she didn't seem to know me from the porter. I cursed civilization that makes Fate and girls cruel, and stayed away all day to show her I didn't even think of her. I really did think very little. I was canvassing the train for a treasure-troving male relative. I satisfied myself he was not aboard. But the thought of that unapproachable young woman robbed me somewhat of my gratification.

When we reached Palm Beach I drove directly to the Royal Poinciana. I rather expected that the girl might be there, too, but I did not catch sight of her that evening, nor of any man that could possibly be Graham Stewart.

In the romantic surroundings of the Poinciana the interest of my quest returned. Down there, the thought of buried treasure did not seem so strange. Before retiring I ordered a steam launch to take me to Lone Palm Key at nine o'clock the following morning.

It was ten when I woke up. Hurriedly I dressed and breakfasted, but it was noon when I set out, first making an arrangement with the launch's engineer to do some digging for me when we reached the key.

All my eagerness returned as we approached the long, low strip of land where poor old Uncle Abner lived so many years. A sloop, with idly flapping sails, lay at anchor near the little landing, telling me that in all probability my remote connection, Graham Stewart, had reached the key before me.

I felt genuine excitement mingled with chagrin as we drew near. How long had he been there? Had he found the treasure? How would he receive me?

My captain knew the captain of the "Jennie May," and hailed him as we came alongside.

"What you doin' 'way out here, Cap'n Bill?"

"Got a lady," Captain Bill replied. "She's over there beyond that sand dune, havin' a picnic all to herself. Didn't say she was expectin' no one." He eyed me disapprovingly as he spoke.

So it was not Graham Stewart after all! That was a relief, though I was sorry anyone was there. I should feel foolish digging for Uncle Abner's treasure if a gull watched me, let alone a girl!

Leaving the engineer to anchor and follow later with the shovels we had brought, I jumped ashore and hastened up the low sand hill, above the top of which I saw the lone palm tree from which the key took its name. From the top I could see old Uncle Abner's shack perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Then my eye was arrested by a white figure near the deserted little house. It was the figure of a woman, and horrors! she was digging in the sand. I hastened on and presently came up with her. Her back was turned. She did not see me as I stood for a moment, amused, watching her pathetic efforts with a funny little shovel, such as is used for putting coals in kitchen ranges. She was working in a desultory way that plainly showed discouragement.

"Can I help?" I said to her at last.

With a little cry she dropped her shovel and turned toward me. It was my turn to be startled. She was the girl of the Seaboard Florida Limited—the girl with the long lashes!

We stood there staring at each other for a moment. She was belligerent, resentful; but I saw at once that she remembered me.

"I got here first!" she cried, "it's mine!"

I looked about at the pathetic little holes she had been digging.

"What's yours?" I asked.

"You know!" she exclaimed; "you know well enough. It's the treasure!"

"Well," I said, "Uncle Abner invited me, too."

"But I got here first!" she repeated vehemently.

"You don't seem to have made much of your time," I suggested.

She stooped and picked up her little shovel. "I don't need any help," she replied.

"Another thing," said I. "I am not sure that you have any right to be digging here at all; the lawyer's letter said the only other person beside myself who knew about the treasure was a man named Graham Stewart."

"A man named Graham Stewart?"

I drew the letter from my pocket and showed her.

"It doesn't say a man," she explained; "see, it only says 'namely Graham Stewart.'"

"Never mind," said I, "Graham Stewart is a man's name. That's plain enough. And I don't know whether I ought to stand 'round and let you rob him this way."

"This way!" she asked, pointing at her little diggings.

"No, not precisely that way," I said, laughing. "You'll have to rob him worse than that or I don't believe he'll notice it."

"Set your mind at rest," she snapped, "I am Graham Stewart myself!"

"But Graham is a man's name," I protested.

"Do you imagine I have been named Graham all these years," she said, "without knowing that! Don't you suppose that I get advertising circulars in every mail, addressed to Mister Graham Stewart?' Don't you suppose men's tailors and men's haberdashers send me letters asking for my custom? That name has been a life-long horror to me! I can never make them believe that I don't want things like razors and Scotch Whiskey."

"Well, it's a very pretty name," I said lamely. "By the way, don't you think you received me rather coldly, considering that we are cousins?"

"We are not cousins!" she cried.

"Oh, yes," I said, "we are. We're sort of cousins anyhow."

"But I don't want to be your cousin," she protested.

"Oh," I said, "don't worry about that. Cousins can marry, especially if they are not first cousins."

"That is impertinent!" she answered. "Really, I can't talk to you any longer," and she turned away as if to dig.

"Very well," I said, moving off a step or two; "I am sorry, because I was just about to show you the spot where you ought to dig. Now I shall find it by myself."

She gave a little start, but did not answer. I walked over to my late uncle's house and sitting in the shadow produced the map and appeared to study it, while the girl went on digging grimly.

"Why didn't you have Captain Bill come up and dig!" I called to her, as the man from my launch appeared with the shovels.

"I didn't want to let him know about the treasure," she replied. "I don't think it's safe."

"That's a good idea," said I, taking the shovels from my man and telling him to return to the boat and await me there.

Again, for a time I watched her delve in silence. What a pretty girl she was in her trim duck suit! At last I roused myself. I had come to Lone Palm Key to look for buried treasure and I must begin at once. The chart was simple enough, now that I was on the ground. I had but to pace off twenty steps of an imaginary line running through the centre of Uncle Abner's shack, toward the lone palm tree to point "A"; then, going to the spring a few rods behind the house I must pace off twenty-seven more in the direction of the palm tree, thus establishing the point "B," upon the map. To find point "C," I had merely to reach a spot equidistant between points "A" and "B." Here the treasure should be buried.

I rose at once and paced it out, noting as I did so that "the only other surviving relative" watched me with ill concealed anxiety. When I felt sure that I had found point "C," I threw my coat upon the sand, seized a shovel and began to dig. Watching Graham (some forty feet away) from the corner of my eye, I presently discovered that she was coming toward me. I dug more vigorously than ever, affecting not to notice her as she stood by and watched me. At last she spoke.

"I don't think," she ventured, "I really don't think you're digging in exactly the right place." Her voice betrayed no certainty, however.

"I'm satisfied," I said. "You let me dig here and you can have all the rest of the key for your own purposes."

She was silent for a time. "I thought perhaps"—she said at last, her voice quavering, "I thought that I might help you."

"Oh, I'm a pretty good digger, thanks," said I.

"Don't you think," she said, "that our maps may not be just alike?"

"Oh, my map is all right," I answered.'

After watching me for a moment more: "I'm completely worn out," she said, "digging here all day in the hot sun. I think I'll have to go." She turned and walked a step or two, then:

"I am hungry, too," she added weakly.

"I'm sorry," I replied. "But you know when I came up at first, wanting to help you, you sent me off about my business."

"Yes," she answered sadly, "I did, and it was rude. I am sorry. But I did want that treasure so much!"

I could resist her no longer when I saw that there were tears in those big eyes of hers.

"Suppose," I suggested, "we make it partners?"

"Oh, would you?" she exclaimed, advancing eagerly.

"Yes," I said, "if you'll do just what I tell you to."

"Wait!" she cried, "I'll get my shovel."

"No," I said, "you're not to dig; I'll do that. You're to go down to my launch and eat. I brought a lunch basket along. How could a hungry man find buried treasure, or a hungry woman, either?"

"You're awfully, awfully generous," she smiled, "but let me stay here for a while and watch you. I'm sure you'll find the treasure before long. Then we can go and eat together."

"Delighted," I said. "Your presence will encourage me. You're the sort of a partner to spur a man to do his best."

"Thanks," she answered, and I thought she flushed a little.

She watched me as I dug silently and perspiringly for the better part of half an hour. From the treasure-hunting stories I had read I knew exactly what sound to expect when my spade should scrape against the casket in which the treasure lay. When I had reached a depth of perhaps four feet, the work grew tiresome. Graham stirred about uneasily. At last she spoke. "Would you mind listening to a suggestion from your partner?" she inquired.

I was glad of an opportunity to stop digging.

"No, indeed," I answered, resting on my shovel and looking up at her.

"How tall are you?" she asked, it seemed to me irrelevantly.

"Twenty-nine—I mean five-feet-eleven-and-a-half," I answered. "How old are you?"

She gave me a cool glance. "I don't think my age has any bearing on the matter," she replied with dignity.

"You asked me a leading question," I plead.

"Don't be silly," she said. "Listen; it occurs to me that you are much taller than our common uncle was, and——"

"He was common," I interrupted, "it took a common mind to devise a miserable trick like this!"

"Mr. Spencer," she said sharply, "do you wish to hear what I have to say, or do you not?"

"Partner," I replied contritely, "I do, and I beg a thousand pardons for interrupting with my foolish prattle."

"A fitting apology," Graham said, with what seemed to me an effort at severity. "What I have been trying to suggest was this: You are almost six feet tall. Uncle Abner was much shorter; also he was old. Is it not possible that you have paced off longer steps than he took?"

"Bully!" I cried, scrambling out of the pit which I had digged. "You're a partner to be proud of!"

"I should think," she ventured, "that my steps would give about the right measure. I had the map worked out all wrong; it remained for you to solve that part. But I'm awfully glad to be of some use in the partnership."

She picked up her dainty skirts and paced the distance off, I standing by, meanwhile, to watch her graceful movements and her trim, pretty feet. The point which she ultimately reached was several yards nearer the hut than where my hole was dug.

Somewhat cooler from the short cessation of my labors, I now pitched in anew. Two feet; three feet; three-and-a-half. Was this to be another false scent? When I reached a depth of about four feet I paused and looked at her.

Her eyes were big and bright. She shook her head as though to say: "A little farther."

Again I plunged my spade into the damp sand. I thrilled all through as I felt it scrape against something hard—something metallic! Two more shovelfuls and I had disclosed the object. I picked it up and held it out to Graham. Despite our eagerness we burst into a gale of laughter. It was a tomato can—quite empty, too!

Graham's laughter stopped suddenly. "Oh!" she gasped, "how did it get there? We are on the right track! Uncle Abner must have thrown it in when he buried the treasure!"

"Great!" I cried, and then in sudden afterthought: "unless——!"

"Unless——?"

"Unless," I said, "unless someone else has been here before us!"

She looked into my eyes with horror at the thought, twisting her handkerchief nervously in her slender hands.

"Heavens!" she exclaimed, "you do think of the most unpleasant things!" Then, waving her arms excitedly. "Dig!" she cried. "For goodness' sake, dig! Let's have this suspense over with!"

I did dig and presently my industry was rewarded by the discovery of an empty beer bottle and a sardine can.

"Uncle Abner lived high, out here on the key," I said, holding the trophies up for her inspection.

"Dig! Dig!" was her only answer.

Again I got to work. This time I suppose I dug for three-quarters of an hour. The hole grew quite deep, but disclosed not so much as a buried button. I was very warm and very hungry. So I pronounced myself exhausted and asked Graham if she wouldn't let me rest a minute.

She said I could, so we got the captains to bring up my lunch basket and Graham's parasol from the boats. Then we settled down to a little spread on the spot. We fastened the parasol to a shovel handle and Graham let me sit down beside her in the shade. I've never had such fun lunching as on that day. The sandwiches were so good and Graham and the ginger ale so refreshing thas I was heart-broken when there wasn't a drop or a crumb or an excuse to sit there any longer.

So I dug again, and we were such friends by that time that Graham kept telling me not to work too hard and get all tired out. After a few moments she gave a little scream of delight and leaning over picked a corroded coin from the shovelful I had thrown out. I took it from her and rubbed its surface. It looked like a Mexican dollar, but I couldn't make out.

"Oh, won't you dig?" cried Graham, in an agony of impatience.

Once more I thrust my spade into the sand. It stopped suddenly. This time it was neither can nor bottle, but something which toon proved to be a sound oak plank. A few mad spadefuls more and it was clear that the plank was the cover of a heavy box, cleated, bound and hinged with iron.

Graham stood above me gazing down with clenched hands and dilated eyes.

The box was wedged so fast in the sand that when I first tried to lift it I mistook the sand's firm grip for the weight of gold within. After some fifteen minutes' rapid work I managed to dig it clear. But when I lifted it my heart sank. It was very light!

I tossed it out of the hole as easily as I could have tossed an empty steamer trunk. It fell upon its side and the cover dropped open, revealing the interior. I leaped from the hole and stood beside Graham. She was staring fixedly at the box and as I came near her she reached out and steadied herself by placing her hand upon my arm.

Alas! for our dream of buried treasure! Save for one object, the box was empty. Rushing forward I reached in and drew that object forth. It was a New York newspaper, more than a year old and wrapped within it was a Seaboard Air Line timetable, of equally ancient date.

These pathetic relics I placed in Graham's hands. She stared at them blankly.

"Well, partner," I said, "there's the treasure! I make you a free gift of my half of it."

The comedy of it all burst in on me now. The lawyer's pedantic letter. Uncle Abner's chart and acid note to me, my race with Graham—Graham, whom I had mistaken for a gray-bearded old man upon the train—my meeting with her lovely self upon the key, our partnership and its result. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed, until I nearly fell into the pit that I had digged. Then suddenly—quite as suddenly as I had begun—I stopped, for I saw Graham. What a selfish beast a man can be! Could I not have foreseen that this insane treasure hunt which was little more than sport to me, might to Graham be a vitally important thing? What did I know of her circumstances? What right had I to conclude that she——? Outlined sharply against the sunset sky I saw her swaying where she stood. There were tears in her eyes. I hurried to her and she leaned against me weakly.

"I am sorry," I said, "awfully, awfully sorry!"

She looked at me and tried to smile. "I am glad," she said in a quavering voice, "I am glad that you can laugh. I wish I could."

"Try!" I begged, "oh, please do try! I love you when you laugh—when you don't laugh, too, of course—but really, Graham, really! I cannot bear to see you cry!"

I don't know just how I got them, but I suddenly found that I was holding both her hands, as I entreated. I don't think she knew it any more than I did when I took them.

"Don't feel badly about it!" I begged her. "What's the use? You must see that it's a joke—a joke on both of us. Either someone got here first and took the treasure off, or Uncle Abner thought he'd have post-mortem fun with his surviving relatives. You see, Graham," (I think I may have said "Graham dear") "you see the joke, don't you?"

"The wicked old man!" she cried. "It's no joke to me. It comes near a tragedy! It cost me almost everything I had to come here. If that's a joke, I call it a hard one!" She was radiant in her anger. I was spell-bound as I watched her.

Will Grefé's Idea of the Heroine.

"That is tough," I exclaimed, "you have no idea how sorry I am—honestly you haven't!" I think I must have squeezed her hands, for she looked at them and drew them from mine with a conscious little blush.

"Don't you think we'd better be going to the boats?" she ventured. "It's after sunset."

"Since you put it as a question, no!" I answered. "I see no reason why we should go to the boats. As for the sunset, they have these every night down here; but you and I don't meet every day upon this key. We ought to make the most of it!"

"But it's all done—the treasure hunt," she said, digging a little hole in the sand with the toe of her white canvas shoe.

"It's not all done!" I cried. "Yours may be finished, but mine is just beginning and I give you fair warning, here and now, dear Graham," (I said the "dear" quite plainly this time), "that this new treasure hunt of mine is going to make the old one look like the picnic party it was!"

"Really—really——" she began.

"Yes, really!" I exclaimed.

"I assure you," she faltered; "I assure you, I don't know—I don't know what you——"

"Oh, Graham, Graham!" I cried, "you've been reading novels. That's what girls always say in novels—'I don't know what you mean.' Yet, they all do know what he means, just as well as you know what I mean!"

The digging she was doing with her little slipper interested her more than ever now.

"Graham," I continued, "whether you knew or not, I would have told you what I meant. I wouldn't lose the luxury of telling you, for worlds! This is it: I came here to hunt for treasure——"

"Buried treasure?" she inquired, smiling faintly at the toe of her white slipper.

"But we didn't find the buried treasure," I pleaded. "You found nothing but me—to help you dig. But I discovered something more than buried treasure. I found out where there was a treasure—a living treasure—greater than jewels and gold could ever be! It's a treasure I can't reach by digging in the sand, Graham. It must be given to me freely, and by you!"

She was silent for a moment, then she faced me.

"It's because you're sorry for me," she said, flushing; "I thank you, but I can't accept a sacrifice like that!"

"No, dear Graham," I persisted, "it's not because I'm sorry for you. I'll be sorry for you, though, if you don't take me now—sorry to see you dogged, and pestered, and followed everywhere, and worshipped by a man like me, until you have to take him to avoid his persistence!"

She smiled at me frankly. "You have no idea," she laughed, "how I long to say 'This is so sudden,' but after 'I don't know what you mean,' I am afraid to!"

"Do save yourself a lot of trouble," I warned again, "by taking me now, Graham, instead of waiting until I get you."

"I suppose," she said, "I suppose I might at well."

I shan't tell you what happened then, but in my haste to do something (mind I don't say what) I almost tumbled into Uncle Abner's treasure pit.

* * * * *

The "Jennie May" sailed home, a little later, without the passenger she had brought to Lone Palm Key. Graham and I returned in the steam launch. When I insisted that the only two surviving relatives of Uncle Abner be made one at once, Graham said—you know what she said, as well as I do. She simply couldn't help it. It was:

"But, really, this is so sudden!"

END

C. D. Williams' Idea of the Heroine.

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