back soon--oh, yes, very soon. And you will wait for me. You will wait
for me here, and then I will take you to St. James."

He was gone in a quick hopping way, like a cricket, and the last that
Captain Plum saw of him was his ghostly face turned back for an instant
in the darkness of the next room, and after that the soft patter of his
feet and the strange chuckle in his throat traveled to the outer door
and died away as he passed out into the night. Nathaniel Plum was not a
man to be easily startled, but there was something so unusual about the
proceedings in which he was as yet playing a blind part that he forgot
to smoke, which was saying much. Who was the old man? Was he mad? His
eyes scanned the little room and an exclamation of astonishment fell
from his lips when he saw the leather bag, partly filled with gold,
lying where his mysterious acquaintance had dropped it. Surely this was
madness or else another ruse to test his honesty. The discovery thrilled
him. It was wonderfully quiet out in that next room and very dark. Were
hidden eyes guarding that bag? Well, if so, he would give their owner to
understand that he was not a thief. He rose from his chair and moved
toward the bag, lifted it in his hand, and tossed it back again so that
the gold in it chinked loudly. Then he went to the narrow aperture and
blocked it with his body and listened until he knew that if there had
been human life in the room he would have heard it.

The outer door was open and through it there came to him the soft breath
of the night air and the sweetness of balsam and wild flowers. It struck
him that it would be pleasanter waiting outside than in, and it would
undoubtedly make no difference to Obadiah Price. In front of the cabin
he found the stump of a log and seating himself on it where the clear
light of the stars fell full upon him he once more began his
interrupted smoke. It seemed to him that he had waited a long time when