If the patience, the concentration, the tireless endurance with which Jasper Binnhart awaited the return of the stranger, could have been applied to any object of worthy endeavor commensurate results must have ensued. It was necessarily, even in his own estimation, a fantastic expectation to learn from him aught of value concerning the treasure hidden at Duciehurst during the Civil War. If the stranger really had knowledge of the place of its concealment it was not likely that he would divulge it, since this would require the division of the windfall. But, he argued speciously, the man might need assistance, which probably explained his singular mission to the stranded Cherokee Rose to confer with Colonel Kenwynton. This confirmed the impression of the Berridge family that there was something eccentric, inexplicable about him. What he needed in such an enterprise was not a man of seventy-five, as soft as an old horse turned out to grass, but a master mechanic, such as himself, indeed, a man accustomed to the use of tools, with the dexterity imparted by constant work and the strength of muscles trained to endurance. The Colonel! Why he would be as inefficient as a baby. But perhaps only his advice was desired. Binnhart wished again and again that it had chanced that he could have seen the stranger first. More than once he despondently shook his round bullet head, with its closely cropped black hair,—as sleek as a beaver’s, from his habit of sousing it into the barrel of water where he tempered his steel,—as he sat on one of the steps of the rude flight that led to the door of the semi-aquatic dwelling of the water-rat’s family, and gazed across the darkling river at the orange-tinted lights of the Cherokee Rose, lying high and dry on the bar. It was a pity for Colonel Kenwynton to be let into the secret at all. If the stranger had any right to possess himself of the hidden money he could boldly hire laborers and go to the spot in the open light of day. If his right were complicated or dubious, and this was most likely, or why had it lain so long unasserted, the old Colonel would clamp down on it with both feet. The Colonel had highflown antiquated ideas, unsuited to the world of to-day; Binnhart had heard him speak in public. He talked about honor, and patriotism, and fair-dealing in politics, and such chestnuts, and, although the people applauded, they were secretly laughing at him in their sleeves. No, no! Binnhart shook his head once more. It was a thousand pities to bring old Kenwynton into it at all; nothing he knew was of any value nowadays,—except the Colonel did know how a horse should be shod, and the proper care of the animal’s feet; people said he used to own fine racers in his rich days. If Colonel Kenwynton returned with the stranger there might be trouble. The old man was a hard proposition. He seemed to think himself a Goliath, and would certainly put up a stiff fight on an emergency. “I’d rather see him come back with any three men than the old Colonel,” Binnhart concluded ruefully.

This was the hour of the night when a mist began to rise, and the orange-tinted lights from the steamer’s cabin glimmered faintly through the haze. Binnhart became apprehensive that he might not discern the tiny craft in the midst of the great river, struggling across its intricate braided currents, and thus the stranger return unaware, or perhaps give him the slip altogether. He rose and took his way down the successive terraces to the verge of the water. He must needs have heed not to walk into the river, for silent as the grave it flowed through the deep gorge of its channel, and but for some undiscriminated sense of motion in the dark landscape one might never know it was there.

Long, long he stood at gaze, watching in the direction of the bar, his ear keenly attentive, aware that he could hear from far the slightest impact of a paddle on that silent surface. But the wind was rising now; the mists, affrighted, spread their tenuous white wings and flitted away. Presently there lay visible before him, vaguely illumined by the light of a clouded moon, the vast spread of the tossing turmoils of the sky, the dark borders of the opposite bank, the swift swirling of the great river, and the white structure of the steamboat, rising dimly into the air on the sand-bar. Her lights were faint now, lowered for the night; the vague clanking of the dynamo came athwart the currents; still the surface of the waters showed no gliding craft, and listen as he might he heard no measured dip of paddle.

Once more he betook himself back to the shack and found Connover and Jorrocks seated on the outer stair. They evidently had no faith in the adage of honor among thieves, and albeit they had alternately enjoyed the refreshment of a nap in the bunks of the cabin one remained always vigilant as to the movements of Binnhart. As the night wore on and naught was developed both had taken up a position on the outer stair and alertly awaited the crisis.

Dan Berridge and his father were but poor exemplifications of the sybarite, but the paramount instincts of self-indulgence overpowered their hope of loot, and their doubt of the fair-dealing of their co-conspirators, and in their respective bunks they snored as noisily as if in the sleep of the just.

Jessy Jane alone took note of the fact that, but for their disclosure of the somnolent talk of the stranger, the others would have known naught of the possibility of the discovery of the hidden valuables at Duciehurst and she resented the chance that they would profit to the exclusion of her and hers. She remained in the dark in the back room of the little cabin, but up and dressed, now and again listening intently for any stir of movement or sound of voices. When she heard the heavy tread of Jorrocks and Connover tramping to the outer stair as they relieved each other’s watch, she would set the communicating door ajar to thrust in her tousled red head to spy upon their motions, withdrawing it swiftly. Now she perceived through the dim vista of the room the square face of Jorrocks against the gloom of the night, looking at her with calculating, narrowing eyes, evidently appreciating the full significance of her espionage, and, beyond still, a vague shadowy outline which she recognized as Jasper Binnhart’s profile. She closed the door with a bang, partly in pettishness and partly through embarrassment, at the moment that Binnhart grew stiff and rigid, motionless in excitement. He had sighted a canoe down the river, which was shining in a rift of the clouds, a mile, nay, two, below the landing for which it was bound. Thus she did not see his wild, silent gesture of discovery, his hand thrown high into the air. Its muscles became informed with a mandatory impulse as he beckoned to Jorrocks and Connover to follow and set forth in a dead run for the water’s side.

A skiff was lying there scarcely discernible in the vague light. It belonged to the shanty-boater, and into it the owner threw himself, grasping the oars, the other two with less practiced feet tumbled into the space left available, and the craft shot out from the land under the swift, strong strokes of the shanty-boater, rowing as if for a purse. There was a belt of pallor along the horizon. A sense of dreary wistfulness, of sadness, lay on the land, coming reluctantly into view. The clouds hung low and menacing, although the wind still was high. The dawn was near, or even the practiced eyes of the river pirates might not have distinguished the dugout, seeking to cross the great expanse, yet being carried by the strong current further and further down the river from its objective point.

“See her now?” asked Jorrocks, resolutely rowing and never turning his head.

“Well out todes mid-stream,” replied Binnhart. “Nigh to swampin’, too. Git a move on ye, Jorrocks, git a move on ye.”

After a contemplative moment he suddenly threw himself on another pair of oars and the combined strength of the two men sent the light boat shooting like an arrow down the surface of the river upon the craft, evidently having shipped water and beginning to welter dangerously, showing a tendency to capsize, the trick so frequently practiced by the faithless dug-out.

“Hello, sport!” called out Binnhart, as soon as he was within earshot. “You’ll go to the bottom in three minutes unless you can swim agin the Mississippi current better than I can. Will you have a lift?”

The stranger’s exhausted face showed ghastly white in the dull, slow light. His wide, dark eyes were wild and suspicious. There was something in their expression that sent a chill coursing down the spine of the impressionable Connover, his shaken, exacerbated nerves all on edge from his constant potations, as well as from the excitements of this experience and the strain of his long vigil. The stranger scanned them successively, keeping the canoe in place by an occasional dip of the paddle. It might seem as if he debated the alternative—Davy Jones’s locker or a place among these boat-men. When he spoke his reserved gentlemanly tone struck their attention.

“I shall be much obliged,” he said, with grave and distant courtesy, evidently recognizing a vast gulf between their station and his.

“Move out of the gentleman’s way, Connover,” said Binnhart, quickly. For this was a gentleman, however water-soaked, however queer of conduct, whatever project he might have in view.

After securing the dug-out as a tow, Binnhart seated himself opposite the stranger, who was given the place of honor in the stern.

“Nothin’ meaner afloat than a dug-out,” Binnhart remarked, keenly watching the face of his guest, whose lineaments became momently more distinct as the dull dawn grew into a dreary day. “Though to be sure a dug-out ain’t used commonly for crossing the river, jes’ for scoutin’ about the banks, and in the bayous, and lakes.”

“I am not accustomed to its use,” the stranger replied.

“You come mighty nigh swampin’, an’ that’s a fact, though you couldn’t have got nothin’ better at Berridge’s, an’ I s’pose your business with Colonel Kenwynton on the Cherokee Rose wouldn’t wait.”

“Colonel Kenwynton!” cried the gentleman, with a strange sharpness. “How do you know I had business with Colonel Kenwynton?”

“No offense, sir. You spoke of it at Berridge’s. He is a leaky-mouthed old chap. What goes in at his ears comes out of his jaws.”

“I spoke of it? I spoke of it?” repeated the stranger. His voice was keyed to the cadences of despair. The modulation of those dying falls was scarcely intelligible to Binnhart; he could not have interpreted them nor even the impression they made upon his mind. But some undiscriminated faculty appraised their true intendment and on it fashioned his course. Once more he looked keenly at the stranger’s face, while the gentleman gazed with deep reflectiveness at the swift waters so near at hand racing by on either side.

“Where shall we set you ashore, sir?” Binnhart asked with respectful urbanity.

Ah, here was evidently a dilemma. Berridge’s hut was now far up stream, since the brawny practiced arms of Jorrocks had steadily continued to row the skiff down and down the current, which of itself would have been ample motive power for a swift transit. An expression of despondency crossed the stranger’s face.

“I should have noticed earlier,” he said. “I had intended to return to Berridge’s, but I cannot ask you to go so far out of your way against the current. Just set me ashore at the nearest practicable point and I can walk back.”

“All ’ight, sir. Duciehurst is the nearest safe landing, the bank is bluff an’ caving above.”

Binnhart was quick to note as the word was spoken the change of expression and a sudden sharp gasp that was not unlike a snap, so did the muscles evade control.

“You are acquainted with the old mansion, sir, spoke of it bein’ part of your business with Colonel Kenwynton to git the hidden money an’ papers an’ vallybles—take care, Colty, he’ll fall out of the boat!”

For Captain Treherne, his eyes distended, his lower jaw fallen, his face livid, had risen in the boat and stood tottering in the unsteady craft, staring aghast and dumfounded at Binnhart. “I spoke of that? I told you that?”

“No, sir, but you told Berridge, Josh, the old man.”

“You lie, you infamous liar! What, I publish abroad the secret that I have kept through thick and thin, till after forty years of acute mania I may right the wrong and establish the title. Oh, my God!” he broke forth shrilly, “am I raving now? Is this a species of hallucination, obsession,” he waved his wild hands toward sky, and woods, and sinister, silent river, “or, worse still, is it stern fact and have I betrayed my sacred trust at last?”

“He’ll turn this boat upside down,” the shanty-boater in a low voice warned the others.

“‘Liar’ is a toler’ble stiff word for me to have to take off ’n you, Mister,” said Binnhart, with affected gruffness, for his affiliations with the truth were not so close as to cause him to actually resent an accusation of divagation. “It ain’t my fault if you got absent-minded an’ told Berridge that the vallybles are hid in a pillar or a pilaster,” he broke off abruptly.

A shrill scream rent the air. It seemed for one moment as if Captain Treherne himself had made a discovery, so elated were his eyes, so triumphant was his face, changed almost out of recognition in the moment. Agitated as he was he had lost his balance and was swaying to and fro as if he might pitch head-foremost into the river.

“If you don’t want the whole water-side popilation rowing out here to see what’s the matter aboard you had better make him stop that n’ise,” the shanty-boater urged. “Gag him. Take his handhercher, or his hat,” he recommended, still swiftly rowing.

The dull, purplish twilight of the slow-coming day gave little token of stir amongst the few scattered inhabitants of the riverside within earshot; cottonpickers are never in the field till the sun has dried the dew from the plant, but Jorrocks was mindful of the fact that there are barnyard duties in an agricultural community requiring early rising; cows are to be milked, horses fed and watered, and any bucolic errand might bring to the bank an inquisitive interest in these weird cries ringing from shore to shore in an intensity of agonized emotion. The suggestion of Jorrocks was acted upon instantly. Binnhart roughly knocked the hat from Captain Treherne’s head, crushed it into a stiff, shapeless mass, thrust it between his jaws, attempting to secure it with his large linen handkerchief, despite his strenuous resistance. The struggle was fierce, and the miscreants were dismayed by the strength the victim put forth. The two could scarcely hold him; over and again he shook off both Binnhart and Connover. The shanty-boater had great ado even with his practiced skill to keep the skiff from overturning altogether, as it listed from side to side as the weight of the combatants shifted. The stranger fought with a sort of frenzy, striking, kicking, butting with his head, even biting with his strong snapping jaws.

“He is like a maniac,” cried Binnhart, in amaze, and once more that awful cry rang upon the air, shrill, wild, freighted with demoniacal bursts of laughter, yet with an intonation more pathetic than tears.

Not until Jorrocks shipped his oars and, leaning forward, caught Treherne’s feet, throwing him on his back in the bottom of the boat, was the gag again introduced into his mouth, to be promptly and dexterously ejected as he sought to rise. Again was the semi-nautical skill of the shanty-boater of avail. A crafty knot in a rope’s end and the stranger’s arms were pinioned to his side, and while the gag was secured the surplusage of the cord was bound again and again about his legs till he was helpless, able neither to move nor to speak. Only his wild eyes expressed his indomitable courage, his sense of affronted dignity, his resentful fury.

“I do declar’ I’m minded to spit in his face,” exclaimed Binnhart, vindictively, as panting and breathless, he towered above his victim, lying at his feet.

“Better not!” the shanty-boater admonished the blacksmith. Then, in a lower voice: “You fool you, we depend on his good will to show us the place where the swag is hid.”

“Tend to your own biz,” roughly replied Binnhart. “Look where your boat is driftin’. Bound for Vicksburg, ain’t ye?”

For, left to its own devices when the oarsman had gone to the aid of his comrades, the skiff had been carried by the swift current far down the stream and toward the bank, so close, indeed, that Binnhart apprehended its grounding. He had not an acquaintance with the river front equal to the practical knowledge of the shanty-boater, whose peregrinations made him the familiar of every bogue and bight, of every bar and tow-head for a hundred miles or more.

“Look what’s ahead of your blunt pig-snout, an’ maybe ye’ll have sense enough to follow it,” Jorrocks retorted.

For a great looming structure had appeared on the bank in the murky atmosphere, that was not so shadowy as night, yet in its obscurity could hardly assume to be day. An imposing mansion of three stories, with a massive cornice and commodious wings, stood well back on the shelving terraces. Woods on either hand pressed close about and many of the trees being magnolias and of coniferous varieties foreign to the region, the foliage was dense despite the season, and gave the entourage a singular, sinister sense of deep seclusion. In the dim light one could hardly discern that there was no glass in the windows, but the black, gaping intervals intimated somehow vacancy and ruin, and Binnhart was quick to notice the dozen great pillars rising to the floor of the third story and supporting the roof of the long broad portico. Then he gave no further attention to the unwonted surroundings, but fixed his gaze on the face of their prisoner as his helpless bulk was lifted from the boat by the three. He was of no great weight and they bore him easily enough, inert and motionless, along the broad broken stone pavement to the deserted ruin.

A ready interpretation had Binnhart, a keen intuition. The native endowment might have wrought him good service in a better field. As it was it had been the pivotal faculty on which had turned with every wind of opportunity the nefarious successes that the thieves had achieved. He now watched the glimmer of recognition in Captain Treherne’s eyes as he, too, gazed breathlessly with intent interest at the mansion, despite his bound and gagged situation. He even made shift to turn his head that he might fix his eyes on the eastern side. Only to the east he looked, and always. Binnhart felt a bounding pulse of prideful discovery that in the east the treasure was hidden, in an eastern pilaster of the portico.

He was not familiar with the meaning of the architectural term, but just what a “pilaster” was he would know before he was an hour older, he swore to himself, if there was a carpenter or builder awake in the little town of Caxton where his shop was located and where he must needs repair for tools. There he would learn this all-significant fact, for that there was treasure hidden at Duciehurst all the country-side had been aware for forty years—the question was, where?

They bore Captain Treherne through half a dozen darkling rooms, showing as yet scant illumination from the slow coming day. The windows gave upon a gray nullity outside, and even the size and condition of the bare, echoing apartments could not be ascertained by the prisoner’s searching gaze as he was laid down on the floor at full length, watching the preparations of his captors for their temporary departure. One of them would remain, as he was assured by Binnhart, who had again adopted a tone of deference suited to the evident station and culture of the victim. Connover would stay and see to it that he was not molested in any manner whatever during the short absence of the others. Binnhart, making his words as few as possible, took his leave and once more in the boat Jorrocks pulled down the river with every pulse of energy he could command.

Captain Treherne had spent forty years of his life in an insane asylum, but the experience had not bereft him in this lucid interval of the appreciation of certain fundamental facts of human nature. He realized that although he could not use his hands, Connover was in no wise restricted. Perhaps the offer of the funds in his pocket might compass his release if he could find means to intimate this delicate proposition. Treherne waited till he heard the shuffling gait of Jorrocks and the swift assured step of Binnhart die away in the distance before he would seek to communicate his desire by means of winks and such significant grimaces as the gag would permit. Before the others were clear of the house Connover had come and stood beside him gazing down at him with a sort of vacant curiosity on his weak, dissipated face, unmeaning and without intention. But he immediately turned away, and, repairing to a long hall hard by, began to tramp idly back and forth to while away the time of waiting.

It was likely to be a considerable time, he began to reflect discontentedly, and he had no particular liking for his commission. The other fellows would get their feed in Caxton, he argued. Jorrocks would not go without his breakfast for the United States Treasury. They would also get drinks, good and plenty. At this thought he took an empty flask from his pocket and lugubriously smelled it. He was a fool, he said to himself, and perhaps that was the only true word he had spoken that day. But, in his opinion, it applied specifically to his consent to remain here, as if he, too, were bound and gagged.

Once more he sniffed the departed delights of the empty flask. Suddenly Captain Treherne heard no more the regular impact of his steps as he tramped the long length of the vacant hall. There was a livery stable at a way-station of the railroad some eight miles distant, a goodish tramp on an empty stomach, but the odor of the flask endued him “with the strength of ten.” He was known there as an ex-jockey of some success, he was appreciated after a fashion by its employees; he could count on their hospitality and conviviality, and perhaps borrowing a rig he could return before Binnhart and Jorrocks would be here accoutered with their tools. The prisoner could not report his defection, even when liberated, for he could not know where in that great building he had seen fit to bestow himself to enjoy, perchance, what he was pleased to call, “a nap of sleep.”

Thus silence as of the tomb settled on the deserted building. The shades of night gradually wore away and the pale gray light of a sunless and melancholy day pervaded the dreary vistas of the bare uninhabited ruin.