“I was asking for information. President Caswell was speaking of it while you were in the music-room with Miss Birrell. He came out and sat with us for half an hour or so. There is a mystery of some sort connected with the Ocoee.” “Sure!” said Tregarvon. “The mystery is six feet thick, and it consists of a layer of good solid sandstone. I’m about to penetrate it with a test-drill.” “No; I didn’t mean that,” Carfax objected. “It is another kind of mystery. I’ll tell you what Doctor Caswell said, and you may draw your own conclusions. We had been talking about superstitions and their hold upon humanity. I was scoffing, as usual, but the president seemed inclined to a belief that Providence or fate, or whatever you wish to call it, does interfere sometimes; and that these interferences form a basis for some of the convictions we call superstitions.” “All of which would seem to be a good many miles from a pair of coal seams made profitless by a stone ‘horse’ between them,” suggested Tregarvon mildly. “I’m coming to that; the distance isn’t so great as it may seem. The doctor rode his notion as if it were a hobby. He spoke of the well-grounded belief in the saying that ‘murder will out,’ and insisted that the facts proved the truth of this saying; facts which were often mysterious. Then he referred to that other pet notion of the bulk of mankind: that misfortune pursues the possessor of ill-gotten gains. To my astonishment, he pointed to your Ocoee property as an example.” “The dickens he did!” exclaimed Tregarvon, with interest suddenly awakened. “How did he make the Ocoee fit in?” “That is the peculiar part of it. When I betrayed my complete ignorance of matters Ocoeean by beginning to ask questions, he shut up like a clam. All I could get out of him was an assertion that misfortunes had accompanied every succeeding attempt to open the mine, and that they would doubtless continue to follow until justice was done.” “But justice to whom?” queried Tregarvon. “You didn’t let it rest at that, I hope.” “I tried not to, but he gave me a dignified cold shoulder and referred me to you; said you doubtless knew all the circumstances, and would, he hoped, take proper steps toward removing the curse.” The descent of Pisgah was accomplished, and Tregarvon steered the yellow car into an empty warehouse which was to be its garage. Later, when he was showing his guest to the sleeping-room made ready for him by Uncle William, he said: “I don’t wish to pull you into this thing with me blindfolded, Poictiers. If there is a skeleton in the Ocoee closet, I’ll have it out and give it decent Christian burial before I ask you to back me.” But at this, Carfax appeared at his multi-millionaire best.