Mrs. Jones nodded affirmation of his words, sighed and evidenced unmistakable signs of eagerness to go. “I ain’t been able to work since,” her husband continued. “And I ain’t been able to figure out how to get back that big nugget. Sarah’s got money of her own, and she won’t let go a penny—” “He won’t get down to _that_ country no more!” she broke forth. “But, Sarah, Vahna’s dead—you know that,” Julian Jones protested. “I don’t know anything about anything,” she answered decisively, “except that _that_ country is no place for a married man.” Her lips snapped together, and she fixed an unseeing stare across to where the afternoon sun was beginning to glow into sunset. I gazed for a moment at her face, white, plump, tiny, and implacable, and gave her up. “How do you account for such a mass of gold being there?” I queried of Julian Jones. “A solid-gold meteor that fell out of the sky?” “Not for a moment.” He shook his head. “ It was carried there by the Indians.” “Up a mountain like that—and such enormous weight and size!” I objected. “Just as easy,” he smiled. “I used to be stumped by that proposition myself, after I got my memory back. Now how in Sam Hill—’ I used to begin, and then spend hours figuring at it. And then when I got the answer I felt downright idiotic, it was that easy.” He paused, then announced: “They didn’t.” “But you just—said they did.” “They did and they didn’t,” was his enigmatic reply. “Of course they never carried that monster nugget up there. What they did was to carry up its contents.” He waited until he saw enlightenment dawn in my face. “And then of course melted all the gold, or welded it, or smelted it, all into one piece. You know the first Spaniards down there, under a leader named Pizarro, were a gang of robbers and cut-throats. They went through the country like the hoof-and-mouth disease, and killed the Indians off like cattle. You see, the Indians had lots of gold. Well, what the Spaniards didn’t get, the surviving Indians hid away in that one big chunk on top the mountain, and it’s been waiting there ever since for me—and for you, if you want to go in on it.” And here, by the Lagoon of the Palace of Fine Arts, ended my acquaintance with Julian Jones. On my agreeing to finance the adventure, he promised to call on me at my hotel next morning with the letters of Seth Manners and the railroad, and conclude arrangements. But he did not call. That evening I telephoned his hotel and was informed by the clerk that Mr. Julian Jones and wife had departed in the early afternoon, with their baggage. Can Mrs. Jones have rushed him back and hidden him away in Nebraska? I remember that as we said good-bye, there was that in her smile that recalled the vulpine complacency of Mona Lisa, the Wise. THE END Kohala, Hawaii, _May_ 5, 1916. LIKE ARGUS OF THE ANCIENT TIMES