“Why, shucks, Mrs. Berridge, the name of Duciehurst is famous for hidden treasure, has been ever since I could remember,” the shanter-boater said. “You see, Major Ducie and two of his sons were killed in the war, an’ only one was left, this passenger’s father.” He jerked his thumb toward the bar, where the boat lay so still in the night, amidst its element of surging waters. “This son, being so young at the time, just a child, didn’t know anything about where they had stowed the family silver and jewels, and a power of gold money, they say.” “The family gave up the search more than forty years ago, and the place was sold to satisfy a mortgage,” Binnhart commented. “But the river folks take up the search every wunst in a while, an’ go thar and dig around the walls,” said the younger Berridge. “Sure!” exclaimed the shanty-boater. “I have been thar myself with a git-rich-quick gang.” He leered humorously at the party from behind the stove-pipe. Presently he continued reminiscently:-- “Then pirates tore all the hearths up, mighty nigh, that night. They had a stonemason along, with crowbars and chisels, an’ such like tools. He was a tombstone worker, an’ I reckon his biz queered the job, for we found nothing at all.” “’Tain’t in a hearthstone,” said the woman, suddenly. “Is there anything about a house named pillow? He kep’ a-talkin’ about a pillow--I thought he meant the one he had his head on.” Jasper Binnhart started as with a galvanic shock. He suddenly let down the forelegs of his chair and sat stiff and upright. “Pillar?” he said, in a curiously muffled tone. “Has this mansion of Duciehurst got anything like a porch with posts? I have never seen the river-front of the house.” “Posts!” exclaimed the younger Berridge. “The porch has got posts the size of a big gum tree, a round dozen, too, an’ mighty nigh as high as a gum tree.” He fell to steadily picking his teeth with a fish-bone, and idly riding his chair to and fro. “What did he say about ‘pillars,’ Mrs. Berridge?” asked the blacksmith, eagerly. “He talked about a base, an’ a pilaster, an’ columns, an’ a capital.” “That’s Jackson, capital o’ Miss’ippi, seat of government, second to none in the Union,” explained her husband. “Sometimes he would call ‘Archie, Archie.’” “Lieutenant Archibald Ducie as sure as you are born,” said the shanty-boater, solemnly. “He died in Vicksburg, an’ he war the one rumored to have had charge of hidin’ the money.” “This man never said nothin’ ’bout no money. Jes’ kept on ’bout docyments, an’ a chist,” persisted Mrs. Berridge, incredulously. “Money mought have been in the chist,” remarked her husband. “He war specially concerned ’bout a ‘pilaster’--he went back to that ag’in an’ ag’in. He’d whisper, sly an’ secret, ‘in the pilaster.’ What is a pilaster?”