He had no plank afloat now, high and dry as the _Cherokee Rose_ was on the sand-bar, but his meaning was clear, and Colonel Kenwynton’s gear, despite its strenuous experience, seemed improved by this careful handling when once more donned, and he strode out, serene and smiling, into the outer air. “How the old fellows stand their liquor--a body would think he was never overtaken in his life.” The Captain possessed the grace of reticence. None of the passengers had any inkling of the incident of the previous night, either as Colonel Kenwynton knew it, or in the interpretation which the Captain had placed upon it. CHAPTER IV 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