“Would you let me have money enough to get home?” Somers asked. “Not one blooming cent,” said Tom. “Millions for defense but not one cent for travelling expenses,” said Brent. “Why, a slick article like you ought to be able to jip a ride on some freight.” “All right,” said Tom disgustedly, “there’s no use standing here talking; come ahead, Brent. So long, Somers; you’re the meanest proposition I ever met in my life.” They went off leaving Somers standing stock-still where they had talked. He did not move till they were too far and too much engrossed with talk to notice him. Probably he had that odd feeling that the least move would make him the more shameful by making him the more conspicuous. So he did not emphasize his presence by departing until there was no one to see him go. Where he went they never knew, but he was never heard of in his native home again. He certainly was a discredit to a very noble profession. Whatever his difficulties were, they must have been grave and pressing to prompt him to use the information given him by an unwary patient as a desperate means of saving himself from jail. I have often wondered, as Brent did, whether he really ever was in the conservation service. “He would have made a good real estate salesman,” Brent said. And unquestionably he had one quality useful in that calling. CHAPTER XXXI—Just the Two of Them So there at last was the precious three thousand dollars of Long Buck Sanderson and his partner Mink Havers safe in the hands of our adventurers. Even on their way to the cabin after the scene just described, Tom must pause long enough to climb the old elm and examine the hollow in which the box had been for, who shall say how many years. There were many nutshells in the hollow, which was evidently a favorite nest of squirrels. The thought occurred to Tom how he had probably many times seen the little creatures who lived so near that precious box. From the branch where the hollow was, he could look straight down into the fearful depth of the well. Mink Havers must have changed his mind about the hiding place in a last moment of hurried consideration. It seemed likely that he had fallen from the tree and that this had been the cause of his cut head and unconscious state when found. “You don’t suppose there’s the slightest possibility, do you,” said Brent, as they went on to the cabin, “that Mink told Somers to get the treasure? sure? That would put us in wrong.” “Don’t make me laugh,” said Tom. “Why, didn’t the article in the newspaper say the young doctor went to Europe? What was the use of that lie? He didn’t go, he came here.” “And like the light that lies in woman’s eyes, he lied and lied and lied,” said Brent.