***" 
 
 1 I 
 
 I PHILIP I 
 
 : CURTIS S
 
 CRATER'S GOLD
 
 "MR. STILES, DO YOU WANT TO SELL YOUR PLACE?" 
 
 See p. 4
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 A NOVEL BY 
 
 PHILIP CURTISS 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE BY 
 W. C. DEXTER 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY 
 Publishers New York 
 
 Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers 

 
 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Copyright, 1918 1919. by Harper & Brothers 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 2134806
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OTILES sat in his study, smoking his break- 
 <-} fast pipe, and pondered the merits of being 
 rich. For this train of thought his setting was 
 rather enchanting, as there was not a thing in the 
 room which was not disreputable, not even his 
 coat. There were holes in the carpet, the wall- 
 paper sagged in strips, while the chair in which he 
 was sitting was a chair, but that was about as far 
 as one felt like going. Yet, curiously, Stiles really 
 was rich. He had been for just three weeks, and 
 those three weeks had been wholly devoted to 
 seeing how near a human being could come to 
 complete inertia. 
 
 Theoretically, Stiles wanted nothing to happen 
 ever. For fifteen years of his lif e things had done 
 nothing but happen. He had made up his mind to 
 forestall anything more in that line, but actually 
 he was not greatly upset when his reverie was 
 broken by the sound of steps on the gravel path 
 and then by louder steps on the unpainted piazza. 
 When the visitor, instead of knocking or shouting,
 
 2 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 began to fumble around the open front door and 
 even went the length of ringing the disused bell, 
 Stiles was actively curious. His impulse was to 
 answer the bell in person, but a sudden baronial 
 whim set him back in his chair. It was the first 
 time in his career as master of his own house that 
 the outraged bell had ever been called upon to 
 perform, and it struck him as happy to sit back 
 and let his household go through the whole ritual 
 granted it could. 
 
 The household could, but it took its time, for 
 Mrs. Fields, the housekeeper, was deaf and an- 
 tique. The indignant clamor of the bell was fol- 
 lowed by a deep silence, a proper interval for clean 
 apron and rolling down sleeves, for outlining future 
 apologies for untidy states, and then the swishing 
 sound of Mrs. Fields in action. Voices sounded 
 in the front hall, steps on the sandy linoleum of 
 the passageway, and then a stranger appeared at 
 the door of the study. Behind him for a moment 
 appeared also Mrs. Fields with an effect of tiptoes 
 and a look of hate. It was ironing-day. 
 
 The stranger took his own time about intro- 
 ducing himself. He was a fattish man, rather 
 fishlike in his wonder as he looked round the room, 
 opening and shutting his little mouth, but what he 
 was thinking he might just as well have said out 
 loud. He had evidently come to see a landed pro- 
 prietor, probably had had a picture of one in his 
 mind, but landed proprietors, as he had always 
 imagined them, did not wear coats which were
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 3 
 
 out at the elbows and sit in chairs with curled hair 
 bulging out through the cushions. 
 
 As to the visitor himself, he was one of those 
 blue-serge and stiff-shirt-in-the-summer men who 
 are so ostentatiously clean as to be offensive. He 
 did not smell of soap, exactly, but one imagined 
 he might. He was one of those men who rub their 
 palms together continually to give the air of brisk 
 well-being. His name, it came out, was Baum- 
 garten, and even before he said it Stiles guessed, 
 from his heavy, conciliatory manner, that he had 
 something to sell. 
 
 "You're a writer, ain't you, Mr. Stiles?" began 
 the visitor, and because he said it about as he 
 would have said, "You're a school-teacher, ain't 
 you?" Stiles replied: 
 
 "No, I'm a newspaper-man, or used to be." 
 
 He said it with conscious defiance, for every 
 trait in the visitor's manner was irritating; but, 
 curiously, the announcement rather cleared the 
 atmosphere, rather raised his standing instead of 
 debasing it, as he had intended. Newspaper-men 
 were a known quantity. They wrote advertise- 
 ments sometimes and made money at it. If they 
 knew the ropes they could even aspire to be press 
 agents, not a lucrative job in the eyes of men like 
 Baumgarten, but still one that classed them as 
 men of the world. 
 
 "I've heard of you, Mr. Stiles," announced the 
 visitor, impressively. "Charlie Eksberger has 
 spoken about you."
 
 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 He paused to watch the effect of this tremendous 
 announcement, and the statement really had made 
 an impression on Stiles. He knew that the man 
 was lying. Stiles had never known the famous 
 Eksberger nor had he any desire to know him, 
 but he had to concede the fact that his visitor 
 had chosen the name with exceeding skill. To 
 most reporters and even writers it would have 
 been magic. The thing really piqued him now 
 what in the world this cloak-and-suit type of per- 
 son, who thought of a rather flashy and boastful 
 theatrical man as the last word in eminence, could 
 want of a lazy recluse in a run-down house in a far 
 country village. He would be very much disap- 
 pointed if it proved to be nothing but fire insur- 
 ance. The visitor did not keep him long in sus- 
 pense. One could see that he could not ignore 
 the evidence of the puffy chairs and the holes in 
 the carpet. One could see him say to himself, 
 "Well, I guess these so-called gentlemen need the 
 mazuma as badly as any one else." Thus he had 
 somewhat the air of one bringing glad tidings when 
 he burst out : 
 
 "Mr. Stiles, do you want to sell your place?" 
 
 Smug and expectant he stood there, rubbing 
 his hands, but, to his amazement, Stiles was un- 
 moved. 
 
 "No," he replied, "I don't." 
 
 The visitor's jaw dropped as far as such a jaw 
 could drop. He still looked like a fish, but like a 
 fish startled at bumping its nose against the glass
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 5 
 
 of the aquarium, and to Stiles the effect was quite 
 worth the sudden decision, for it was a sudden 
 decision. Up to that hour Stiles had only been 
 occupying the old house, which had formed a part 
 of his unexpected inheritance, until somebody 
 should come along and offer him almost anything 
 for it. He didn't want the old wreck. He didn't 
 want to live in the country, anyway. He had 
 seven or eight thousand a year from less hampering 
 sources. He could sit on the small of his back and 
 dream in the twilight in a dozen places far more 
 sociable than this. 
 
 But if Baumgarten with his fishlike mouth and 
 his patronizing air wanted the house, Stiles would 
 not sell it. It became valuable to him for just that 
 reason. For fifteen years he had slaved in an 
 Atmosphere in which a large part of his business 
 had lain in enduring insults and patronage from 
 just such men as Baumgarten. Now, for the first 
 time in his life, he had such a man coming to 
 him and asking for something. He would probably 
 never have such a chance again. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he repeated, with icy courtesy. 
 "The place is not for sale." 
 
 "But," gasped Baumgarten, whoever he might 
 be and whatever he might want, "you had it listed 
 with what's his name? the agent? Pillars?" 
 
 "Pullar," corrected Stiles. "Yes, I did, but 
 I've changed my mind." 
 
 The visitor looked at him shrewdly. All his 
 mask of flattery had fallen off now.
 
 6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "What made you change your mind?'* 
 
 His tone was almost insulting, and Stiles's eyes 
 narrowed. He did not like the bullying air. It 
 was none of Baumgarten's business why he had 
 changed his mind. 
 
 "I have learned something I didn't know when 
 I offered the place." 
 
 The remark was meant as a snub, and to a 
 human being it would have been. All that Stiles 
 knew that he hadn't known before was that Baum- 
 garten wanted the property and that he didn't 
 like Baumgarten, but the effect of the statement 
 was startling. 
 
 "What what have you learned?" gasped the 
 visitor, rather disgusting in his red discomfiture. 
 
 Stiles almost laughed aloud at his unexpected 
 success, but he was somewhat at a loss to know 
 what to say next. 
 
 "Oh, come," he tried at last, knowingly, "you 
 don't suppose that I don't know when I've got a 
 gold mine?" 
 
 By the words Stiles merely meant, ironically, 
 that he was not so simple as he might look, that 
 he was not born yesterday, but, to his utter amaze- 
 ment, Baumgarten turned suddenly gouty. Stiles 
 had once seen a man of his type pulled from in 
 front of a taxicab, and the reproduction was 
 perfect. 
 
 Then naturally the visitor tried to pass it off, 
 just as Stiles knew that he would. 
 
 "Oh yes, sure," he laughed, thinking that his
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 7 
 
 laugh was really convincing. Then again he did 
 just what Stiles knew that he would do, or, rather, 
 hoped that he would do, to make his type perfect. 
 
 "Now come, Mr. Stiles," he said, leaning for- 
 ward. His method of flattery had now become 
 that of one man of the world to another. Stiles 
 imagined that very soon he would begin tapping 
 his knee, and in time he even did that "now 
 come, Mr. Stiles, just what do you want?" 
 
 Stiles could not resist the temptation to sit 
 back and smile at him cynically, just for the sheer 
 novelty of watching one of these all-wise men 
 squirming. 
 
 "I don't see how I can make it any plainer," 
 he said, rather curtly, drawing his knee out of 
 reach of the fat forefinger. "As for that," he went 
 on, "what do you want of the place yourself?" 
 
 So engrossed had he become in watching Baum- 
 garten in his discomfiture that he had completely 
 forgotten the incident of a minute past, but Baum- 
 garten quickly recalled him. He smiled flabbily. 
 
 "I guess we understand each other, Mr. Stiles." 
 
 After that, of course, there was nothing for Stiles 
 to answer except, "Yes, I guess we do," although, 
 as a matter of fact, he did not understand one syl- 
 lable about the whole affair except that the visitor 
 wanted his place and wanted it for some reason 
 quite apart from its value as low-grade farming- 
 land. "Until he did understand, he could hardly be 
 anything except evasive: but even at that he was. 
 tempted. 
 
 2
 
 8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 With little, estimating eyes Baumgarten was 
 watching him. "Tell you what you do, Mr. 
 Stiles. Give me a figure your own figure." 
 
 It was this that tempted Stiles. Until three 
 weeks before, he had never had a cent beyond his 
 weekly wages, and he had reached an age when 
 money was terribly concrete, and the lack of money 
 still more so. The bird in hand was the only bird 
 which had ever sung for his ears. It was a tre- 
 mendous temptation to obey the command and 
 state a figure some impossible figure, of course. 
 To do so might force the visitor to lay his hand on 
 the table at once; it might even give Stiles some 
 idea of what the whole crazy business was about. 
 
 But equally, as he realized, to set a figure would 
 be to lay his own hand on the table. The size of 
 the figure might show in an instant his own real 
 ignorance of what his visitor was after. Suppose 
 that it were a ten-thousand-dollar matter and he 
 said a hundred thousand. Baumgarten would sim- 
 ply laugh. Suppose, on the contrary, that he said 
 ten thousand when he might just as well have said 
 a hundred thousand. Suppose that he said any 
 preposterous sum and really got it. He would 
 still be the loser, for he understood a man of the 
 Baumgarten type well enough to know that what- 
 ever price he would pay for a thing would be a 
 very small fraction of what he intended to make 
 on it himself. Men like his cloak-and-suit visitor 
 do not go two hundred miles into the country on a 
 hot June day to pay the market value for things.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 9 
 
 There was too much of the trader in Baum- 
 garten not to let him see in a general way what 
 was going on in Stiles 's mind. His little eyes, on 
 the other hand, told Stiles that he saw, and steeled 
 his resolve. 
 
 "No," he said, suddenly, with a recall of his 
 former stiffness. "If I don't want to sell, what is 
 the use of setting a figure?" 
 
 Baumgarten did not weaken in the least. 
 "There's no harm in setting a figure," he insisted. 
 He licked his lips over the favorite term and 
 rubbed his hands. 
 
 "No," replied Stiles, "there's no use talking at 
 all." To dismiss the matter he said, "Will you 
 have a cigar?" 
 
 He brought from under the table a box of very 
 decent domestic affairs, but even in his social 
 manner Baumgarten ran true to type. He looked 
 at the box without making a motion, then reached 
 to his pocket and took out cigars with red bands. 
 
 * ' Here, smoke one of mine, ' ' he said. ' ' These are 
 real Havana." 
 
 Stiles bridled a moment, but saw that the fellow 
 did not mean to be rude. He merely was still 
 possessed by the thought of bringing sunshine into 
 a barren life, but Stiles shook his head. 
 
 "No, thank you. Never when I can get a 
 pipe." 
 
 The visitor looked at him in doubt. He was 
 charmingly cloak-and-suit. There are still men who 
 cannot believe that any man would actually smoke
 
 io CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 a pipe except as a matter of economy, yet some- 
 thing in Stiles's independent attitude almost con- 
 vinced him. He raked his experience for some- 
 thing to match it, for part of the pride of such men 
 is to meet nothing new to their experience. 
 
 "Englishmen smoke pipes," he said, at last, 
 proudly. 
 
 His host smiled. "So they tell me." 
 
 It interested him to see that the minute that he 
 had dismissed the matter of trading, Baumgarten 
 had dropped it, too. He had often wondered what 
 a Simon-pure Broadway type would look like away 
 from its background. He didn't dislike the fellow 
 half as much as he had tried to, but on a social 
 plane Baumgarten was rather forlorn. Stiles did 
 not see any harm in asking: 
 
 "How is Mr. Eksberger?" 
 
 His visitor's face brightened, and Stiles learned 
 at least that Baumgarten did know the dingy 
 notable, although still incredulous that Eksberger 
 had ever spoken of him. 
 
 "Fine, last I saw him," said Baumgarten. "He's 
 a great Charlie." 
 
 "You're a New-Yorker yourself?" suggested 
 Stiles. 
 
 Baumgarten smiled in hopeless pity. "Oh, Mr. 
 Stiles, have a heart ! Do I look as if I came from 
 Duluth?" Then, responding to the ultimate pull 
 of his soul, he added, "Ever come to the city, Mr. 
 Stiles?" for he was of course one of those men who 
 could not say the shortest sentence without in-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD ii 
 
 eluding the name of the person to whom he was 
 speaking. 
 
 "I lived there for fifteen years," answered Stiles, 
 and, not because it was true, but because some- 
 thing about his visitor still subtly annoyed him, 
 he added, "I hate the place." 
 
 The effect was just what he had imagined that 
 it would be. 
 
 "You don't say. You don't say," muttered 
 Baumgarten, too pained even to argue. Then, 
 seeing at once where the trouble must lie, he offered 
 more sunshine. 
 
 "Better let me show you a good time the next 
 time you're there. It all depends on knowing the 
 ropes." He held out again his trump card. 
 "Charlie Eksberger and all that bunch. I know 
 them all." 
 
 Stiles thanked him abjectly, but the conversa- 
 tion languished. Baumgarten rose to his feet, and, 
 according to his code, this action in itself permitted 
 him to reopen the matter of sales. As a delicate 
 preliminary he went for his pocket again. 
 
 "Better take one of these. Smoke it some other 
 time." 
 
 He grandly offered two cigars, to give Stiles a 
 choice. This time Stiles took one, and Baumgarten 
 seized the opening. 
 
 "Better change your mind, Mr. Stiles," he 
 urged. "Better give me a figure." 
 
 But Stiles froze up. He merely grunted a laugh. 
 "Are you going to be in town long?"
 
 12 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Into the question he managed to squeeze a 
 faint tone of dismissal, to imply that, no matter 
 how long he might be in town, their paths would 
 not cross, and at last the colossal assurance was 
 pierced. Baumgarten flushed and turned suddenly. 
 
 "I tell you what I'll do, Mr. Stiles." 
 
 His face was very much in earnest, his social 
 manner entirely gone. Disgruntlement, anxiety, 
 and a gambler's hope had taken its place. He 
 took from his pocket a little red memorandum- 
 book, scratched rapidly with a silver pencil, and 
 tore out the leaf, holding it folded around one 
 finger. 
 
 "I tell you what I'll do, Mr. Stiles. I'm not a 
 man to be bluffed. On that paper is written just 
 the figure that I'll raise the ante." 
 
 He held it out tentatively, and Stiles looked at 
 him with an expression which he hoped he was 
 keeping from being puzzled. He vaguely gathered 
 that taking the paper would form a contract. 
 "Whose ante?" he did not dare to ask, but a 
 brilliant alternative came to him. 
 
 "Anybody's ante?" he demanded, suddenly. 
 
 Baumgarten rather gasped, but he was game. 
 "Anybody's ante," he agreed, "so long as it's 
 now. But it's take it or leave it." He stood gazing 
 at Stiles with a grin of increasing triumph. 
 
 As no ante existed at all, so far as he knew, there 
 was only one thing for Stiles to do, but even at 
 that it was probably the bravest act of his life that 
 he did not reach for that paper.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 13 
 
 "Not a chance," he replied, at last, in a voice 
 that surprised himself. 
 
 Baumgarten's eyes narrowed. 
 "Then you leave it?" 
 "I leave it."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TTEN minutes after Baumgarten's livery -car 
 A had disappeared down the hill, Pullar, the 
 agent, came from the other direction, stalking 
 across the fields. He was an athletic young man 
 who tied trout flies and liked the internals of mo- 
 tors quite a bit of a country gentleman. Stiles 
 saw him coming and went to the piazza rail. 
 
 "I was just going over to see you," he hailed. 
 
 Pullar stopped in his tracks. "You haven't sold 
 the place, have you?" 
 
 Stiles, from his vantage-point of the unpainted 
 piazza, looked at him with a sudden grin. What 
 was coming now? 
 
 "No," he replied to Pullar's question, "not only 
 that, but I'm thinking of taking it out of the 
 market." 
 
 Pullar had a way of his own for hiding his 
 thoughts. It consisted in taking a pipe from one 
 pocket of his tweed jacket, a plug of black tobacco 
 from another, a knife from another, and a box of 
 matches from a fourth. To slice the tobacco, fill 
 the pipe, put up the knife, and light a match kept 
 his eyes on the ground for some time. Then, of
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 15 
 
 course, conversation could be resumed between 
 puffs and behind the match, which made his face 
 non-committal. He had done all this and blown 
 out a first cloud of smoke before he said anything. 
 
 "Going to live here?" he asked his strong, 
 rank smoke coming over to Stiles. 
 
 Stiles liked Pullar immensely, but the new game 
 was too tempting. "Why?" he asked. "Have 
 you got an offer?" 
 
 Pullar looked down at his pipe and pressed the 
 hot coals with his thumb. He had hard, heavy 
 fingers -that contrasted oddly with his rather fine 
 face, and the coals did not seem to burn him. 
 
 "Well, not exactly," he said, "but there might 
 be a way to get the thing off your hands." 
 
 "What did Baumgarten offer?" asked Stiles, 
 suddenly. 
 
 Pullar looked up in surprise, but, unlike the 
 other caller of the afternoon, he was human first 
 and trader afterward, and he broke into a hearty 
 laugh. 
 
 "What do you know about Baumgarten?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "He left about ten minutes before you arrived." 
 
 "The son of a gun!" exclaimed Pullar. 
 
 "I agree with you," laughed Stiles. 
 
 After that the matter was in the open with a 
 man like Pullar. He puffed his pipe in a thought- 
 ful way. 
 
 "What did he offer you?" he asked from lips 
 closed around his pipe-stem.
 
 16 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Stiles was about to answer him as frankly as he 
 asked, but a sudden caution suggested itself. Thus 
 he answered, on second thoughts: 
 
 "Almost anything I wanted to name." 
 
 "Why didn't you name a million dollars?" 
 
 "I thought of that," replied Stiles, soberly, and 
 Pullar looked at him with a sudden admiring 
 appraisal. 
 
 Stiles joined the other man on the ground, and 
 the two looked up at the house the blistered 
 piazza, the yellow clapboarded walls, the sagging 
 green blinds, and the atrocious veneered front 
 doors with their malarial, colored panes set around 
 central panes of ground glass. It was just such a 
 house as country squires used to build in the 
 forties to set themselves a plane above their neigh- 
 bors. There was certain to be a cupola on the roof. 
 Stiles hardly knew, but there was in this case. 
 The whole place with nearly a hundred acres of 
 land was taxed for four thousand dollars. It was 
 listed at only seven in the estate from which Stiles 
 had inherited it, yet now the two men looked at 
 it with a strange and whimsical fascination. 
 
 "Come in," said Stiles. 
 
 "Of course I told him about the gold-mine," he 
 added, casually; but Pullar, who had been about 
 to insert his pipe in his teeth, drew it sharply 
 away and looked at him with his mouth still open 
 and one foot poised on the step. 
 
 "The what?" 
 
 "The pot of gold or whatever it is," explained
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 17 
 
 Stiles. "Every self-respecting old country man- 
 sion has buried treasure somewhere." 
 
 "Oh," replied Pullar, his pipe going home at last ; 
 but Stiles had seen a queer look in his honest eyes. 
 
 "What did you think I meant?" 
 
 "Nothing," answered Pullar, but still not at 
 ease. "I didn't quite hear." 
 
 "Just the same, I wonder what he did think I 
 meant," mused Stiles, a half -hour later, as, from 
 the piazza, he watched Pullar stalking over the 
 meadows. He wondered very keenly. What man 
 would not ? But the truth was that even the queer 
 enigma of Baumgarten and the elusive suggestions 
 which Pullar had been unable to hide did not ex- 
 cite him very greatly. The eyes of a man who, 
 like Andrew Stiles, has watched for years all the 
 high emotions of life grind past from the brutal 
 detachment of a reporter's viewpoint, grow cynic 
 and unbelieving. Mystery, romance, intrigue, and 
 promise such a man has seen them all rise up 
 and wither, one after the other, resolving them- 
 selves, most of them into common sordidness, oth- 
 ers into ridiculous travesty, until, by habit, he 
 discounts every question at sight. 
 
 So at this moment the only emotion by which 
 Stiles really found himself possessed was a sort of 
 cynical shrewdness. He simply meant to take 
 care. Just what were these fellows after? He won- 
 dered, to be sure, but his wonder was without 
 illusion and iconoclastic. Time he knew to be the 
 foe of all scheming. He had only to wait for the
 
 18 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 game to uncover itself. He wanted to get excited 
 about ic, to make it an adventure, but he knew with 
 too much certainty what it must be. A few thou- 
 sand dollars more or a few thousand dollars less for 
 a piece of ground that he did not want. Meantime 
 it was amusing to pull the strings over these men, 
 one of whom he found himself beginning to like, 
 and the other of whom he found for the most part 
 revolting. 
 
 He went to his luncheon smiling, but Mrs. 
 Fields he discovered to be in anything but smiling 
 mood. To answer the bell on her ironing-day was 
 bad enough, but to have to serve luncheon at half 
 past one! Her air was not that of a martyr, ex- 
 actly, rather of silent scorn toward the whole 
 human race. She watched Stiles actually seated, 
 then, leaving the room, came back with a long 
 leather object which she placed at his plate. Her 
 way of doing the thing was quite in accord with 
 her mood, a certain straight-mouthed, wash-my- 
 hands-of-the-whole-affair manner with which she 
 put the thing on the table-cloth and then stepped 
 back to watch the next move. 
 
 The leather object was an old pocket folder, but 
 it did not belong to Stiles, and he looked at it, 
 puzzled. What did she expect him to do with it? 
 His relations with Mrs. Fields had not been on 
 terms of the greatest trust, and he did not like to 
 confess that it might be something that he had 
 asked for and then forgotten. He searched his 
 mind, but recollection brought nothing about the
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 19 
 
 worn, heavy case. It might be something that 
 went with the house. Perhaps the master of the 
 place was supposed by old tradition to sign it or 
 inspect its contents on the third Wednesday of 
 every month. Possibly that was the way that the 
 milkman sent in his bills. He had learned that 
 the butcher sent his in a little brown book with a 
 picture of a fabulous ox. From the air with which 
 she put it before him it might be even his house- 
 keeper's notice that she had resigned. There 
 seemed to be nothing for it except to be amateurish 
 and open the thing. 
 
 There was money inside, crisp new bills, and 
 Stiles pulled them out, but at first glance they 
 appeared a little unnatural. He thought for a 
 moment they must be counterfeit, but, once he had 
 spread them before him, he understood why they 
 looked strange. The top one was a thousand-dollar 
 note and so were the others. There were ten in all. 
 Mrs. Fields must have been glad that she stayed. 
 
 Stiles took the money into his hand and looked 
 up. 
 
 "Does this happen often?" 
 
 But Mrs. Fields was in no mood for persiflage. 
 
 "I found it on the study floor." 
 
 Oh Baumgarten. He ought to have guessed. 
 With a sudden inspiration Stiles looked quickly in 
 every compartment, but the slip which his visitor 
 had held on his finger was not to be found. Any- 
 way, Stiles knew now exactly the sum which 
 Baumgarten had been prepared to wave in his
 
 20 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 face but as an offer or merely to bind the bar- 
 gain ? There was a question again. He looked up 
 at Mrs. Fields. 
 
 "Have you, by any chance, ever heard that 
 there was oil on this property, or a gold-mine, or 
 anything?" 
 
 Being a flippancy, he said it in a casual voice, 
 and of course Mrs. Fields missed it all. A flippant 
 remark repeated to a deaf person becomes a serious 
 statement of fact or an insult, as the case may be, 
 which Stiles realized when he repeated this one in 
 abridged and amended form. 
 
 "I asked whether any one had ever dug for oil 
 on this place, or gold, or anything." 
 
 Shouted in that form by a gentleman with ten 
 thousand dollars in his hand, it did not sound at 
 all as Stiles had meant it, and Mrs. Fields forgot 
 to be scornful. 
 
 "Your uncle once said he wished some one 
 would," she replied, but, unfortunately, Stiles 
 knew too much of his uncle by family tradition to 
 be greatly fluttered by that. Stiles's uncle had not 
 been a huge success as a person. To Mrs. Fields, 
 however, the matter was still a serious proposition. 
 
 "I don't guess there's any one around here who 
 digs much for oil," she mused. To her mind oil was 
 apparently a native of any soil, like flag-root. She 
 bore this out with her next question. "Was you 
 thinking of digging for oil?" 
 
 "Not, at least, until I've been to the village 
 and asked a few questions," Stiles replied.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 village of Eden lay at a distance of about 
 - two miles from the old Crater place. There 
 was no hotel, but Baumgarten, if he were still in 
 town, might be at a white house which sometimes 
 "took people." It had "taken" Stiles himself on 
 the night of his arrival and before he had learned 
 of the existence or the talents of Mrs. Fields. The 
 process of "taking people," like all commerce in 
 a country town, was made to appear entirely an 
 "accommodation" to the person taken, and Stiles 
 had left under the impression that the bars would 
 never be let down again. 
 
 In Baumgarten's case, at least, they had not. 
 The white house had never heard of him, and Stiles 
 wandered up the elm-shaded street, rather at a 
 loss. Aside from his natural anxiety to relieve the 
 other man's mind, no matter how much he dis- 
 liked him personally, he had looked forward to an 
 amusing moment when he handed the pocketbook 
 over. There was Pullar, of course. Pullar must 
 know his client's address. But there again, was it 
 best that Pullar should know all the steps of his 
 dealings with the mysterious Baumgarten? 
 
 Suddenly he thought of Eksberger. If for noth-
 
 22 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 ing else, it would be a good chance to find out just 
 how well his late visitor really did know the famous 
 man whose name he so glibly used. To reach 
 Eksberger himself a letter would only have to be 
 addressed to New York, but, as it happened, 
 Stiles actually did know where the offices of the 
 International Amusement Syndicate were located 
 "international " meaning one theater in Toronto. 
 Thus by the aid of brown paper from the butcher's 
 shop he walked into the express office, all pre- 
 pared to toss over the counter a thin package 
 addressed to Charles Eksberger, Esqre, note to 
 follow. 
 
 The express agent, a youth of eighteen, shared 
 the distaste of the white house for any new busi- 
 ness. He managed to take the small parcel with a 
 contempt which contained the warning that this 
 must be positively the last offense. Grabbing a pad 
 of forms and a carpenter's pencil, he made some 
 illegible scrawls as if to say that he meant to get 
 the nasty business over as quickly as possible. 
 Apparently as an afterthought, he held his pencil 
 aloft. 
 
 "Any value?" 
 
 Stiles had been waiting for this. "Ten thousand 
 dollars," he replied. 
 
 The youth dropped the package like an unclean 
 thing. "Holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "What is 
 it? Radium?" 
 
 Stiles made no reply and the express youth did 
 not insist. He was a broken man.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 23 
 
 "I don't believe they'll let me take this," he said, 
 apologetically. 
 
 He took down a canvas book the size of an 
 atlas, printed in very small type. It was labeled 
 "Preliminary Instructions for Agents," and as he 
 pored through the pages Stiles wondered what the 
 agents would have to learn when they really got to 
 the serious work of their profession. 
 
 The youth shook his head. "There ain't noth- 
 ing about it in here." 
 
 His whole manner had changed. He had taken 
 Stiles into the business as a partner, even looked to 
 him for possible guidance. 
 
 "You might take it up over the wire," suggested 
 Stiles. He would be back in an hour or so. 
 
 Stiles had, in fact, a way in which he was rather 
 anxious to spend an hour in the village. His plans, 
 indeed, rather hinged on this, for he had a shrewd 
 suspicion that there was one man in Eden with 
 whom a ten minutes' talk would clear the mists 
 from this whole ridiculous business. This man was 
 Judge Tyler, a person who lurked in the back of 
 his mind as a white-whiskered patriarch and his 
 late uncle's best friend, for best friends of deceased 
 old gentlemen are usually judges and usually have 
 white whiskers. 
 
 Inquiry directed him to a house which looked 
 about as the old Crater place would have looked if 
 some one had spared it a coat of paint from time 
 to time. With its cupola, its spotless white walls, 
 and its two Noah's Ark little spruce-trees in front, 
 
 3
 
 24 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 this was rural aristocracy caught at the source, but 
 as an uncle's best friend, the judge, beyond the 
 fact that he really did have white whiskers, was 
 not a success. Like every one else in the town with 
 whom he had tried to do business, the judge gave 
 Stiles, on first appearance, the benefit of no doubts. 
 Stiles was there to steal and pillage, it could be 
 seen at a glance. 
 
 Judge Tyler, moreover, improved on acquaint- 
 ance as little as did his house. The latter, on the 
 outside, was impressive in its suggestion of huge 
 log fires and Colonial grandeur. On the inside, so 
 much of it as Stiles was permitted to see smelled 
 of cabbage, while the decorations ran heavily to 
 calendars sent out by insurance companies and 
 lumber firms. The judge himself, in a pin-check 
 suit, with a red face and pure-white whiskers, 
 looked like a rare old boy whose eye would light 
 up when you mentioned Star Pointer or Salvator, 
 who chuckled over Boswell's Life in spare mo- 
 ments, and had personal recollections of Henry 
 Clay. In practice, the moment he opened his 
 mouth he disclosed himself as a nasal old rustic 
 who seemed to know very little and was grimly 
 determined not to know more. He was not even 
 really a judge, just a justice of the peace, an office 
 which the liveryman had also held and which 
 Pullar himself held now. 
 
 "Judge," said Stiles, nevertheless determined on 
 perfect frankness, "why does a Jewish gentleman 
 named Baumgarten, clothing type, wave money
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 25 
 
 before me and cry aloud for my place? Why do 
 Jewish gentlemen want places in Eden, anyway? 
 I mean this Eden." 
 
 "How?" said the judge, tartly. 
 
 At the moment they were sitting in the room 
 which contained the judge's desk a room with 
 linoleum on the floor no rare old furniture, no 
 steel engravings of Daniel Webster. Neither 
 "office" nor "study," neither "library" nor 
 "den," would have fitted that room. A dentist 
 might have seen possibilities in it. The judge, 
 however, was doing the only thing which he had 
 yet done which was really in character. He was 
 toying with a celluloid paper-knife. Old gentlemen 
 about to advise the nephews of deceased best 
 friends should, if possible, toy with paper-knives, 
 and Stiles plucked up hope. He repeated his 
 question. 
 
 "How?" said the judge. All toying ceased at 
 once. 
 
 Stiles saw the sort of judge he had to deal with. 
 "A man named Baumgarten wants to buy my 
 place," he said, abruptly. 
 
 "What for?" snarled the judge. 
 
 To say that he did not know was just the reason 
 of Stiles's present visit. He had, in fact, come to 
 pour out his heart to the best friend of his deceased 
 uncle, and, if the action seemed to call for it, to 
 weep on his bosom, but he had found his heart 
 chilled from the moment that he had smelled cab- 
 bage in the front hall. If there had only been a
 
 26 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 hint of fine cigars, a chance reference to John C. 
 Calhoun, even the tiniest portrait of Daniel Web- 
 ster, he might have told all that he knew or all 
 that he did not know. Instead, "What for?" 
 snapped the judge. 
 
 "I imagine he has his reasons," replied Stiles. 
 
 "Well, air you going to sell?" asked the judge. 
 
 "That depends entirely," replied Stiles. 
 
 "Depends on what?" 
 
 "What a sale usually depends on." 
 
 Stiles said it with a sort of arch and hopeful 
 shrewdness, but even this was over the judge's 
 head and that fine old head, too! 
 
 "A sale," explained Stiles, resignedly, "usually 
 depends on the price and the offer, doesn't it?" 
 
 "Humph!" said the judge. 
 
 There seemed to be no possible reason for pro- 
 longing this interview, but Stiles still sat there, and 
 the judge began to toy with the paper-cutter 
 again. Stiles became almost hopeful once more. 
 Perhaps the long-overdue, "My boy, your uncle 
 and I were friends," was coming at last. Instead, 
 the judge said, suddenly: 
 
 "Young man, you won't get much for that 
 place." 
 
 "So," thought Stiles, "you want to buy it, 
 too." 
 
 "It's taxed for four thousand dollars and it 
 ain't wuth a cent more." 
 
 "It was listed in the estate for seven thousand," 
 said Stiles, sweetly. He had a sudden vague recol-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 27 
 
 lection that the judge had been one of the execu- 
 tors or something. Pullar had been the one with 
 whom he had talked. ' ' Didn't you help to appraise 
 it?" he added. 
 
 The judge looked away. "That's the custom 
 to double the tax value." 
 
 "I suppose you wouldn't give seven yourself?" 
 said Stiles, almost wistfully. 
 
 "What do I want of more land?" asked the 
 judge. 
 
 "Well, of course," suggested Stiles, meaningly, 
 "it isn't just the land itself." 
 
 The judge looked at him sharply, and he ex- 
 plained, innocently. "There's the house." 
 
 "Old rat-trap," said the judge. 
 
 Stiles rose to his feet suddenly. "Well, Judge," 
 he said, genially, "I just dropped in to say good 
 morning, anyway. I understood that you and my 
 uncle were pretty good friends." 
 
 "Sit down," said the judge, but his face did 
 soften a little. 
 
 "Oh, I won't take any more of your time," 
 insisted Stiles, airily, and was well on his way to 
 the door when the judge recalled him. 
 
 "Just a minute, young man." 
 
 Stiles turned. 
 
 "Don't you sell that place until you see me 
 about it." 
 
 Stiles could not resist the temptation. "Do I 
 understand that you want an option on it?" 
 
 The effect on the judge was galvanic. Mentally
 
 28 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 speaking, he put his hand over his pocketbook 
 with a frightened air. 
 
 "Me? No. But you better see me." 
 
 "Judge, you're awfully good," replied Stiles, 
 "but I wouldn't think of putting you to any trou- 
 ble. This Baumgarten seems like a very decent 
 fellow. He's a great friend of Eksberger, the well- 
 known theatrical man." 
 
 The paper-knife dropped with a crash. "Who 
 did you say?" asked the judge. 
 
 "Charles Eksberger, the well-known theatrical 
 man." 
 
 The judge sat and stared, his face growing redder 
 than ever. 
 
 "That feller?" he almost shouted. Then he 
 rose to his feet and came nearer to Stiles. "Young 
 man," he said, "take my advice and you'll leave 
 that Eksberger strictly alone." 
 
 ' ' Good heavens !' ' thought Stiles. ' ' What in the 
 world has Eksberger got to do with this little hole 
 in the woods? What's the matter with him?" he 
 asked, boldly. 
 
 The judge's reply seemed irrelevant, but it 
 might be highly relevant, as coming from the judge. 
 
 "You come to me when you want to sell," he 
 commanded, gruffly. 
 
 "Thanks," replied Stiles, and with this he 
 escaped. Not a word about, "My lad, while you 
 are here your home is with us." Not even a hint 
 of country roast and apple dumplings. Stiles went 
 back with relief to the comparative geniality of
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 29 
 
 the express office, where he was greeted fraternally, 
 although a bit reverently, by the youth in office. 
 
 "They won't let me take it," announced the 
 latter, in a disappointed voice clear across the 
 dirty room. "There's no pouch goes over this line 
 and they won't let me handle it. They wanted to 
 know what it was." 
 
 With the authority of the whole express com- 
 pany behind him, the boy guilelessly expected to 
 have his personal curiosity satisfied, but Stiles saw 
 no reason for this. 
 
 "If they won't take it, what difference does it 
 make to them what is in it? You didn't give them 
 my name, did you?" 
 
 The boy's face fell. He tried to lie, but couldn't 
 quite make it. 
 
 "They had to know," he confessed. 
 
 "They did, did they?" said Stiles, darkly; but, 
 to the boy's disappointment, he went out without 
 another word. 
 
 Leaving his melodrama aside, however, it struck 
 Stiles, as he walked up the dusty road from the 
 station, that ten thousand dollars belonging to 
 Baumgarten or anybody else was not the safest 
 thing to have in a country house half a mile from 
 the nearest neighbor. Unless he wished to take 
 Pullar into his confidence, he must keep the money 
 one night at least, but he meant to relieve his mind 
 as soon as possible. At the post-office he got a 
 sheet of paper and wrote a letter to Eksberger, the 
 first letter in history, he mused, that a theatrical
 
 30 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 producer would have ever received from a news- 
 paper man who did not have a play that he wished 
 produced. 
 
 CHARLES EKSBERGER, ESQRE. 
 INTERNATIONAL AMUSEMENT SYNDICATE, 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 DEAR SIR, A gentleman named Baumgarten, who says 
 that he is a friend of yours, called at my house yesterday and 
 unfortunately dropped a pocketbook containing a very large 
 sum of money. As I had not previously known Mr. Baum- 
 garten and as he has not returned, would you kindly give me 
 his address or notify him where the money is to be found? 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 ANDREW STILES. 
 
 In a day or two, having had experience with 
 the managerial manner, Stiles foresaw that he 
 would get an answer signed by some underling 
 named Sam something or Al something or Abe 
 something. He had often wondered why an as- 
 sistant to a theatrical manager never has a com- 
 plete first name, unless it is something pithy like 
 Max or Leo, but, pending an answer to this grave 
 problem, and also to his note, he went to the hard- 
 ware-store and purchased the largest revolver in 
 the show-case.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MRS. FIELDS," shouted Stiles, when he 
 reached his house, "do I look like a 
 burglar?" 
 
 His reception at the hands of Judge Tyler, and 
 not his revolver, was on his mind, but during the 
 past few days he had found a tepid amusement in 
 shooting unexpected and unrelated questions like 
 this at his housekeeper. The truth was that he 
 had not yet made up his mind whether he had to 
 deal with a genuine humorist or a half-wit. His 
 housekeeper's answer left him still in doubt. 
 
 "I've never seen any burglars," she said. The 
 subject left her completely cold and she turned to 
 something important. 
 
 "Young Pullar has been here again." 
 
 "Pullar?" asked Stiles. "Did he say what he 
 wanted?" 
 
 But Mrs. Fields, having done her part, had 
 turned her back and was gone. She did not hear 
 him or she did not want to. Either was likely. 
 
 The cause of the visit, however, must have been 
 of more importance to Pullar than it was to her, 
 for about an hour after Stiles had finished his
 
 32 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 dinner the lights of his car made a Ben Greet effect 
 on the shrubbery outside the windows and Pullar 
 himself came stomping up on the piazza. He came 
 in without knocking, and Stiles motioned a chair, 
 but Pullar stood there, irresolute, his cap in his 
 hand, his hair rather tousled. Pullar had on a 
 dinner jacket now, his shirt-front showing under a 
 big fawn polo coat. He stood, blinking his eyes at 
 the lamp, but something seemed very much on his 
 mind. 
 
 "Stiles," he burst out, "did you find a pocket- 
 book here to-day?" 
 
 For answer, Stiles took the package from his 
 pocket and undid the wrappings. In his relief, 
 Pullar almost collapsed and he actually did sink 
 into a chair. 
 
 "Thank Heaven!" he exclaimed. "You can 
 guess how that makes me feel." 
 
 He took the leather case and Stiles noticed that 
 he put it in his pocket without any motion to 
 count the money. 
 
 "A very poor business man," was his mental 
 comment, "but a very fine gentleman." 
 
 Stiles himself crushed the wrapping-paper into 
 a ball and shied it in the general direction of the 
 fireplace. "I thought it was Baumgarten's," he 
 explained. "I was sending it back to him." 
 
 No answer came, and, looking around, Stiles 
 saw that Pullar was getting redder and redder. 
 
 "It is Baumgarten's," he said. "Or rather, it 
 was."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 33 
 
 "Was?" thought Stiles, but he added, aloud, 
 "I ought to tell you. I saw what was in it how 
 much was in it," he corrected, a second later. 
 
 The confession did not affect Pullar in the least. 
 He seemed hardly to care. "Why, of course!" he 
 agreed, absently. "What else could you do?" 
 
 In spite of his lucky recovery, Pullar seemed 
 almost as ill at ease as before, and Stiles found 
 himself forcing the conversation. 
 
 "I was out on a search for our friend when you 
 called. Is it too much to ask whether Baumgarten 
 knows that you that this was lost?" 
 
 Pullar shook his head without looking up. "A 
 check for the whole amount went to him this 
 morning." 
 
 Stiles whistled. "This morning? I thought" 
 
 At last Pullar looked up. He was very boyish, 
 yet very likable in his confusion. "I wasn't acting 
 for Baumgarten then. I told him I would at 
 first and he left this with me. He wanted to clinch 
 it at once. Then I saw then I talked with certain 
 parties, and I I thought it best not to act for 
 him." 
 
 He paused, uncomfortable, but he seemed to 
 be getting at what he really had on his mind. 
 Stiles let him take his time, but studied the young 
 man sharply, while Pullar himself looked down at 
 the floor. A queer combination, this Pullar, quite 
 a lot of the milord and, here and there, a strange 
 bit of the yokel his rough hands, for instance, and 
 his way of flushing whenever he had to say any-
 
 34 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 thing important. Stiles wondered whether there 
 were men like that in all country towns. He gath- 
 ered not. It was not his idea of the rural type. 
 Still Pullar seemed struggling to talk, but diffident 
 about getting at it, and Stiles burst off on another 
 line. People always had interested him more than 
 things. 
 
 "What in the world do you people do with 
 yourselves up here the evening clothes and all 
 that? Not but what I like it." 
 
 Pullar came out of his abstraction to smile. 
 "We do that," he said. "In the country you can 
 be quite a gentleman on nothing at all." 
 
 Stiles raised his eyebrows in surprise. Not very 
 much of the yokel about this young man, except 
 always his hands, and those might be largely fish- 
 ing and grease from the engine. Pullar, however, 
 was not to be diverted from the idea which he was 
 attempting to express, no matter how much it 
 made him struggle. 
 
 "Look here, Stiles," he broke out at last, "if 
 you want to do this thing without Baumgarten 1 
 you can. There's quite a little money round the 
 countryside places where you'd never guess it. 
 I'm not good for much myself, just a little, but the 
 people know me." 
 
 Stiles was caught by surprise. What thing? He 
 was just as much in the dark as he had been be- 
 fore, but, by quick control, he managed to look 
 judicious and masterful. Pullar was not as diffi- 
 cult to deceive as Baumgarten, and, for that rea-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 35 
 
 son, Stiles was not so anxious to deceive him. 
 Still, until he knew what he was really talking 
 about he thought it best to look as if he knew 
 everything. Thus he sat quietly looking ahead and 
 drawing on his cigar sagely. And it was Baum- 
 garten's cigar, too! Pullar carried his pipe and 
 auxiliary engines in his dinner jacket, just as he 
 did in his tweeds. He got them all out, one by one. 
 
 "Wait a minute," he said. "I left my motor 
 running." 
 
 When he came back he took off the polo coat 
 and puffed out his rank tobacco. Stiles found a 
 man in a dinner jacket smoking tobacco that 
 smelled like a navvy's rather horsey and quite 
 Pickwickian. He wasn't so sure that he didn't want 
 to live in the country, after all. 
 
 "Of course," said Pullar, "we couldn't pay the 
 earth." 
 
 "No, I imagine not," replied Stiles. What un- 
 der heaven was all this nonsense about, anyway? 
 But he still appeared judicious and masterful and 
 gazed straight ahead. 
 
 "I suppose," began Pullar again, "that you 
 wouldn't want to set a figure? I mean absolutely 
 in confidence?" 
 
 Stiles puffed again and then looked at Pullar 
 with a dry smile. "My dear fellow," he said, 
 "under the circumstances, isn't that asking a good 
 deal?" 
 
 Pullar flushed. "Of course I didn't mean " he 
 Durst out, apologetically
 
 36 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Oh, not at all, not at all," Stiles calmed him. 
 He was talking purely at random, but he thought 
 of something more that might sound well in that 
 place and he added : 
 
 "Of course you see how I'm placed. You can 
 hardly blame me." 
 
 "Hardly," agreed Pullar. He shook his head. 
 "It's a funny business, isn't it?" 
 
 "Some aspects of it are," replied Stiles, sagely. 
 He lit another cigar. It was one of his own, and 
 he had to admit that Baumgarten's were better. 
 Suddenly he said, "I took the precaution of buying 
 a gun to-day." 
 
 Pullar looked up with almost a start. Stiles could 
 not help noting how oddly his expression was that 
 of Baumgarten in the afternoon. Then, just as 
 Baumgarten himself had done, he made an attempt 
 to pass it off lightly. 
 
 "Oh yes," he said, recollecting, "because of the 
 money." 
 
 "Of course," replied Stiles, but "what else?" 
 was the thought that leaped to his mind. 
 
 Would somebody please say one sane word 
 about what all these starts and suggestions could 
 mean? He thought of the judge and his sudden 
 anger, and resolved to try the same lead on Pullar. 
 
 "By the way, Pullar, what do you know about 
 Charles Eksberger?" 
 
 It was an utter chance shot, but Pullar again 
 took his pipe from his teeth and looked at him 
 open-mouthed.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 37 
 
 "You don't mean to say that Eksberger has 
 been here already?" 
 
 Stiles smiled. "No, I didn't say that he had. I 
 just asked you what you knew about him. He and 
 I are having a little correspondence." 
 
 Pullar's answer was perfectly honest: "I don't 
 know as much as I'd like to." 
 
 "Neither do I," Stiles would have liked to reply, 
 but he could not allow himself any luxuries in this 
 conversation and he said nothing just continued 
 to look masterful the business man over the 
 directors' table. 
 
 Having discovered that all that he had to do, 
 apparently, was to shoot out any amazing sentence 
 that came into his head, Stiles was eager to play 
 this game indefinitely, but Pullar got up hurriedly. 
 The honest fellow was ridiculously like a little boy 
 who had discovered something and can't wait to 
 tell it to somebody. That was the yokel in him. 
 But tell it to whom ? Stiles wondered, after he was 
 gone. 
 
 Stiles felt, indeed, when Pullar's car had thrown 
 its white lights on his shrubbery and then had 
 swerved its long beam down the main road, that 
 he had done a hard day's work. He let himself 
 back into his chair with a sense of manual labor 
 behind him instead of a series of talks in which he 
 had felt like a masquerader. 
 
 Stiles had laughed at Baumgarten, and laughed 
 at the judge; he had laughed at Pullar and had 
 laughed at himself, but he ceased to laugh as he
 
 38 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 sat in his chair, with no one but himself to guess 
 at his thoughts, and tried to make head or tail of 
 the whole affair. 
 
 The very fact that every one was so mysterious 
 made it too good to be true. They were all too 
 melodramatic, too childish. If they had laughed 
 and joked and patted him on the back and pre- 
 tended that they did not want anything he would 
 have been on his guard, he would have suspected 
 that they were really up to some mischief. But 
 this starting and staring! 
 
 "Good heavens!" he thought, "some one will 
 come in next and begin to babble about the missing 
 pay-pers." 
 
 That wasn't such a bad idea in itself. He would 
 look for old papers, and, if he didn't find any, one 
 could always write them one's self. They would 
 make proper furniture for such a house as this a 
 rude diagram and a compass and "half-way between 
 the old tree and the big rock the gold is buried." 
 
 Then, as usual, his natural cynicism drowned 
 his own whims. Great Scott! If a man got as 
 maudlin as this after living three weeks in the 
 country, what would he become in three years? 
 No wonder Pullar blushed and stammered every 
 time he tried to talk. 
 
 He stood up to turn down the lamp, but, as 
 he rose from his chair, he heard a thud, and, look- 
 ing down, saw his new pistol lying on the floor 
 where it had slipped from his hip pocket. He 
 picked it up and held it musingly.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 39 
 
 "Yes," he agreed with himself, "there is no 
 doubt about it. The next act in the farce is cer- 
 tainly to hear soft footsteps at night and find that 
 my desk had been rifled. 'Rifled,' I am sure, is 
 the word." 
 
 And, as a matter of fact, that is just what he 
 did hear soft footsteps at night. Preposterous, 
 as he realized, but it seemed to be so. 
 4
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 '"THE footsteps proved on investigation to be 
 * those of the deaf and antique housekeeper, 
 Mrs. Fields, looking very peaked and very un- 
 pleasant in a flannel wrapper, but why she should 
 choose one o'clock in the morning to be nosing 
 around a cold attic was a thing of which Stiles 
 demanded and obtained an explanation. It 
 was an affair of an extra quilt, an adventure on 
 which it would be impossible to cast any discredit. 
 On the contrary, Stiles commended her (to deaf 
 ears) for the first wholly sane conversation to 
 which he had listened that day, but he had to 
 admit that, in spite of himself, she had given him 
 an uncomfortable moment. 
 
 The sleeping-rooms of the old house were in far 
 better shape than the living-rooms, for it was in 
 their bedrooms that old country families did them- 
 selves proud. Stiles had a bedroom which ap- 
 proached the regal no common affair of white- 
 washed plaster and plaited rag rugs; it was a 
 heavy spot in which the one-plane-above-the- 
 neighbors idea had really come into its own. He 
 had gone to sleep mocking himself for even enter-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 41 
 
 taining the idea that he ought to have a gun, and 
 had awakened to hear footsteps. 
 
 The affa.ir had had one pleasing feature for 
 Stiles in that it had proved that he did really have 
 some physical bravery, a quality which he had 
 previously neither doubted nor boasted, merely 
 one to which he had never given much thought. 
 It had simply been a matter of making sure that 
 he really heard footsteps and not a loose shutter, 
 and then he had found himself on his feet with 
 wit even to remark that the floor was cold. He 
 discovered, to his interest (being now, in a way, 
 tied up with the mystery business) that he 
 searched the whole first floor with a perfect calm 
 which increased, on the second floor, to a cer- 
 tain sporting zest and, on the third, to downright 
 eagerness. 
 
 When he reached the attic to hear unmistakable 
 sounds and even to see a strange humping shape, he 
 found that he recognized instinctively that the 
 sounds were friendly and the shape, although not 
 identified, yet something wholly legal. He had, of 
 course, some start when he called and received no 
 answer; then, realizing that Mrs. Fields was deaf, 
 he went up and put a hand on the shape, supposing 
 that it must be she, as it was, quilt and all. 
 
 A feature of it that occurred to Stiles afterward 
 was that Mrs. Fields had not been startled at all. 
 Either there was something very corsair in her 
 nature, or long years of housekeeping in windy 
 houses had made her blunt to surprise. She merely
 
 42 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 put the quilt which furnished her alibi over her 
 arm, walked down the stairs ahead of him, and 
 said good night at the door of her room in a manner 
 which had a dash of the debonair in it. As a rough 
 outline for a scene it had elements but, just the 
 same, in the morning Stiles could not resist the 
 temptation to see whether anything really had 
 been done to his desk, by Mrs. Fields or by any 
 one else. To date, nothing had, but, as afternoon 
 rolled around, Stiles surmised that it might be 
 just as well to go out and look over his hundred 
 acres, for up to that time he had taken them 
 largely on faith, merely basked in the majesty of 
 their possession. If there really were any oil- 
 wells or gold-mines about he would know just 
 what to say to the next caller. He also took the 
 precaution of leaving a brisk business man's no- 
 tice with the housekeeper. 
 
 "Mrs. Fields, if any millionaires or such like 
 come along to buy the place, don't make a deal 
 until I return." 
 
 Then, of course, he had to shout the revised 
 version: 
 
 "If any one comes while I am gone, just ask 
 them to wait. If they can't wait, tell them to 
 leave their money in the big jar beside the clock." 
 
 "Not on the study floor, like the last gentle- 
 man?" asked Mrs. Fields, grimly. 
 
 "Bully for you, Fieldsie," exclaimed Stiles, but 
 not within range of her aural powers, limited as 
 they were.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 43 
 
 As might be supposed, few oil-fields were found 
 by the young master of the old Crater place. His 
 hundred acres, he discovered, ran heavily to sand- 
 bank. On every excuse, the sand jutted out from 
 the dry brown grass of the upland pastures, the 
 only relief being crooked gray fences which divided 
 one field from another. In vain Stiles searched for 
 "seepings" of oil under rocks or for "color" of 
 gold in the gravel of the one little brook which ran 
 through the place. The only part of the estate 
 which really came up to his eye was a green little 
 marsh through which the brook ran and a small 
 plantation of birches which surrounded the house. 
 Crashing his way out from the underbrush of the 
 latter, he entered the house through the kitchen, 
 to be met by Mrs. Fields with an excited smile and 
 a clean apron, the true barometer of alien presence. 
 
 "They've come," she whispered. 
 
 " Who've come?" 
 
 "The people to buy the place." 
 
 Stiles searched her countenance, but there was 
 no trace of guile. She really meant it, and Stiles 
 was excited. From the form of her words, he fore- 
 saw a purchasing-party in force. Hitherto he had 
 talked only with individuals. Like as not he might 
 find a corporation assembled, gavel and all. 
 
 His study, in fact, did, at first glance, give the 
 appearance of being densely populated, a sort of 
 afternoon-tea effect, which impression resulted 
 probably from the fact that, of the two people who 
 actually were waiting in the shabby little room,
 
 44 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 both were extremely well dressed and one was a 
 woman. A slender and amiable young man in a 
 gray-checked suit rose at Stiles's entrance, with 
 a pleasant smile, a frank, winning smile. He was 
 red-haired and rather Celtic in face. 
 
 "Mr. Stiles," he said, "I don't know whether 
 you know me. My name is Eksberger. This is 
 Miss Fuller." 
 
 The young woman, in a garden hat and a limp 
 silk sweater, nodded to him good-humoredly from 
 the rattan rocking-chair in which she was in- 
 stalled. She had very large, very dark eyes and 
 a wistful smile, but, while good-natured, the world 
 had not much left to tell her. For the minute, 
 however, Stiles was busy trying to believe that this 
 really was Charles Eksberger. Curious that he had 
 lived in New York for fifteen years, picturing this 
 man as a fat, gross creature with a white waist- 
 coat and tilted cigars. 
 
 Eksberger, meanwhile, stood watching Stiles 
 with an easy, amused expression which Miss Fuller 
 reflected. 
 
 "I have often heard of you," said the theatrical 
 man. "You wrote the account in the Sun, did 
 you not, when the Hippodrome elephants went 
 on a hunger strike? I was speaking of you just 
 the other day to Baumgarten." 
 
 Stiles was surprised and looked it. 
 
 "He said you were, but I thought he was lying." 
 
 "You would, wouldn't you?" agreed Eksberger, 
 pleasantly.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 45 
 
 There came a long pause, but the most amiable 
 kind of a pause, and Eksberger did not so much 
 break it as end it. 
 
 ''You don't mind if I ask, do you, if you still 
 have Baumgarten's money?" 
 
 "Did you tell him about it?" asked Stiles. 
 
 "To tell the truth, I didn't, "confessed the young 
 man. "It would have been a pity, just yet." 
 
 "And that's lucky, too," confessed Stiles, "be- 
 cause, just after I wrote you, I found that Baum- 
 garten himself did not drop the money, but the 
 local real-estate man. It seems that Baumgarten 
 had left it with him." 
 
 "Then Stuffy " 
 
 "That's what we call him," explained Miss 
 Fuller, coming into the conversation for the first 
 time, although she had been a quite satisfactory 
 part of the wise en scdne. 
 
 "Then Stuffy doesn't know that it was lost at 
 all?" asked Eksberger. "He's still got that coming 
 to him?" 
 
 "He has, if anyone chooses to tell him." 
 
 "Better and better," laughed Eksberger. "I'll 
 tell him myself." He turned to Miss Fuller. 
 "Don't you get it? Stuffy running around sweat- 
 ing blood when he learns that a hick real-estate 
 agent lost all that money?" He turned back to 
 Stiles quickly. "You said that it was a lot of 
 money, didn't you?" 
 
 "Ten thousand dollars," replied Stiles. 
 
 "Rich!" shouted Eksberger. "Rich!"
 
 46 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 He mused a moment, then looked at Stiles 
 shrewdly. 
 
 "Baumgarten wanted to buy your place, didn't 
 he?" 
 
 Stiles rather hesitated. 
 
 "Yes, he did," he confessed. He felt that he 
 ought not to confess it, but this nice young man 
 had a way of carrying him with him. "But the 
 funny part of it was," he explained, "that when 
 Pullar that's the agent, nice boy, too lost 
 Baumgarten's money, he had come up here, not 
 in Baumgarten's interest, but in his own, or rather 
 for other parties people." 
 
 "He wanted to buy it, too?" asked Eksberger, 
 quizzically. For the first time his face lost that 
 genial smile. 
 
 "Yes. I have had several offers for the place," 
 replied Stiles. He felt justified in including his 
 uncle's best friend. 
 
 ' ' Lately ? ' ' asked Eksberger. 
 
 "Since Baumgarten." 
 
 "Well what do you know about that?" asked 
 Eksberger. As usual, he turned to Miss Fuller for 
 audience. 
 
 Stiles watched the smile slowly die on the young 
 man's face. Five minutes, perhaps, at the most, 
 had elapsed since he had come into the room, yet 
 he felt as if they all had been laughing at jokes in 
 common for years. He realized that if these people 
 had any ulterior motives he would be as clay in 
 such pleasant hands.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 4 7 
 
 "By any chance, do you want to buy the place 
 yourself?" he asked, mildly. 
 
 "Me?" asked Eksberger, surprised. He blinked 
 his eyes nervously, then, as if the thought had 
 never occurred to him before, but as if he found 
 it not uninviting, he added: "I don't know. 
 Why?" 
 
 "Because," explained Stiles, "if you don't, you 
 are the first man who has come here who hasn't." 
 
 Eksberger blinked his eyes still more, then 
 changed to a quieter tone. 
 
 "Do you mind telling me just what really did 
 happen? Of course I know that Baumgarten came 
 tumbling up here and made you violent cash 
 offers. He always shouts cash, always waves cash. 
 What then? You don't mind?" 
 
 "Not at all," replied Stiles, and he really didn't 
 mind, although he wondered vaguely if he ought 
 to mind, if he were losing a million or so by not 
 minding. "But first," he said, "will you tell me 
 who Baumgarten is?" 
 
 "Oh, Baumgarten's a damn fool!" replied Eks- 
 berger. That seemed to cover it, and Stiles picked 
 up the thread of his narrative. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Baumgarten appeared one day and 
 tried to get me to sell the place, but, as it happened, 
 I didn't want to sell. He tried to get me to set a 
 price, any price, and went away very unhappy 
 because I wouldn't. He had already been to see 
 Pullar, but apparently thought he could do the 
 business better himself."
 
 48 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "He would," said Miss Fuller. 
 
 "So then," explained Stiles, "Pullar himself 
 came round and learned what had happened. That 
 evening he came again, but this time it appears 
 he was not acting for Baumgarten, but for a per- 
 son or persons unknown local talent presumably." 
 
 Eksberger looked at Miss Fuller. 
 
 "What did I tell you?" he asked, triumphantly. 
 
 Miss Fuller nodded, but a bit impatiently. Her 
 dark eyes were all for the rest of the story. 
 
 "So that," Stiles explained, "was the time I 
 found it was he who had dropped the money ; but, 
 in the mean time, I had written to you, supposing 
 that Baumgarten had dropped it himself." 
 
 "But why to me?" asked Eksberger, quickly. 
 "Oh yes, yes. He had told you that I had spoken 
 of you and you thought he was lying." 
 
 "He left me under the impression," explained 
 Stiles, "that when you and he were not in each 
 other's company it was an empty day for you 
 both." 
 
 Eksberger looked at Miss Fuller and they both 
 smiled. 
 
 "That's Stuffy all over," said the former. ' ' Did 
 he also let you know how close he was to Klaw 
 and Erlanger and David Belasco?" 
 
 "No," confessed Stiles. "He seemed to think 
 that you would make the biggest impression on my 
 rural mind." 
 
 "And how does the matter stand now?" asked 
 Eksberger.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 49 
 
 "It stands just where it stood before," replied 
 Stiles. "Baumgarten wants to buy the classic old 
 ruin, Pullar wants to buy it for persons unknown, 
 and an old friend of my uncle's, who looks like 
 Washington Irving and talks like the villain in 
 "Way Down East,' is putting in a cautious feeler 
 or two on his own behalf. And I forgot to 
 say," added Stiles, "that everybody concerned 
 Baumgarten, Pullar, and Washington Irving 
 all go into convulsions every time I mention your 
 name." 
 
 "And raise their bids?" suggested Eksberger. 
 
 "Each according to the manner of his kind," 
 acknowledged Stiles. "Baumgarten talks about 
 raising the ante, blind; Pullar urges me to keep 
 the property in local hands; and Washington 
 Irving warns me against your soft, city ways." 
 
 Eksberger had taken a seat in the worst of the 
 chairs, and at this he lay back and roared, slapping 
 his knee. 
 
 "Better, and better, and better!" he laughed. 
 "And you," he added, suddenly, "haven't an idea 
 what the whole thing is about?" 
 
 "N-no," Stiles confessed, "I haven't the slight- 
 est idea." 
 
 He had not meant to confess it at all, but, under 
 Eksberger's clear eye, had done it before he could 
 stop himself. 
 
 "Of course," he added, to save his sophistica- 
 tion, "there are already rumors, I suppose, that 
 there is oil on the land, or gold, or both."
 
 So CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Of course," agreed Eksberger, soberly. He sat 
 thinking, as if uncertain where to begin, and then 
 he added, slowly : 
 
 "Well, the long and painful story is just this 
 and no more." 
 
 He paused suddenly and remarked: 
 
 "Of course there is the possibility that I may be 
 lying to you myself." 
 
 "I've still got the place," replied Stiles, grimly. 
 
 Miss Fuller threw him an appreciative glance. 
 Eksberger laughed. 
 
 "Anyway, this is what happened. Three or four 
 days ago we were motoring through here Miss 
 Fuller and I and I noticed this place and won- 
 dered about it. Looked as if some old country 
 squire had lived here, sometime. Just wondered, 
 that's all. Then we went to the village and 
 stopped for lunch white house. Know it?" 
 
 "Place with 'Welcome' on the mat?" 
 
 "That's the place," replied Eksberger. "Almost 
 in tears because you try to spend some money 
 there. They had another guest, too all of one 
 cigar-drummer or something of the sort. Knew 
 me by sight. Pointed me out to the local youth. 
 'Know who that is? That's Charles Eksberger 
 owns all the moving pichurs.' You could see 'em 
 gather in ones and twos. Then, I suppose, my 
 chauffeur threw out his chest a little in the garage. 
 He's got to have some compensation for holding a 
 hard job. 
 
 "Then, of course, one or two village cutups
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 51 
 
 strolled up to me 'Nice day, Mr. Eksberger,' and 
 all that. 'How do you find the roads?' You know 
 the stuff. So, just to make talk, I asked one man, 
 I've forgotten who it might have been your 
 friend the real-estate man I asked who owned the 
 old yellow place with the cupola. 
 
 "They told me the owner had just died and the 
 place was on the market, and I said, 'You don't 
 tell me. How much do they want for it?' What 
 else could I say? Then I added, 'Fine place,' or 
 something like that. Then they said that it be- 
 longed now to a man named Stiles, reporter in 
 New York. So I said, 'Not Andy Stiles?' just as 
 if you and I were bosom pals, 'My old friend Andy 
 Stiles?' I says. Then I thought I'd string 'em a 
 bit . ' What ' s it worth ? ' I says. ' Possibilities in that 
 place.' Do you get me now?" 
 
 "I think I begin to," replied Stiles. "But where 
 does Baumgarten come in?" 
 
 "I'm getting to him," answered Eksberger, "but 
 before we were one mile out of town I said to Miss 
 Fuller didn't I, Rose? I said, 'I'll bet that 
 already it has spread all over town that I have got 
 my eye on that place to make moving pictures. 
 Next thing I'll be hearing from real-estate agents.' 
 It wasn't mind-reading. It happens every time I 
 ask my way around a small town; but I never 
 thought it would be as good as this." 
 
 "But Baumgarten?" hinted Stiles. 
 
 "Oh yes, Baumgarten. Say, do you know what 
 is the ambition of every Jew who makes money in
 
 S 2 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 New York? I'm a Jew myself," he added, by way 
 of aside. 
 
 "Not really!" interrupted Miss Fuller. 
 
 Eksberger smiled. "That wasn't necessary, was 
 it? Every Jew who makes money in the clothing 
 business " 
 
 "Then I was right," interposed Stiles. "That's 
 what I guessed." 
 
 "Did you really?" asked Eksberger, interested. 
 
 "It wasn't hard," suggested Miss Fuller, dryly. 
 
 "As it happens in his case," continued Eks- 
 berger, "it is art novelties, but they are all the 
 same. Baumgarten's one dream is to be a theatri- 
 cal man. Wants to be pointed out in cafes." 
 
 "And not just at country hotels," remarked 
 Miss Fuller, sweetly. 
 
 Eksberger flushed. 
 
 "Have mercy, Rose, have mercy! Anyway, 
 Baumgarten has been making my life a burden 
 Charlie this and Charlie that until, that night, 
 after we got back to the city, I was thinking of 
 how the hicks had tumbled, and so I said to my- 
 self, 'I'll bet this wise guy is just as big a hick as 
 they are.' " 
 
 "'Sam,' I says to him." 
 
 "He's got a good name for the show business," 
 suggested Stiles. 
 
 Eksberger looked up quickly. 
 
 "I'll tell you something about that, sometime," 
 he remarked. "'Sam,' I says, 'I saw something 
 good up in the country to-day; fine old place,
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 53 
 
 badly run down, but it's simply a gem.' Then I 
 told him just where it was and said, 'And who do 
 you suppose owns it? Andy Stiles. You know 
 Andy, of course. Just snapped it up. Don't know 
 what he means to do with it,' I says, looking all 
 the time as if I did, 'but he's a wise bird, that boy 
 is. ' Have you ever noticed that in the show busi- 
 ness it is p?-rt of the game to know everybody and 
 know them by their first name? 'Now what do 
 you think the rascal's up to ?' I asked Stuffy. 
 
 "Sheer rot," explained Eksberger. "But all 
 you've got to do in the show business they're all 
 half crazy is to nod your head and talk to them 
 in a half whisper " 
 
 "And tap their knee from time to time," sug- 
 gested Stiles. 
 
 "Yes," agreed Eksberger, "and give the impres- 
 sion, 'Now this is just between you and I. There's 
 not many people that know it, but this is straight 
 stuff, inside dope.' It wouldn't matter if you told 
 them that the Kaiser had opened a foundlings' 
 home, anything will do, just so you say it in a 
 husky voice and nod your head and tap their 
 knee that's a good line, by the way. 
 
 "So that, in brief," explained Eksberger, "is 
 what I did to old Stuffy. Was very careful to say 
 that I didn't want the place myself. I said to 
 Rose afterwards didn't I, Rose? I said, 'I bet 
 that old slob will run up to Eden or whatever they 
 call it and want to buy that place ahead of me.' 
 By the way, when did he come?"
 
 54 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Yesterday," reckoned Stiles, surprised himself 
 to realize that it was so recently. 
 
 Eksberger slapped his knee again and turned to 
 Miss Fuller. 
 
 "Can you beat it?" he asked. 
 
 "So there you are," he concluded to Stiles, tri- 
 umphantly. "There you have the whole business. 
 Baumgarten wanting it because he thinks I want 
 it, and your agent chap wanting it because he 
 thinks that both of us want it, and all the hicks 
 wanting it because they think the three of us want 
 it. It's a yell, that's what it is!" 
 
 He positively beamed at Stiles as if he had done 
 him the favor of his life in exploding his bubble, 
 and not until that moment had Stiles realized that 
 he had not. Then it came to him ruefully. 
 
 "And here I was spending the money already." 
 
 Eksberger's face completely sobered. He was a 
 great boy, after all, and he had a great boy's amaz- 
 ing sympathy. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he exclaimed, "you should 
 worry. You don't think I'm going to spoil the 
 farce, do you? Keep 'em coming. Let 'em bid 
 and then let it go to the best of them. I only hope 
 that it's Baumgarten that gets stung. Say," he 
 continued, with a sort of feverish enthusiasm, 
 "don't you know that every man, woman and 
 child in town will know that I have been here, 
 ten minutes after I have gone?" 
 
 "Ye-es," replied Stiles, slowly. 
 
 It was really funny that, although he had been
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 55 
 
 the skeptic of skeptics about his own gold-mine, 
 yet, now that some one had agreed with him that 
 it was only pyrites, he was almost tearful. 
 
 "To tell the truth, this is just about what I sup- 
 posed had happened, but every one was so myste- 
 rious that I looked forward to the missing papers 
 and the shots in the night." 
 
 "And the old squire's daughter?" asked Miss 
 Fuller. 
 
 "I hadn't got to her yet, but she was about 
 due," answered Stiles. "And now look at this dun 
 reality." 
 
 At that very minute a chauffeur's cap appeared 
 in the doorway. 
 
 "Mr. Eksberger, the car's gone!" 
 
 "Gone? Gone where?" exclaimed Eksberger. 
 
 "Gone," insisted the man, wildly, talking so fast 
 he chattered. "I only left it a minute to go to the 
 back door for a drink of water, and now I come 
 back and it's gone. It's stolen!" 
 5
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE big foreign car was gone, right enough, 
 but Eksberger ought to have known, and Stiles 
 ought to have known, and, most of all, the chauf- 
 feur ought to have known, that the car could hardly 
 have been stolen without starting the engine and 
 that the engine could hardly have been started 
 without rousing some one in the house fifty feet 
 away. 
 
 When one's own ten-thousand-dollar car is gone, 
 however, one does not think as logically as that. 
 The natural picture conjured up was one of thieves 
 in organized bands reporting to some head thief 
 in New York. Under this delusion, or one like it, 
 Eksberger was running around crying to be led to 
 a telephone, and Stiles was explaining frantically 
 that none existed, when Mrs. Fields came in with 
 the bland announcement : 
 
 "The gentleman's car is at the bottom of the 
 hill." 
 
 " Bottom of the hill?" roared Eksberger. "Who 
 took it there?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields looked at him, puzzled. 
 
 "Took it?" she replied, blankly. "Nobody took 
 it. It went by itself."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 57 
 
 "Am I crazy or who is?" demanded Eksberger, 
 and Stiles himself stared. It began to dawn on him 
 that, in the person of Mrs. Fields, he was housing 
 what might be called a parochial mind. Sandy 
 hillsides that contained oil untapped and motor- 
 cars that lounged off by themselves were appar- 
 ently not spectacular to her. He wondered what 
 would be. He knew an unexpected visitor during 
 her ironing-hour. 
 
 Investigation proved, however, that Mrs. Fields 
 had stated a simple fact. The car was indeed at 
 the foot of the hill, but Mrs. Fields had neglected 
 to add that it was also in the ditch, astride the 
 brook, and upside down. Those facts had possibly 
 not seemed to her of any importance, or perhaps, 
 becoming bored, she had not waited to see that 
 part of the performance. Yet there they found the 
 beautiful foreign colossus, its four wheels in the air, 
 its belly to the blue, looking uncomfortably nude 
 and crablike. 
 
 Just what had happened it was only possible 
 to guess, for Mrs. Fields had been the only witness, 
 and her story, although unimpeachable, was valu- 
 able for little except its color. She had been hang- 
 ing out clothes at the side of the house, table- 
 cloths, to be exact, when she chanced to look up 
 and saw the big, empty car rolling solemnly away 
 down the hill. As nearly as one could gather, she 
 had stood and watched it without even much curi- 
 osity. It must have been quite a picture, the gaunt, 
 wind-blown old woman and the big, empty car,
 
 S 8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 both non-committal, and each, as it were, with a 
 sardonic grin. The supposition was that the brakes 
 had not been properly set; the chauffeur advanced 
 the theory that they had been tampered with; 
 but the only certain fact was that the car was now 
 in the brook, exciting comment among the frogs 
 and the tadpoles. 
 
 A rural-delivery carrier came along as the four 
 of them stood there looking down at the wreck. 
 Presumably he asked whether there had been an 
 accident, for Stiles heard the chauffeur retort: 
 
 4 ' Oh no ! We did it on purpose !' ' 
 
 After that it took the promise of considerable 
 capital and the most flattering attitudes on the 
 part of Miss Fuller to appease the delivery man 
 and persuade him to carry the good news to Ghent. 
 Half an hour later appeared two swart fellows from 
 the local garage to shake their heads pessimistically 
 and give it as their opinion that nothing short of 
 a crane would put the car on its feet. A crane was 
 not to be had short of Felsted, but they left with 
 the promise to bring it the following morning. 
 The chauffeur began listlessly to salvage the cush- 
 ions, and Stiles suggested that he be left alone 
 with his grief.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OATHER stimulated by the excitement of en- 
 A\ tertaining his first guests, Stiles dressed for 
 dinner somewhat more elaborately than usual, and 
 hurried down to the unpainted piazza, but Miss 
 Fuller was there before him. Of baggage she had, 
 of course, none, but she had done marvels with 
 what she carried in her hand-bag, or rather what 
 Eksberger carried in his pockets for her. As they 
 had gone to their rooms, Stiles had heard funda- 
 mentals of beauty culture frankly demanded and 
 had seen them delivered. 
 
 Throughout the whole excitement Miss Fuller 
 had remained a silent and unmoved spectator. 
 Stiles had imagined that few things of this life 
 could move Miss Fuller, but now she displayed 
 more animation. She greeted her host with a 
 friendly smile and he walked across to her side. 
 
 "I presume," she remarked, without prelim- 
 inaries, "that you are rather curious to know just 
 why Charlie Eksberger and I are traveling around 
 together." 
 
 Stiles had not thought of it at all. 
 
 "Am I expected to be curious?" he asked.
 
 60 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Miss Fuller laughed, but she looked at him with 
 a quick and appreciative expression. 
 
 "Not unless you want to be," she replied, "but 
 people usually are." 
 
 She proceeded to state the case in what prob- 
 ably seemed to her a nutshell. 
 
 "We are not married and we are not engaged. 
 I may add that we did not expect to be shipwrecked 
 for a day or two. Does that explain matters?" 
 
 "Perfectly," replied Stiles. 
 
 But apparently it did not, for Miss Fuller was 
 still a bit meditative. 
 
 "I suppose it looks funny," she said, a little 
 apprehensively. 
 
 "My dear lady," exclaimed Stiles, "there are 
 no trains to-night and Mr. Eksberger cannot leave 
 the car. What else could you do?" 
 
 But Miss Fuller was wistful. 
 
 "I don't know," she said, slowly. "Suppose 
 some one should hear of it." 
 
 Stiles looked at her curiously and with perhaps 
 a little more than curiosity. It was odd to see this 
 girl, who looked as if she might tap one on the 
 shoulder and say, "I'm wise, kid, I'm wise," 
 become wistful about the proprieties. 
 
 "After all," he reassured her, "there is always 
 Mrs. Fields. I am sure it's all right." 
 
 "What is all right?" asked Eksberger, coming at 
 that moment out of the front door. He was look- 
 ing at something that he carried in his hands and 
 spoke absently.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 61 
 
 "I was telling Mr. Stiles," explained Miss 
 Fuller, "that we were not married, or anything." 
 
 "Were you?" answered Eksberger. "What did 
 you tell him that for?" 
 
 There is something Turkish about theatrical 
 magnates. They speak tersely to their women. 
 Then, as if the only subject that interested him 
 were the object that he carried in his hand, he 
 burst out : 
 
 "Will you tell me what the devil this is?" 
 
 He held in his hand a sheet of paper, yellow 
 with age, but still robust with the quality of the 
 days when paper was paper. At his query, Miss 
 Fuller crowded up to his shoulder and Stiles looked 
 on from beyond her. Eksberger read like a little 
 boy in the primer class, for the writing was shaky 
 and faint : 
 
 '"This in ye year of our Lord, ye one thousand, 
 seven hundred and ninety-first and in ye year of this 
 republic ye fifteen ' 
 
 "I suppose he means the fifteenth," suggested 
 Eksberger. "Say, this is ancient, this yee stuff. 
 You know that's what they used to say for 'the.' ' 
 
 "You don't say, Charlie," replied Miss Fuller, 
 sarcastically. "You don't say." 
 
 "I was just telling you, that's all," retorted 
 Eksberger. "That's the way it is written on 
 Shakespeare's tomb." 
 
 "Suppose you give us a little more of this 
 strange tale," suggested Miss Fuller, and Eks- 
 berger, without rancor, went on reading slowly :
 
 62 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "'From dust man was formed and to dust he m- 
 turneth. Y* treasure ' 
 
 "Y.T. treasure," said Eksberger, looking up. 
 "What the deuce is Y.T?" 
 
 "'That,'" suggested Stiles, "on the principle 
 of 'ye 'for 'the.'" 
 
 "By George! I believe you're right!" exclaimed 
 Eksberger, excitedly. The thrill of the antiquarian 
 was already on him. 
 
 "'Yaf treasure which man amasseth unto himself 
 in this earth ' I wonder why he didn't say 'yis 
 earth' if he says 'ye' and 'yat.'" 
 
 "Who is 'he'?" asked Miss Fuller, languidly. 
 "Well, let me find out, can't you?" replied Eks- 
 berger, now lost in his studies. 
 
 "Oh, pardon me, pardon me!" pleaded Miss 
 Fuller, hastily. "Where did you get this quaint 
 conceit?" 
 
 "I found it under my bed." 
 "Do you always look under the bed when you 
 find yourself in a strange room?" 
 
 "Oh, for the love of Mike, Rose!" protested 
 Eksberger. "It wasn't really under the bed. It 
 was sort of under the bed." 
 
 He continued with his paleography. 
 "'Yat treasure which man amasseth unto himself 
 in this earth, he shall leave in ye' there he goes 
 again 'he shall leave in ye earth and now, I, 
 Nicholas Caton' no, it's Nicholas Crater 'now 
 I, Nicholas Crater, being humbled and oppressed 
 with a sense of wrong doing do leave in this earth '
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 63 
 
 See? He says 'this' every time. That must be 
 the way they did 'do leave in this earth yat treasure 
 which I have amassed thereon. But as by mine own 
 toile was yat treasure amassed, so now yat I have re- 
 turned it to ye earth, let him who will, digge for it in 
 ye earth, even as I have done. 
 
 Signed this day, 
 
 Nicholas Crater. 
 
 Ye same being in sound body and mind.' t: 
 
 Eksberger looked at his host and his eyes lit 
 with excitement. 
 
 "Say," he exclaimed, "do you know what I 
 think this is?" 
 
 "No, Mr. Bones," answered Miss Fuller. 
 "What do you think yat is?" 
 
 "Oh, cut it out, Rose!" pleaded Eksberger. "I 
 bet this is an old manuscript." 
 
 "No!" breathed Rose, incredulously, but Eks- 
 berger paid no attention to her. Then his natural 
 metropolitan suspicion of everything in heaven 
 and earth slowly came back. He looked at Stiles 
 doubtfully. 
 
 ' ' Do you really believe that there can be some- 
 thing valuable hidden around the place?" 
 
 "Unfortunately," replied Stiles, "I don't." 
 
 Eksberger looked at him, puzzled. Then reluc- 
 tantly he looked at the yellowed paper. 
 
 "But who was this gink this Nicholas Crater? 
 He wouldn't have written like that if he hadn't 
 meant something by it, would he?" 
 
 "Probably not," replied Stiles, "if there ever
 
 64 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 had been any such man, but unhappily there 
 wasn't. Nicholas Crater, I am sorry to say, ex- 
 ists only in my own imagination. Of that antique 
 document the author stands before you." 
 
 "You? You wrote it?" gasped Eksberger, about 
 as crestfallen as Stiles had been at the exposure of 
 the afternoon. "But what for?" 
 
 "Well," confessed Stiles, "with Baumgarten and 
 Pullar and all the rest of them playing 'Treasure 
 Island' and 'East Lynne' all over the place I 
 thought I would give them something that would 
 really keep them busy. So, in a dull moment, I 
 composed this pretty forgery and left it around 
 where any enterprising pryer might run across it. 
 If you found it in your room, among the sheets and 
 pillow-cases, I gather that some little pryer must 
 have done just that thing." 
 
 But Eksberger looked unconvinced. 
 
 "But, man," he argued, "it's old. The paper's 
 old. The ink is old." 
 
 "Everything in this house is old," replied Stiles, 
 "and thin and wan and pale, not to mention eltrich 
 and eyrie. The paper is old because, naturally, 
 one does not put old wine in new bottles. I tore 
 it from a book, an old book, to wit Goodholme's 
 Domestic Encyclopedia of Practical Information, an 
 amazing volume which fitted my ancestors to 
 cope with any emergency from 'angel cake* to 
 'childbirth' and 'fire-balloons.' I have spent hours 
 with it, fascinated. This was a blank page in- 
 tended for 'Additional Receipts and Memoranda.' "
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 65 
 
 He paused, smiling, but Eksberger still appeared 
 unconvinced, while Miss Fuller, standing between 
 them, looked first at one and then at the other. 
 
 "Will you please tell me," she asked, at last, 
 "just who's stringing who?" 
 
 "I can show you the book," protested Stiles, 
 mildly. 
 
 He went into his study and returned with a 
 volume which was large enough, at least, to cover 
 the ground he had mentioned. At the back he 
 showed a rough edge where a page had been torn 
 out and into which the edge of the antique docu- 
 ment fitted perfectly. 
 
 "Well, I'm a sucker," confessed Eksberger, and 
 Miss Fuller quoted, softly: 
 
 '"All you've got to do in the show business 
 they're all half crazy is to nod your head and 
 talk to them in a half whisper and say, "Now 
 this is just between you and I." : 
 
 Eksberger took it good humoredly. 
 
 "I didn't make any exceptions in favor of my- 
 self," he answered, but Mrs. Fields rescued him 
 from further confusion by the announcement that 
 "supper" was ready. She had been told to call it 
 dinner, but Stiles had known at the time that she 
 would be adamant. He submitted to the inev- 
 itable, and well he might, for, although a supper 
 in name, it was a dinner in fact. The paper, how- 
 ever, was still uppermost, and Stiles seized the 
 event of the soup to ask, in rather stern manner: 
 
 "Mrs. Fields, where did you find this paper?"
 
 66 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 The moment was meant to be impressive, a 
 strong will dominating a weak one, but Mrs. 
 Fields again failed to understand the part which 
 was expected of her. She took the paper, made a 
 motion of tapping over her sunken chest, and an- 
 swered, "I can't read it without my spectacles." 
 
 Stiles tried what lawyers call "refreshing the 
 memory of the witness." 
 
 "Mr. Eksberger says that he found it beside 
 his bed," he shouted, suggestively. 
 
 Mrs. Fields's expression became one of complete 
 understanding. 
 
 "Oh," she replied, with evident relief. "Then 
 that's where I dropped it. I was saving that 
 paper to give it to Jedge Tyler." 
 
 "Judge Tyler?" asked Stiles, and in such a tone 
 that he did not need to repeat. It did not upset 
 Mrs. Fields. When her master was angry and 
 excited, she merely thought that he had a nice 
 speaking voice. 
 
 "Yes," she nodded, in reply to the question. 
 "Jedge Tyler told me to find all the papers with 
 old-fashioned writing and bring them to him." 
 
 Tense would be a good word to describe the 
 atmosphere of the table at that announcement. 
 Alone, Mrs. Fields stood lax and dreamy, her 
 hands rolled in her apron. Stiles broke the long 
 and significant silence. 
 
 "When did the judge tell you that?" 
 
 "Before you come, when he was here to wind 
 up the settlement." A detail of far greater mo-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 67 
 
 ment came to her mind. "He counted all the 
 towels and all the sheets and put them down in 
 a book." 
 
 "Oh!" answered Stiles, and the strained air of 
 the table relaxed. Mrs. Fields stood ready to 
 answer any and all further questions, but it was 
 only as an afterthought that Stiles thought of 
 one. He was about to propound it when Eksberger 
 stopped him. With the brusque air of one who 
 says, "Here, let me tend to this woman," he held 
 up his hand and turned to Mrs. Fields. 
 
 "Did Judge What's-his-name " 
 
 "Tyler," supplied Stiles. 
 
 ' ' Did Judge Tyler take away any old papers ?" 
 
 But Eksberger had not yet caught the knack of 
 talking to Mrs. Fields. 
 
 "How's that?" she asked. 
 
 Eksberger repeated. His eye was bright and his 
 manner absorbed, for his failure of the afternoon 
 had only succeeded in making him an antiquarian 
 for life. Henceforth he was to be at his best 
 among the ye's and yats. He put his lungs into 
 the question. 
 
 "Did Judge Tyler take away any old papers?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields smiled dryly. "Skads of 'em, al- 
 most a barrel." 
 
 Eksberger allowed his head to move cautiously 
 until he caught Stiles's eye, and the two men looked 
 at each other significantly. Suddenly Stiles had 
 an inspiration. Taking from the table his own 
 Chattertonian forgery, he handed it to Mrs. Fields.
 
 68 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Here," he bellowed, casually, "you might as 
 well give him this." 
 
 Eksberger looked at him in applause, and Miss 
 Fuller beamed. It was a master stroke, the hit of 
 the day. One saw the villain of ' ' 'Way Down East' ' 
 digging by lantern-light to find the treasures of 
 Nicholas Crater. One saw also the price of the 
 farm going up. 
 
 Mrs. Fields took the manuscript without marked 
 elation, but Stiles was beginning to understand 
 this dark mind. The housekeeper turned to leave, 
 but Eksberger was the real Hawkshaw of the party. 
 
 "Did the judge," he asked, sharply, "offer you 
 any money to bring the old papers to him?" 
 
 The housekeeper turned and looked at him 
 blankly, and all three of them there at the table 
 hung anxiously on the reply. A great deal de- 
 pended on the words of that old woman. She 
 seemed to get it at last and threw up her head 
 scornfully. 
 
 "Money? Him?"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 O you know what I should like to do?" 
 said Stiles as Eksberger, Miss Fuller, and he 
 strolled out from dinner into the cool fragrance of 
 the summer evening. Mrs. Fields, as a witness, 
 might be infantile, but as a cook she was epic, and 
 the atmosphere of the moment was one of majestic 
 content. Eksberger, one presumes, had already 
 made the remark that country life was the only 
 life, after all, that he wondered why any one lived 
 in the city, and that, just as soon as he got his 
 affairs in shape, he was going to buy a farm. To 
 this, Miss Fuller, supposedly, had answered with 
 a cynical silence (she had a way of being cynical 
 silently) for Eksberger had been heard to remark : 
 
 "You don't believe it, Rose, but I'm going to 
 surprise you all one of these days." 
 
 "Do you know what I should like to do?" said 
 Stiles. "I should like to go down and see that old 
 codger and find just what he has got, just what 
 he is up to." 
 
 "By George! we'll do it!" Eksberger caught 
 the spirit. "You send for a car, telephone right 
 away Oh, damn!"
 
 70 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "We might walk," suggested Stiles. "It's only 
 two miles." 
 
 "We'll walk it, then," said Eksberger. "Of 
 course he'll deny that he has any papers, but be- 
 tween us I guess that we can make the old skeeziks 
 squirm." Then suddenly he paused and put his 
 hands on his hips. "Say," he said, "do you know 
 what we're doing? We're actually getting to be- 
 lieve this bunk." 
 
 Stiles hardly smiled. "That's what I told you. 
 That is just what happened to me. I've got so 
 I'm looking for footprints under the windows and 
 expecting to have bullets just graze my ear. I 
 told you that I expected some one to go through 
 my desk. And they have, too," he added, "if you 
 count Fieldsie." 
 
 Eksberger stood shaking his head. "Well, any- 
 way, what's the harm?" He burst out, with a 
 dubious smile, "Are you on?" 
 
 "I'm on," replied Stiles, and, apparently 
 as an afterthought, Eksberger turned to Miss 
 Fuller. 
 
 "How about it, Rose?" 
 
 ' ' Mercy !' ' exclaimed Miss Fuller. ' ' Has it come 
 to that?" 
 
 "What do you mean has it come to that?" 
 asked Eksberger. 
 
 "Nothing," replied Miss Fuller, demurely. 
 
 Eksberger flushed just a little and walked ahead, 
 but Stiles had caught the girl's eye behind the 
 other man's back. He smiled faintly, but she
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 71 
 
 smiled broadly. She had no intention of keeping 
 Eksberger a secret from the world. 
 
 At the gate Eksberger turned and waited for the 
 others. "I wonder if he'll try to lie out of it," he 
 speculated. 
 
 In Stiles flashed up some unsuspected spark of 
 sectional pride. "I don't think so," he replied. 
 "The Pilgrim fathers have left behind their full 
 quota of crabs, but very few downright liars." 
 
 It was still wavering daylight when the judge's 
 house came in sight; the judge himself was spray- 
 ing a hose on a flower-bed. With his ambassa- 
 dorial whiskers and with the background of his 
 old-fashioned garden he formed a picture which 
 made Miss Fuller exclaim, "What a darling old 
 man!" 
 
 ' ' ' Darling ' is good, ' ' commented Stiles. * ' Good 
 evening, Judge," he added, in a louder tone. 
 
 The judge looked up sharply. "Good evening," 
 he said. He threw the hose, sputtering and writh- 
 ing, on the grass, and came forward with an air 
 which was not ungenial. 
 
 "Mr. Stiles," he said, "they tell me you've sold 
 your place." 
 
 "No," replied Stiles, "I haven't sold it." 
 
 The judge looked at him a moment, then tossed 
 his head. 
 
 "Well," he confessed, "I mistrusted there wa'n't 
 anything in it. They was telling me something 
 about your getting twenty thousand dollars in 
 one express package from this Eksberger." 
 
 6
 
 72 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Stiles smiled. "This is Mr. Eksberger," he re- 
 plied. "He can tell you whether I did or not." 
 
 The judge took his first good look at the tall 
 young man. "Air you Mr. Eksberger?" he asked, 
 in amazement. 
 
 Eksberger nodded, and the judge at least was 
 frank. 
 
 "I heard considerable about you," he said, "but 
 I thought you was a Jewish feller." 
 
 All three of his visitors laughed. 
 
 "I guess you never saw a red-headed Jew be- 
 fore," suggested Eksberger. 
 
 The judge thought a moment before committing 
 himself. "No," he confessed, "I don't believe 
 that I have." 
 
 The judge leaned down, turned off the hose, 
 and deliberately wiped his hands on the grass. 
 "I was coming up to see you in the morning," he 
 said to Stiles. "I wanted to ask you about that 
 paper." 
 
 Behind him, Stiles could feel Miss Fuller's sinis- 
 ter merriment, although he knew instinctively that 
 her expression had not changed an atom. Even 
 Eksberger seemed to have a twinkle of amusement. 
 
 "Mis' Fields give it to Jenkins's boy when he 
 went by with the milk for the Boston train," ex- 
 plained the judge, "and he give it to my Harry 
 up to the store. Come in," he continued, hospi- 
 tably. ' ' Come in, ma'am. ' ', 
 
 The hall into which they followed him was dim 
 and musty, and, as they entered, a thin, elderly
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 73 
 
 woman with a guilty air snatched something in 
 cloth and slipped out of sight. The judge pried 
 open the door of the parlor, and, in the open door- 
 way of a room beyond, another thin, elderly 
 woman with a guilty air snatched something in 
 cloth and slipped out of sight. The judge, of 
 course, was as unconscious of them as he was of 
 the smell of cabbage. 
 
 "I'll git a light," he said, and he left his three 
 guests in the darkening room, not so much seeing 
 it as sensing it, the small-paned windows, the 
 white wood panels, the feel of plaited rag rugs 
 underfoot, and the chill that never leaves such 
 rooms even in summer. Stiles wondered whether 
 Eksberger or Miss Fuller had ever seen such a 
 room. He could make out their outlines in the 
 dusk, standing, staring, not in the least amused, 
 rather timidly, like children sent with a note to 
 the minister and waiting for the answer. In a 
 Broadway restaurant, Eksberger would have been 
 a man to look at twice, to wonder who he was and 
 then ask the waiter; in the big foreign car with 
 veils from her hat, Miss Fuller was the last note 
 in languid sophistication; yet here in this musty, 
 provincial parlor they both looked suddenly 
 crude, almost coarse-lined. Stiles wondered. 
 There must be something in the Ten Command- 
 ments and Plymouth Rock, after all. 
 
 The judge came back with a parlor lamp, an 
 atrocious thing with a painted globe, which he 
 put on the table, bending to its level and squint-
 
 74 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 ing his eyes as he turned it up. It brought out 
 the shape of a huge gilt mirror and a crayon por- 
 trait of a woman with an agate brooch and hair 
 parted over her temples. The judge took from his 
 pocket Stiles's antique. 
 
 "Just what was it you wanted me to do with 
 this?" he asked. "Sit down, ma'am, sit down." 
 
 Stiles looked shamefaced at Eksberger and then 
 at Miss Fuller, but his fellow-children were unable 
 to help him and he saw that he must lie alone. 
 "I wondered just what you could make of it," 
 he said, weakly. 
 
 "It looked like an antique document," sug- 
 gested Eksberger, hopefully. 
 
 "Humph!" said the judge. He studied the 
 paper he held in his hand, and then balanced a 
 pair of steel-rimmed glasses on his nose. "Where 
 did you git this?" he asked. 
 
 Eksberger and Miss Fuller looked eagerly at 
 Stiles. They were expecting great things of him, 
 but Stiles also felt that they were both slowly 
 turning against him, that both were becoming 
 distinctly amused, not to say ribald, at his ex- 
 pense. 
 
 "Why it was lying around the house," he said, 
 lamely. That at least was literally true. 
 
 The judge studied the paper further and with 
 growing scorn. "Sounds like the Bible," he said, 
 "but it ain't." Then suddenly, wholly uncon- 
 scious of his own sarcasm, he added, "Would you 
 like to see some reel old papers?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 75 
 
 It was Miss Fuller who answered. One couldn't 
 understand why, but one felt unconsciously that 
 she was the only one who was really in much favor 
 with the judge. ' ' Oh yes ! Can we ? ' ' she asked. 
 
 Without a word, but rather snuffing his nose, the 
 judge shuffled out of the room. The three sat in a 
 silence which Eksberger summed up in one word, 
 "Stung!" 
 
 The judge came back with a small packet of 
 folded papers done up with a bit of red tape, 
 papers worn and spotted and heavy and brown to 
 the color of gingerbread. He did not even need to 
 set them down on the table to make the pitiful 
 forgery of Stiles's look, in comparison, as a modern 
 chair might look in an old museum. Eksberger's 
 eye danced. Whatever might be the limitations of 
 this man, he knew the real thing when he saw it. 
 The judge cleared his throat with a disagreeable 
 and unconscious thoroughness and untied the red 
 tape. He took the first crumbling document from 
 the top and rubbed it between his fingers. 
 
 "Feel that and then feel that," he said, picking 
 up the apocryphal manuscript from the table. All 
 three of them did it obediently, and all three ex- 
 claimed respectfully as people are expected to do 
 on such occasions. 
 
 "That's nothing but a letter wrote by Miss 
 Tyler's grandfather when he was in London 
 in eighteen hunderd and six." The judge dis- 
 carded carelessly several minor papers from the 
 packet and picked out the one he wanted. This
 
 76 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 was the heaviest and the largest of the lot, written 
 on parchment. "This is a commission from Gov- 
 ernor Shirley of Massachusetts for my grand- 
 father's uncle in the French and Injun War. We 
 was part of England then. He was massacreed at 
 Fort William or Fort Henry, I disremember which. ' ' 
 
 "Massacreed?" repeated Eksberger, artlessly. 
 "Who by?" 
 
 "The French or the Injuns, one or the other," 
 answered the judge, nonchalantly. He was ab- 
 sorbed in looking for another paper, and at last 
 he found it. 
 
 "Here, this is what I was looking for," he said. 
 "That thing of yourn claimed to be wrote in 
 seventeen ninety-one. I hain't any of precisely 
 that date, but this one was wrote in seventeen 
 eighty-six and they wrote just the same then. 
 This was a deed for some land up Spicer way." 
 He handed out the creased and yellow document, 
 and Eksberger, the antiquarian, was the one who 
 took it. 
 
 "You see them esses?" asked the judge. 
 "That's what I wanted to show you. You see them 
 esses in that deed? Some of them's wrote like f's, 
 but they ain't f's, they're esses. Now you look at 
 that paper you sent and you'll see that all the esses 
 are wrote just like we write now. The minute I 
 see that paper, I says, 'That was wrote sence I 
 went to school.'" 
 
 But the antiquarian in Eksberger had already 
 begun to feel his oats; the thrill was on him.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 77 
 
 "But look here," he exclaimed, completely ab- 
 sorbed in the real antique. "Here's an ess 'By 
 these presents.'" 
 
 The judge looked over his glasses at the word 
 to which Eksberger's finger was pointing. 
 
 "That's what I was telling ye," he said, testily. 
 "It was only when the ess come at the end of a 
 word or when two esses come together. Then 
 they wrote the second ess like we do now. They 
 was a feller brought a paper into the Masons' 
 lodge one night that he claimed was three hunderd 
 years old. It was something about the Catholics. 
 I ain't no Catholic, but the minute I clapped my 
 eyes on it I says: 'That paper ain't no three hun- 
 derd years old!' You know why?" 
 
 "Why?" asked Miss Fuller, nor did she add, 
 "Mr. Bones." 
 
 "Why?" repeated the judge. "Because that 
 paper had all the esses wrote like f's. And sure 
 enough that paper was wrote in Philadelphia by a 
 bad priest or somebody. They was thousands of 
 copies all over the country. They was quite some 
 talk about it at the time. Round here that 
 wouldn't have fooled nobody. When I was a boy, 
 half the old people in this town was still writing 
 that way, but this happened in California." 
 
 "In California?" exclaimed Stiles. "Have you 
 lived in California?" 
 
 "No, I never lived there," replied the judge, as 
 if offended that he had been asked. "I was just 
 there in 'forty-nine."
 
 78 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "A 'forty-niner?" suggested Stiles, with sudden 
 interest. 
 
 The judge did not take his eyes from the 
 paper in his hands. "No," he replied, absently, 
 "I wa'n't no 'forty-niner. I was in the navy." 
 
 His three visitors looked at one another and 
 then looked at the judge. By silent consent, Stiles 
 seemed elected to speak. 
 
 "Were there many boys from this inland 
 country in the navy in those days?" he asked, 
 tactfully. 
 
 The judge put down the paper, picked up the 
 bundle of other papers, and began running 
 through them. "No," he said, as if the matter 
 did not interest him, "I never heard of any ex- 
 cept me. I wouldn't have be'n in the navy myself 
 if I hadn't be'n shipwrecked." 
 
 Eksberger could stand it no longer. ' ' You were 
 shipwrecked ? Where ?' ' 
 
 The judge shook his head impatiently and be- 
 gan running through the papers again. "Hark!" 
 he commanded, irritated. "You made me lose 
 my place. Here it is." He took a paper from 
 the packet and then replied, calmly: "Where, did 
 you say? Oh, on the Malay Peninsula. Not a 
 great way from Singapore." 
 
 Having found the paper, he seemed to allow 
 himself some interest in the conversation. His 
 eyes almost twinkled at some dead recollection 
 stimulated, and he volunteered of his own accord : 
 ' ' But that was a long time ago. My father thought
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 79 
 
 I had better go round the world. He didn't want 
 to see much of me just then." 
 
 Miss Fuller, obviously, was the only one who 
 could ask the delicate question after that, "What 
 had you done so terrible?" 
 
 The judge laughed. He really did like Miss 
 Fuller. "Oh, it wouldn't seem so terrible now, 
 but he was a very strict man. You see, I'd be'n 
 throwed out of Harvard College. 
 
 "You just wait a minute," added the judge, 
 hastily, and he shuffled out of the room. "I 
 thought I had what I wanted here, but it wa'n't the 
 one." 
 
 The three left behind looked at one another. 
 
 "Say, do you get it?" whispered Eksberger, at 
 last. "And here us boobs came down here to 
 string this old chap. I wonder if he was ever in 
 the show business." 
 
 "Let's ask him," suggested Miss Fuller. 
 
 "Holy smoke!" replied Eksberger. "If we 
 asked him that we'd probably find that he was 
 the first Little Eva." 
 
 But Stiles was the philosopher of the party. 
 He sat silent for a long time, and then he 
 said, "Do you suppose it would do that to 
 everybody?" 
 
 "What do what?" asked Eksberger. 
 
 ' ' Living in the country, ' ' replied Stiles. ' ' Think 
 of it fired out of Harvard, shipwrecked at Singa- 
 pore, in California in 'forty-nine and now look 
 at him!"
 
 80 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "I think he's an old darling," retorted Miss 
 Fuller, loyally. 
 
 "Oh, sure!" agreed Eksberger, "but I get what 
 you mean, Stiles. I was wondering that, too. 
 Ssht! Here he comes." 
 
 The judge came shuffling back into the room. 
 "I couldn't find it," he said, "but 'twa'n't of 
 much account." 
 
 Eksberger had a sudden possession of mischief. 
 "Judge," he asked, holding up the forgery which 
 had occasioned this evening of reminiscence, 
 "what do you suppose that this really is?" 
 
 To their surprise, the judge was not contemptu- 
 ous, merely pitying. "Well," he said, slowly, 
 "some fool wrote that, thinking he was smart. 
 You see, there has be'n a lot of nonsense about 
 that old house of yourn, Mr. Stiles. Always has 
 be'n ever sence I can recollect. In fact, I sup- 
 pose it has be'n that way ever sence the murder.'* 
 
 "The murder!" exclaimed Miss Fuller and 
 Stiles in chorus. 
 
 "Well," replied the judge, deprecatingly, "least- 
 ways that was what it was called." He smiled 
 and went through the motions of chuckling, al- 
 though he did not make a sound. "I suppose,'* 
 he said, "that no one took the trouble to tell you 
 that that house of yourn was ha'nted."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 O you know how I feel?" asked Eksberger 
 as Stiles, Miss Fuller, and he came out of 
 the judge's house into the soft darkness of the 
 early June night. 
 
 Eksberger (and Stiles himself was already 
 catching the habit) generally prefaced a statement 
 of fact by a demand that his emotions be guessed 
 at. The idea was that, after several preposterous 
 guesses, he could spring his denouement and set 
 them all right. This was not based on any con- 
 scious interest in psychology. It was not even the 
 traditional managerial love of being an oracle. It 
 was, rather, a deliberately cultivated habit. Like 
 most men who have made money out of the 
 theater, Eksberger, early in his career, had dis- 
 covered (to his amazement at the time) the dra- 
 matic and consequently financial value of the sim- 
 ple experiences of the average human mind. So, 
 like most men who have seen the money which is 
 made from unpretentious plays, he was continu- 
 ally probing his emotions with the hope that 
 there might be a million dollars in them, as there 
 had been for this or that happy playwright. His 
 conversation was full of stories of men who had
 
 82 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 made thousands from a single catchword overheard 
 in the street or from one line for a song. 
 
 ' ' Do you know how I feel ?" he demanded , but in 
 the subduing influence of the June darkness no- 
 body seemed to care how he did feel. "I feel," he 
 said, nevertheless, "as if I had been watching 
 some cracking good show something solemn, 
 Ibsen or that sort of stuff." 
 
 Even that failed to draw any response, but 
 Eksberger had his satisfaction in knowing, from 
 their silence, that his two companions felt quite 
 the same way. The apple blossoms were just com- 
 ing into their maturity, the lilacs were at the 
 height of theirs, and as the trio walked slowly up 
 the dirt path at the side of the village street, the 
 heavy scents in the velvet darkness might have 
 been those of an evening in southern California, in 
 orange-blossom time. 
 
 After Eksberger's profound confession, none of 
 them felt much inclination to talk, and Miss 
 Fuller, who walked between the two men, slipped a 
 hand through the arm of each and drew them both 
 to her snugly. Stiles found it rather comforting. 
 
 The path lasted only a few hundred yards and, 
 at its terminus, the sketchy street lights ended, 
 too, after which the three plunged into the dark 
 and rutted country road which led to the Crater 
 place. The change in the footing seemed to lessen 
 the tension, although the amazing old judge was 
 still uppermost in the minds of them all. 
 
 "What was that war he spoke about?" asked
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 83 
 
 Eksberger, suddenly. "The one where his uncle 
 or some one got killed?" 
 
 "The French and Indian?" suggested Stiles. 
 
 "Yes, that's the one. What war was that?" 
 
 Stiles rather started. The date was only ap- 
 proximate in his own mind, but the event itself 
 had been a corner-stone of his education at one 
 point of his childhood, just as the story of Joseph 
 and his brethren had been at an earlier point, and 
 the battle of Salamis at a later. He could not 
 remember when he had not shuddered at Brad- 
 dock's defeat. 
 
 "I don't remember exactly the date," he replied, 
 "but it wasn't a great while before the Revolution." 
 
 "The Revolution?" asked Eksberger, simply. 
 "That was Sheridan's ride and all that, wasn't it?" 
 
 Stiles did not laugh. It rather took him a 
 moment to get his breath. 
 
 "You're thinking of Paul Revere's ride, I guess," 
 he suggested, tactfully. "They seem to have done 
 a lot of riding in the old days." 
 
 But Eksberger was too genuine in his thirst for 
 knowledge to avail himself of the opening. 
 
 "No," he insisted. "There was a Sheridan's 
 ride, wasn't there? Barbara Fritchie or something 
 of the sort?" 
 
 Stiles was pinned down to exactness in spite of 
 his well-meaning evasion. 
 
 "But that was a hundred years later. That 
 wasn't so very long ago in the Civil War." 
 
 "Oh, sure," replied Eksberger, a flood of light
 
 84 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 bursting on him. "I get you now. The Civil 
 War. That was 'The Birth of a Nation.' I know 
 all about it now. Say, can you guess how much 
 money that picture made? I wish I knew myself 
 and had a chunk of it." 
 
 He shook his head ruefully that he had not 
 investigated American history at least to the ex- 
 tent of owning a chunk in "The Birth of a Na- 
 tion," but his mind was tenacious and he pursued 
 the new line of thought as avidly as he had pursued 
 his antiquarian studies. 
 
 "Then Paul Revere was in this French and Ind- 
 ian war? What did he do?" 
 
 If Stiles had not lived fifteen years in the heart 
 of New York, he would not have believed his ears 
 at that moment, and, as it was, even he was 
 startled. If he ever wanted to use this thing as a 
 dinner story, he knew that no one would ever 
 believe him. A man who, to a partial extent, 
 controlled the destinies of the American stage, a 
 man, at any rate, who wore the clothes and had 
 the habits of wealth and position, a man whose 
 verdict was feared and whose judgment respected 
 by some of the best wit of New York, did not know 
 things which were taught to six-year-old tots in 
 the little red school-houses around Eden. The bases 
 of society crumbled, but still he managed, in an 
 impersonal voice, to give a rough outline of Amer- 
 ican history. Nathan Hale, Eksberger knew be- 
 cause some one had written a play of that name 
 "would lose money to-day; those costume plays
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 85 
 
 always do." Lincoln, of course, he had heard of, 
 and Grant, of popular song fame, and Washington 
 in connection with the Delaware episode; but 
 whether Columbus and Napoleon or Columbus and 
 Oliver Cromwell were contemporaries was a mat- 
 ter on which he was shady in the extreme said he 
 was. 
 
 To all of Stiles's discourses Miss Fuller listened 
 with polite attention, but without much interest. 
 
 "I learned all those things, once," she said, "but 
 I was never any good at remembering dates." 
 
 Like most women who dress well, Miss Fuller 
 regarded ignorance as a kind of virtue. It was easy 
 to see why. Women who did know dates and that 
 sort of thing were notoriously dowdy. Ergo ! Like 
 all women, moreover, those who dress well and 
 those who don't, she felt that the only knowledge 
 in good repute was that which came from innate 
 instinct. "Book knowledge," they say, in a voice 
 which shows that it is the last source of wisdom 
 to be taken as authoritative. 
 
 Once interested in a thing, however, Eksberger, 
 the male, was a hound for knowledge. Like a 
 lawyer in a careful cross-examination, he drew out 
 from Stiles the essential facts of Miles Standish and 
 John Alden. In half a mile they had almost 
 reached the Missouri Compromise. It was thrill- 
 ing to Eksberger. He actually felt that he had 
 touched a little-known side of human knowledge. 
 He would tell people about this some time. The 
 beauty was that he did not, from first to last,
 
 86 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 show any surprise at his own ignorance. He ques- 
 tioned Stiles simply, as one questions a mining 
 expert or an aviator or a man who has been to 
 Tibet, or, in fact, any master of a remote and not 
 very useful subject. There were, of course, people 
 who went in for this Nathan Hale stuff, and they 
 weren't all hicks, either. He could be liberal. 
 There was no accounting for tastes. But now 
 that he himself a practical man knew about it ! 
 Just wait ! There might be a play in that French 
 and Indian stuff, a screen play, that is, and a comic 
 song in Cotton Mather and the witches, something 
 bringing in a man who was afraid of his wife. Just 
 look at "Rip Van Winkle," what that made! It 
 simply coined the stuff! 
 
 " Cotton Mather was a wise old guy, 
 He burned them at the stake." 
 
 A refrain something like that, sung by a good 
 comedian who knew how to get it over ! Nothing 
 to it, boy, nothing to it ! 
 
 It gave Eksberger the joy of the investigator, 
 the sense of having plumbed the hitherto un- 
 plumbed. He had a headful, and without 
 troubling to go into the Mexican War, he relapsed, 
 after half a mile, into silence, but full of thought 
 deep stuff. For a hundred yards or so nobody said 
 anything, and then it developed that depths in 
 Miss Fuller's nature had also been stirred. 
 
 "Mr. Stiles, do you believe in ghosts?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 87 
 
 It needed no explanation to show what had 
 started the question. From the judge's full even- 
 ing, Eksberger had come away with Nathan Hale 
 under his arm, Miss Fuller with the story of the 
 Crater ghost. She made no pretense that it did 
 not worry her. It was not a flippant question. 
 The girl was troubled. 
 
 "Mr. Stiles, do you believe in ghosts?" 
 
 Stiles hesitated. If they had been alone he 
 would have given her at once a sincere answer, 
 for, to tell the truth, he had thought about the 
 question more than once. Who has not? He 
 stumbled along the road a moment or two and 
 then decided to do it anyway. 
 
 "I'll tell you frankly how I feel about that. I 
 don't see how a man can be a Christian and be- 
 lieve in any kind of spirits." 
 
 The minute he had said it he realized his mis- 
 take, but the next minute realized that he had 
 not made any mistake at all. Eksberger was not 
 a Christian, yet curiously he did not realize that 
 he was not. He accepted the term in just the 
 sense that Stiles had used it. For both of them, 
 New-Yorkers, Christian had become synonymous 
 with "white man." It meant little more than one 
 who lived in a civilized country. The tone in 
 which Eksberger voiced his next question showed 
 Stiles that he had been exactly right. 
 
 "What do you mean a man can't be a Christian ?" 
 
 Just as Stiles had thought, in the term he as- 
 sumed himself. 
 7
 
 88 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 In his answer Stiles was on safe ground. The 
 decalogue was Jewish as well. 
 
 "We are told in the Bible," he said, '"Thou 
 shalt have no other gods before Me.' If you be- 
 lieve in God you are forbidden to pay any atten- 
 tion to any other spirit. They are not recognized, 
 so to speak." 
 
 Stiles himself had gone into the matter farther 
 than this Saint Paul and "Ye men of Athens," 
 but he did not think it necessary to elaborate this 
 far. 
 
 "But if you don't believe in God?" asked Eks- 
 berger. His tone did not imply in the least that 
 he himself did not. He merely had picked the 
 possible flaw in the logic, like the good business 
 man that he was. But imagine Miss Fuller ask- 
 ing such a question as that on a dark night on a 
 country road on the way to a haunted house! 
 Miss Fuller drew closer to Stiles, if anything, and 
 Stiles gave to the question an answer that was 
 perfectly devout and was also impeccable theology. 
 
 "If I didn't believe in God," he replied, "I'd 
 waste mighty little time with any other spirit."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 'T'HE story which Judge Tyler had told about 
 * the old Crater place had, in fact, appealed to 
 Stiles principally for the quaint precision with 
 which it was told. So far as the plot was con- 
 cerned the young bride, the jealous husband, the 
 fit of anger, and the spirit which came back to 
 haunt the spot it was the old, old tale. There 
 was one unfortunate fact over which even the 
 judge had been obliged to express a literary regret 
 the house was not the same one. The house in 
 which Stiles was living had, as he had imagined, 
 been built in the 'forties, while the legend con- 
 cerned itself with the time of the Revolution. 
 
 "The first thing that made me believe that 
 that paper wa'n't reel," the judge had said, rela- 
 tive to the Stilesian forgery, "was that there never 
 was no Nicholas Crater, leastways so far as I ever 
 heard, and I've been searching titles in this town- 
 ship for upwards of fifty years." 
 
 "Come Michaelmas," Stiles had added, softly. 
 
 "Your uncle never had no brothers," the judge 
 had explained, "and his father, old Major Crater, 
 he never had none. He was the man that built
 
 90 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 that house you live in now. Before that they 
 was a house about ten rod to the east, at the top 
 of the hill. That wa'n't tore down until after I 
 was quite a little boy. You can see part of the 
 cellar there yet." 
 
 "I wondered what that was," Stiles had said. 
 "There's a white lilac-bush there." 
 
 "And has be'n ever sence I can remember," the 
 judge had remarked, with a smile. "That's the 
 bush that the sperrit is supposed to come and 
 water when the flowers is in bloom." 
 
 "They're in bloom now!" Miss Fuller had ex- 
 claimed, with a start. At that moment had begun 
 her air of depression which had, an hour later, 
 brought forth her timid inquiry. 
 
 "Old Major Crater he built that house," the 
 judge had repeated, "and his father was Zebulon 
 Crater. He married a Gilson, but I never heard 
 much about him. It was his father's brother, his 
 older brother, Solomon Crater, that they told the 
 story about." 
 
 Solomon Crater, so it appeared, had been a 
 much more dashing young man than his ponder- 
 ous name would imply. As one filled out the 
 picture from the judge's meager and literal de- 
 scription, he had been a man to go about the 
 countryside slapping his boot with his riding-whip, 
 frequenting the taverns and pinching the cheeks 
 of the wenches. He had also been an officer in 
 the Continental Line, fired, no doubt, by the 
 example of that selfsame ancestor of the judge who
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 91 
 
 had been so harshly treated by the French or the 
 Injuns, one or the other, at Fort William or Fort 
 Henry, the judge disremembered which. 
 
 As records run in New England, the Revolution 
 seems to have been a most accommodating sort of 
 war. Soldiers practically commuted from home 
 to the battle-fields, while officers who were pro- 
 fessional men had time to build up a practice be- 
 tween campaigns. 
 
 Solomon Crater, for one, went clear to South 
 America and back (and the west coast at that) 
 between roll-calls, and brought back a bride. It 
 was odd, in light of the present day, that this 
 young Granadan lady, coming from the old civili- 
 zation of South America to the rough, uncivilized 
 country of North America, was in the position of 
 a Parisian, say, marrying a man from New Zea- 
 land. After the viceregal life of Bolivia (as it was 
 later) the provincial society of Massachusetts 
 bored her to extinction. 
 
 The point was that when young Solomon Crater 
 came rolling in from Schuyler's army after a bat- 
 tle or two in the north country, he found that the 
 viper had entered his home. No written town rec- 
 ords touched on the affair at all; the local Don 
 Juan had not even left his name to history. There 
 was merely the tradition of the strangling by night 
 and then the young lady who came out to water 
 the lilacs, frightening passers in the darkness by 
 muttering strange words, in Spanish, presumably, 
 such being the language of Bolivia (as it was later) .
 
 92 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "And what became of the husband?" Eksberger 
 had asked, pertinently enough. 
 
 On that the judge was hazy. All such local leg- 
 ends are hazy on matters of criminal jurisprudence. 
 The unwritten law, with reverse English, seems to 
 have stood without question. One liked to think 
 that the husband met his death by riding his horse 
 over a cliff on a dark and stormy night, chased by 
 remorse. It would have spoiled the story to have 
 learned that he had merely been frowned on by 
 local opinion and had died in his bed of organic 
 trouble, as Stiles privately believed that he had. 
 
 At any rate, the tale held together sufficiently 
 to give Miss Fuller an hour full of solemn thoughts 
 before they stumbled up the steps of the old Crater 
 place. Over a dim light in the kitchen still sat 
 Mrs. Fields, somewhat en nglig6e, waiting their 
 coming. She had fallen asleep half a dozen times, 
 and, nodding over the candle, she appeared unusu- 
 ally cronelike. 
 
 "About those old papers," shouted Stiles at 
 once, awakening her from a doze. "Why didn't 
 you tell me that Judge Tyler brought them all 
 back?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields, as a part of her negligee, had re- 
 moved her false teeth. "You didn't athk me," 
 she replied, unabashed.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN the study was a parlor lamp which gave as 
 much heat as a full-size stove, and Stiles and 
 his guests gravitated back to it much as they would 
 have done to an open fire. Miss Fuller was frankly 
 and openly nervous, and while the two men were 
 both equally preoccupied, they showed it in ways 
 which illustrated oddly their completely contrasted 
 characters and training. With a weight on his 
 mind, the first impulse of Stiles was to sit in a 
 chair, unmoving, until his problem was solved. 
 Faced by mental unrest, Eksberger's impulse re- 
 quired him to keep on his feet and moving. So 
 now he walked back and forth until he exclaimed, 
 "Say, where is this old house the judge was telling 
 about?" 
 
 Stiles looked at Miss Fuller, but, seeing her, out- 
 wardly at least, somewhat composed, he rose to 
 his feet. "I'll show you," he said. 
 
 Miss Fuller rose hastily, too. "You don't think 
 I'm going to stay here all alone, do you?" she 
 asked. 
 
 The three went out to the unpainted piazza, 
 where, in the now cooling June night, Stiles
 
 94 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 pointed out a series of vague mounds at the far 
 side of what had once been the lawn. There was 
 little left of the old house now, even of the founda- 
 tions. By daylight, one found snatches of stone 
 wall and an irregular hole, half filled in, the whole 
 surrounded by turf banks sloping up to it, like a 
 gun rampart. By night, one saw only the vague 
 moundish shapes, but, rather startlingly at this 
 moment, the white lilac-bush, like a misty white 
 scarf, picked itself out of the darkness. Eksberger 
 looked at it a moment. 
 
 "What say we go over and explore it?" 
 
 Stiles hesitated, but it was wholly on Miss 
 Fuller's account, and Miss Fuller shook her head 
 decisively. "I wouldn't go near that place at 
 night for a million dollars." 
 
 "I would, for two cents," said Eksberger, boldly. 
 "Let's go look at it, Stiles." He started down the 
 steps, but Stiles was more merciful. 
 
 "Oh, what's the use?" he said, casually. 
 "There's nothing there but some old stone walls." 
 
 Eksberger started resolutely away from the 
 steps, but, with a sudden alarm, Miss Fuller 
 grasped Stiles's arm. "Charlie! Charlie Eks- 
 berger," she called, in a strange, shrill voice, 
 "don't you leave this piazza!" 
 
 Eksberger turned, grinning, his teeth showing 
 in the darkness. 
 
 ' ' Oh, Rose !" he pleaded. ' ' For Heaven's sake, 
 don't be such a simp." 
 
 Miss Fuller was not abashed. "I don't care
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 95 
 
 whether I'm a simp or not. I'm frightened and 
 I don't want you to leave this piazza." 
 
 "Well, I'm going, anyway," retorted Eksber- 
 ger. He turned and started away into the dark- 
 ness, and Miss Fuller commanded: 
 
 "Charlie, come back here this instant!" She 
 turned to Stiles. "Mr. Stiles, make him come 
 back." Stiles did not see how he was going to 
 do that, but he did manage to call: "Oh, what's 
 the use? There's nothing there." 
 
 "Then what's the harm in going?" insisted Eks- 
 berger. It seemed to be a matter of pure ob- 
 stinacy with him now, and he strode stiffly off. 
 Miss Fuller looked after him fearfully, but she 
 said no more, and Stiles tried to reassure her: 
 "He'll be back in a minute. There's nothing 
 there to hurt him." 
 
 For a moment or two they stood there watching 
 the white collar of Eksberger, the only part of him 
 now visible, vanishing under the shadows of the 
 apple-trees of the old lawn, Miss Fuller clutching 
 Stiles's arm. As the darkness finally closed over 
 the speck of white the girl shuddered slightly. 
 She was a strangely different figure now from the 
 self-possessed woman who had come that after- 
 noon. 
 
 "It's cold here," she said, in a voice slightly 
 trembling, and, after the heat of the great parlor 
 lamp, it was rather shivery. 
 
 "We'd better go in," suggested Stiles. With a 
 kindly instinct, he was making his voice as matter-
 
 96 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 of-fact and as protecting as possible. Reluctantly 
 the girl turned and went in beside him. 
 
 "I do hope he's all right," she said again, 
 anxiously, as she took her seat in that same rattan 
 chair which she had occupied when Stiles first 
 saw her, but which was now placed across the 
 table from his own. Sitting there on both sides 
 of the lamp, their aspect was strangely domestic. 
 Stiles noticed it, but the girl was apparently busy 
 with her uneasy thoughts. "I suppose I am 
 silly," she said, "but I can't help it." 
 
 And then, as always happens in cases where 
 one of a party is the prey of such fears, they im- 
 mediately began to tell all the supernatural tales 
 in their repertoires, each one worse than the last. 
 At least Miss Fuller told all of hers, for Stiles 
 saw early the wisdom of not adding to a state 
 which was keyed up enough as it was. 
 
 Miss Fuller's stories were such as are told with 
 shudders and frightened eyes in every stage 
 dressing-room revelations of mediums and pre- 
 monitions of death. Stiles wisely said nothing 
 except to remark once or twice, "That is strange," 
 until in the warmth of their growing intimacy the 
 girl turned to him suddenly: 
 
 "How do you account for those things?" 
 
 She put the question in implicit trust, a trust 
 that was almost pathetic. Just why she should 
 turn to him as authority both she and Stiles under- 
 stood vaguely, but neither could have told. Stiles 
 was simply that kind of a man. In all gentleness,
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 97 
 
 he assumed the trust. Before he knew it he was 
 delving, in simple words, into pure metaphysics. 
 He touched the great law of coincidence. He in- 
 stanced the atheist who had said that, if he were 
 given enough type and enough throws he could 
 throw Virgil's JEneid from a dice-box. Only, in 
 his version, Stiles did not use the ^Eneid. He 
 called it Webster's Dictionary. It took Miss Ful- 
 ler some time to get the force of this argument, 
 and when she did get it she doubted it on practical 
 grounds. 
 
 "But a man wouldn't live long enough to throw 
 more than a few million times, and suppose he 
 got it all right except one letter, he would still 
 have to begin throwing all over again, and he 
 might not come anywhere near it again for ten 
 years." At which, of course, Stiles had to explain 
 the nature of infinity and pure reason. He did 
 not know how much the girl understood, but at 
 least she listened, fascinated by his choice of 
 words. 
 
 "You do know a lot, don't you?" she said, with 
 a little sigh, and, having at last found the fount of 
 all abstract knowledge, she proceeded to put to it 
 several serious problems which she had been saving 
 up in the past for a medium presumably. "What 
 do you think love really is?" was the first one. 
 
 Exists there a man and exists there a girl who 
 could not do justice to a topic like that around a 
 glowing lamp in a country house at eleven at 
 night ? Miss Fuller, by this time, was leaning her
 
 98 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, and look- 
 ing at Stiles intently with her eyes open wide and 
 with her expression that of a little girl 
 
 Of all the strange and unexpected conversations 
 which Stiles had had in that disheveled room, this 
 was the strangest. His fifteen years of newspaper 
 life in New York had made Stiles metropolitan in 
 his knowledge rather than in his habits. Like most 
 newspaper men, his thrills had been vicarious; he 
 had remained the observer rather than the partici- 
 pant. The girl before him he knew well enough 
 by type the "show-girl" type he would have 
 called it. He had seen her by dozens at roof- 
 gardens and on the motor roads of Long Island on 
 Sunday afternoons. Smart, beautiful, and sophis- 
 ticated, to have entertained her in her customary 
 habitat would rather have frightened him. Here 
 in his own house she sat before him, disclosed as 
 nothing more than a wistful, simple girl who put 
 her chin in her hand and listened to his very 
 elementary philosophy as a girl from a little town 
 in the Mississippi basin might have listened to 
 his tales of newspaper life in New York. From 
 her face, as he saw it without the mask, Stiles 
 tried to guess from what atmosphere she really 
 had sprung. A factory village in upper Vermont, 
 a flat in Harlem over a delicatessen-store? It 
 might have been either. 
 
 "I haven't had such a good talk in ages," ex- 
 claimed Miss Fuller as Stiles came to the end of 
 his argument, and of a truth she had not. Con-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 99 
 
 versation for her, as it is for most of her world, 
 had been merely a fragmentary observation of the 
 things which passed before her eyes. With men 
 and women of the kind she had known, it is rare 
 that three consecutive sentences are spoken on 
 the same subject. A thought is never followed to 
 its conclusion and wit consists of burlesquing and 
 parodying the words of the last one who has 
 spoken. No wonder that Stiles appeared to her in 
 the light of an oracle. 
 
 "I could talk like this for a week," she added, 
 with growing enthusiasm, but, as she spoke, the 
 old Ansonia clock in the kitchen wheezed out 
 twelve, and the two of them, in amazement, 
 counted the strokes. Stiles took out his watch, 
 as one does, to verify the count, and smiled as he 
 said, "Twelve o'clock." 
 
 "Twelve o'clock!" echoed the girl, and, as it 
 dawned on her, her eyes grew startled. "What in 
 the world has become of Charlie Eksberger?" 
 
 The question had leaped to Stiles's mind before 
 she had spoken. They sat for a moment in silence, 
 looking at each other in vague alarm. Then from 
 outside the house came an ear-piercing shriek. 
 There followed a confused murmur of dulled, 
 shouting voices, another moment of silence, and 
 then a terrific explosion.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ONE would suppose that men who had been 
 intimate with motors for ten or fifteen years 
 would learn that it is rather artless to play 
 around a gasolene-tank with a lighted match, but 
 some of them never seem to. One sees their 
 names in the papers from time to time, with a list 
 of the clubs to which they belonged. 
 
 The explosion outside the house brought Stiles 
 and Miss Fuller to their feet with a simultaneous 
 bound, but, in spite of the fact that the shriek and 
 then the report followed immediately on their 
 ghostly conversation and on the spectral errand 
 undertaken by Eksberger, neither had any thought 
 of elfs or gnomes as they rushed from the house, 
 the girl quite as resolute as the man. Their eyes 
 blinded for a moment by the sudden darkness, they 
 felt their way, hand in hand, to the gate, but in 
 the road at the foot of the hill they saw figures 
 moving hurriedly back and forth and heard the 
 sound of panting voices. The red tail-light of a 
 car showed in the road itself, and, as they got 
 nearer, the bundled figure of a woman could be
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 101 
 
 seen in the seat. Her voice could be heard giving 
 decisive directions. 
 
 The explanation of what actually had happened 
 was probably never given in full. It was quite 
 unnecessary. Knowing Eksberger, knowing Pullar, 
 one could build up the scene from the scantest 
 details. Given a man like Eksberger standing in 
 meditation beside a demoralized motor, given a 
 man like Pullar coming up in his own car and 
 catching sight of the wreck, and what do you 
 have? Genial nods in the darkness, offers to be of 
 assistance, full and graphic accounts of the acci- 
 dent, intimate details of fractured springs and dis- 
 torted differentials, reminiscences of former acci- 
 dents to the party of the first part and former 
 accidents to the party of the second part, a few 
 pipes lighted, a few cigars offered, matches held 
 courteously behind cupped hands, an invitation to 
 inspect the fallen colossus in full, and then the 
 match ignited about six inches away from the 
 punctured feed-pipe. When Stiles and Miss Fuller 
 came down on the run, Eksberger and Pullar were 
 still throwing sand, but the fire was under control. 
 
 Luckily, Pullar's wife, a woman who tied trout- 
 flies and gloated over motors as enthusiastically 
 as Pullar himself, had seen the spark fall just 
 in time. Hers had been the shriek which had 
 caused both men to jump out of danger just before 
 the explosion occurred. She had even snatched 
 the extinguisher from the dash of her own car 
 and had passed it out to her husband. In that you
 
 102 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 have Mrs. Pullar to the life a woman who would 
 talk motors at twelve at night, who would buy an 
 extinguisher out of a catalogue and attach it 
 proudly to the dash of her car, who would think 
 of it in a crisis, and then shout efficient directions. 
 For the rest, she was a perfect wife for a country 
 gentleman a regal handsome woman with gray- 
 ing hair, who looked ten years older than her 
 husband and was; an expert in the jargon of 
 country-house life; a Lady Bountiful who was ex- 
 ceedingly genial to the happy peasantry, as long 
 as they kept strictly in mind the fact that they 
 were the happy peasantry. 
 
 Stiles had a fair idea of what had occurred a 
 dozen yards before he arrived on the scene, but 
 Miss Fuller was misty. 
 
 ' ' Charlie, are you hurt ? Are you hurt, Charlie ?" 
 she kept calling in a voice which rose rapidly into 
 the upper register. 
 
 On occasions of accident, women, even women 
 like Mrs. Pullar, have no shame about showing 
 legitimate alarm. With men it is different, and 
 Eksberger was already in the deprecatory stage. 
 He did not show it, perhaps, as either Stiles or 
 Pullar would have done. His Turkish manner 
 broke through. 
 
 "No, there's nothing the matter at all," he 
 said, curtly; and then, as Rose's voice sailed 
 higher and higher, he almost commanded: "For 
 Heaven's sake, Rose, nobody's hurt ! Don't make 
 such a fuss!"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 103 
 
 With Mrs. Pullar within hearing, Stiles wished 
 that Eksberger had not spoken in just that way. 
 Presumably Miss Fuller herself wished it, too. 
 She lapsed into silence like a child reproved be- 
 fore strangers, and Stiles, in a sudden sympathy, 
 took her arm. They stood there while Pullar beat 
 out the last of the sparks, then both of the fire- 
 fighters came toward them. 
 
 "Narrow squeak," said Pullar, proudly. He 
 had really enjoyed the affair. "The feed-pipe 
 must have been struck by the cam-shaft when the 
 cylinders came up through the truss-rods back- 
 ward, if you know what I mean." 
 
 The clinic on motors was apparently about to 
 be taken up just where it had been broken off 
 by the explosion, but Mrs. Pullar must have made 
 a move in the darkness that only her husband saw. 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon!" said the latter, hur- 
 riedly. "Mr. Stiles, may I present you to my 
 wife?" 
 
 Mrs. Pullar turned amiably from her seat in 
 the car. "How do you do, Mr. Stiles? I've 
 heard a great deal about you." 
 
 But Stiles had learned a little lesson that day, 
 and he hastened to lead Rose into the light of the 
 car lamps. "This is Miss Fuller," he said, and, 
 as Eksberger straightened himself expectantly in 
 the background, he added, with a gesture, "Mr. 
 Eksberger you apparently already know." 
 
 Even in the darkness Stiles could see Pullar 
 
 start, and realized that, like the judge, the agent 
 8
 
 io 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 had entertained the mysterious Mr. Eksberger 
 quite unawares. Pullar, however, covered it up, 
 as the judge had not done. 
 
 "We did not know that it was Mr. Eksberger," 
 he said, gracefully. 
 
 There followed an awkward pause, but just as 
 that day had made Eksberger an enthusiastic an- 
 tiquarian, so had that day made Stiles an incurable 
 host. 
 
 "Why don't you all come up to the house?" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Almost before the words had left him he felt 
 a twitch at his arm, where Miss Fuller's arm 
 touched it. The twitch was probably involuntary, 
 but the meaning behind it was not. Show-girl or 
 no show-girl, Miss Fuller had seen instantly com- 
 plications in the invitation which had not appeared 
 to Stiles's coarser masculine sense. Mrs. Fields, as 
 a chaperon, might not rank as high in these 
 people's minds as she did in his. Mrs. Pullar 
 apparently saw complications, too. 
 
 "You're awfully good " she began in the way 
 which means "but under no circumstances," but 
 Pullar, like Stiles, saw only the masculine point 
 of view. 
 
 "It's terribly late " he suggested, yet in a way 
 which seemed to mean, "We'd be delighted." 
 
 Eksberger cast the chairman's vote. "Oh, 
 come ahead!" he urged, enthusiastically. "None 
 of us could sleep now." 
 
 With this plausible opinion the minority report
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 105 
 
 of the feminine Left was not even heard. Between 
 the three men the thing was voted and passed, 
 and, leaping into his own car beside his wife, Pullar 
 began backing up the hill, for, like all expert 
 motorists, his chief delight was to drive his car 
 backward and fast. 
 
 "Nice fellow," said Eksberger, approvingly, as, 
 with Miss Fuller and Stiles, he followed on foot. 
 
 "That woman would be quite good-looking," 
 answered Rose, "if it weren't for her mouth." 
 
 "He's not so bad," said Pullar, from his seat 
 in the car. 
 
 "Oh, he's all right," said his wife, "but that 
 woman is common as mud." 
 
 On the surface, however, nothing hampered the 
 verve of the midnight party. Soda biscuits were 
 found, and a virgin cake. In fact, if it had not 
 been for that involuntary twitch at his arm, Stiles 
 would never have guessed that anything save 
 mutual admiration lay under the careful polite- 
 ness which his guest and Mrs. Pullar accorded 
 each other. As it was, he found himself watch- 
 ing the older woman a little jealously. Pullar and 
 his wife were again in evening clothes, and the 
 agent, who always seemed boyishly eager to antici- 
 pate Stiles's observations, explained them shame- 
 facedly. 
 
 "Dinner again to-night, but you mustn't think 
 that we are as giddy as this all the time." 
 
 It had, however, begun to occur to Stiles that 
 there must be much more in Eden than he had
 
 106 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 wot of. Probably the same idea was occurring to 
 Eksberger. His mental picture of the "hick real- 
 estate agent" who had lost Baumgarten's money 
 (Baumgarten sweating blood the while) was hardly 
 borne out by the life. He was frankly impressed 
 by the evening clothes and coyed his own manner 
 to fit the elegant company. Easy detachment, 
 careless familiarity with money and fame, this 
 was the air at which he aimed and the marvel of 
 such men! the one which he almost attained. 
 No, he did not bother about the car. Seeing that 
 Pullar had held the fatal match, Pullar had been 
 rather anxious about it. Besides, there was the 
 insurance. It all came back to a simple informal 
 gathering. One's ten-thousand-dollar cars did get 
 smashed occasionally. All of them admitted that 
 and dismissed it. Eksberger was in his element, 
 completely happy, but, since that involuntary 
 twitch at his arm, Stiles had been on his guard. 
 And Rose? Since the day she had left her home 
 to ride in managers' cars, had there ever been a 
 moment when Rose had not been on her guard? 
 
 "Are you going to be in town long, Mr. Eksber- 
 ger?" By the careless manner in which Mrs. 
 Pullar asked it one would not naturally impute 
 anything except indifferent politeness, but, being 
 warned, the question put the whole gathering on 
 the alert all save Eksberger. Stiles became furi- 
 ously busy with his soda biscuits and plates. 
 
 "No, thank you, I couldn't possibly," said Mrs. 
 Pullar. She held up a biscuit still untouched to
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 107 
 
 prove her case, and, with the vindictive precision 
 of such women, she let nothing divert her from 
 her seemingly innocent question. Pullar looked 
 unhappy and anxiously apologetic, as he always 
 seemed forced to look in Stiles's presence. Poor 
 chap, it is very difficult to be a diplomat and a 
 man among men when one has a wife with graying 
 hair and fixed ideas about the lower classes. As 
 to Rose, Rose stared, apparently unheeding, smil- 
 ing vaguely, at the carpet, or what was left of it; 
 but just as Rose had a way of being cynical silent- 
 ly, so did Stiles imagine that she could be very un- 
 comfortable while smiling innocently at the floor. 
 
 Alone among them, Eksberger beamed like a 
 sand-boy and took the question for what it seemed, 
 just an innocent expression of genial come-and-be- 
 one-of-us. There was no way to stop the man. 
 "Only to-night," he replied to the question. 
 "Rose and I were just prospecting around the 
 country " 
 
 "Please, Mrs. Pullar," begged Stiles. "Some 
 cake or something? More seltzer? I can get it in 
 a minute." 
 
 Abominable woman, she did not even divert 
 her attention to answer. She held up the still un- 
 bitten biscuit and hung sweetly on Eksberger's 
 words. Her flattering attention was the breath of 
 life to Eksberger. 
 
 "Rose and I have been all over the country in 
 that little old car," he boasted ; but there is a point 
 at which any woman must fight.
 
 io8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "All over the country meaning everywhere be- 
 tween Stamford and Garden City," explained 
 Rose, still smiling sweetly. 
 
 "My dear child, I know what you mean," ex- 
 claimed Mrs. Pullar, and she made it quite evi- 
 dent that she did know. 
 
 One gave it up. Let Eksberger talk. He could 
 not make it any worse than he had. 
 
 "Of course I've got to be in the city to-morrow. 
 Those square-heads of mine would ruin me if I 
 left them alone. But I'm coming back. Believe 
 me, I'm coming back, Mrs. Pullar." 
 
 Mrs. Pullar smiled winningly. ' ' I'm sure I hope 
 you will." 
 
 "Well, you take it from me, Mrs. Pullar, and 
 you, too, Mr. Pullar, there isn't a prettier bit of 
 country in America than you have right here, and 
 I've seen them all. You can talk all you want 
 about the Jersey coast and Long Island where all 
 the millionaires have their estates, but I wouldn't 
 give two cents for them compared with this. Why, 
 the last time we were up this way I said to Rose 
 didn't I, Rose? I said, 'Don't tell me that you 
 could find scenery like this on Long Island!' The 
 minute I saw this old place I said, 'Say, look here!' 
 Had no idea who owned it, or anything. I said: 
 'Say, look here ! If some one who knew how to do 
 it would only slip a few thousand dollars into that 
 old dump it wouldn't take much only fifteen or 
 twenty thousand if some one would only put 
 up a stone wall where that fence is and paint that
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 109 
 
 piazza and make a lawn and cut down two or three 
 of those old trees, there wouldn't be a finer place 
 in the country.' Course you'd have to fix the 
 plumbing, slam in a bathroom or two." 
 
 "Oh, there are great possibilities," agreed Mrs. 
 Pullar. Then, with utter casualness, she turned 
 to Stiles. Oh, how neatly, said the bend of her 
 head, these things can be done when a woman 
 does them! "But you are not going to sell the 
 place, are you, Mr. Stiles? After all these years 
 that it has been in the family?" 
 
 As one varies one's voice by a hair's-breadth in 
 talking first to a child of two and then to a great, 
 grown man of three, so did Mrs. Pullar vary her 
 manner in talking first to Eksberger and then to 
 Stiles. Stiles began to have sudden misgivings 
 as to how his own vague past loomed in her eyes. 
 Then, like a flash, he saw where revenge would lie. 
 
 "I may possibly sell," he replied. He watched 
 the effect of the shot. Mrs. Pullar was skilled; 
 her face said nothing; but he saw that he still had 
 the floor. "Of course," he said, "if I could afford 
 it, I would never dream of letting the place go out 
 of my hands, but you know Mr. Eksberger's 
 reputation?" 
 
 Eksberger looked at him suddenly and very un- 
 certainly, with wide-open eyes. If he had spoken 
 out loud he would have said, "What do you mean 
 reputation?" and even Rose looked up with in- 
 terest. Stiles let them look, and then he said, 
 sweetly :
 
 no CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Mr. Eksberger has the reputation that when 
 he wants a thing he generally gets it." 
 
 Eksberger began to breathe again. "I guess 
 that's right," he agreed. He was in on it now. 
 "Say, didn't we kid them along?" would be what 
 he would say after Pullar and his wife were gone. 
 As soon as he got*a chance to catch Stiles's eye 
 he would wink and draw down one side of his 
 mouth, but Miss Fuller, who had not said a word, 
 thought that trivial matters had been discussed 
 long enough. Something vital had happened that 
 night. 
 
 "Charlie," she asked, irrelevantly, almost im- 
 patiently, "what was there there? In the old 
 house, I mean." 
 
 Mrs. Pullar looked at her sharply. If Mrs. 
 Pullar had been Eksberger she would have said, 
 "Who told you to talk?" but, being Mrs. Pullar, 
 she said nothing and studied the lace on Miss 
 Fuller's collar. 
 
 Stiles leaped into the breach. "We heard the 
 story of the old Crater scandal," he explained, 
 "and Eksberger went out to find the ghost." 
 
 "The ghost?" exclaimed Mrs. Pullar, aghast. 1 
 She looked openly at her husband and her hus- 
 band looked at her. So full of alarm was her 
 glance that even Stiles was upset. Perhaps the 
 judge had not told all there was to tell. 
 
 "Why, why, yes," he answered, uncertainly. 
 "The lady who comes out to water the lilacs at 
 night."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD in 
 
 "Oh, that ghost!" answered Mrs. Pullar, with 
 sudden relief, but Eksberger burst into a roar. 
 
 "My gosh, Stiles! how many ghosts do you 
 keep?" 
 
 For his answer Stiles looked to Mrs. Pullar, but 
 Mrs. Pullar had gathered herself. 
 
 "I couldn't imagine what you were talking 
 about," she said. "I had forgotten about that 
 old legend." But she was still in such evident 
 confusion that even Eksberger had pity on her 
 and took up the tale. 
 
 "Anyway, my private ghost failed to make good. 
 She had gone to see a man about a dog or some- 
 thing. I searched around there for the best part 
 of an hour, and then I went down to look at the 
 car, and that was where I met you people." 
 
 "I told you there was nothing there," said Stiles. 
 "Wasn't I right?" 
 
 "You were right," agreed Eksberger, mocking 
 his pious intonation. "But it must have been 
 a whale of a house in its day. I covered every 
 inch of the cellar." 
 
 "Cellar?" exclaimed Pullar, suddenly coming to 
 life. He had a way of dreaming himself out of the 
 conversation. He had been thinking about car- 
 bureters or spoon bait for bass. "You didn't go 
 into that old cellar?" 
 
 "I sure did go into that old cellar." 
 
 "At night?" 
 
 "Just before I met you." 
 
 "The one at the other side of the lawn?"
 
 ii2 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "The one at the other side of the lawn." 
 Pullar sat back and looked at him, holding his 
 
 breath. He held it so long that all the others 
 
 started in question. 
 
 "But, man alive!" he gasped, finally, "there's 
 
 a hole in that cellar two hundred feet deep!"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 I FEEL weak!" said Eksberger. He had sunk 
 suddenly into a chair, and, while he was the 
 only one of the company who had made a move, 
 the entire group gave, superficially, the impression 
 of having rushed up with towels and aromatic 
 spirits; the entire group, with one exception, that 
 is, for, alone among them, Rose Fuller sat un- 
 moving, as she had for half an hour past. Odd 
 that this was the girl who, an hour before, had 
 run out crying, "Charlie! Charlie!" in the upper 
 register, for now she sat looking at Eksberger with 
 just the faintest ironical squint to her eyes. One 
 has had occasion to say several times that Rose 
 Fuller had the ability to be cynical silently. This 
 describes the act in the nearest that it ever reached 
 to a physical manifestation. 
 
 "Well, what about the hole?" she said, at last, 
 bluntly. 
 
 The words seemed to call the entire company 
 back to reality and all looked at Pullar. Pullar, 
 however, was not himself in large companies. He 
 was deprecatory, if you like. 
 
 "Oh, it's just a hole," he said, vaguely, but the
 
 ii 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 answer satisfied nobody. Holes ten feet deep, yes ; 
 but holes two hundred feet deep, no. He looked 
 at his wife for permission, and, not receiving, at 
 least, a refusal, went on: "Well, some people used 
 to say there was an old copper-mine there, and then 
 there was a tradition that there was an under- 
 ground passage which was used to hide slaves es- 
 caping to Canada. Personally I think it is noth- 
 ing but an old well." 
 
 Having succeeded in starting the conversation 
 in a pertinent direction, Rose Fuller was content 
 to let others keep it in motion. Beyond essentials, 
 she herself did not go in much for talk. There was 
 a moment's pause in which each face could be 
 seen measuring, mentally, the depths of wells and 
 copper-mines, and then Eksberger demanded (it 
 now being, in a way, his hole), "Have you ever 
 been down it?" 
 
 "No," answered Pullar. "Nobody has. But 
 I've shouted down it when I was a boy." 
 
 "Then," asked Eksberger, with reluctant doubt, 
 "how do they know it's two hundred feet deep?" 
 The thought that he might have fallen only fifty 
 feet or, say, seventy-five, threatened to take the 
 edge off his adventure. He was eager to have 
 Pullar stand pat on two hundred. 
 
 "They don't know," replied Pullar. "That's 
 merely what they say. ' ' Then with his usual man- 
 ner of being miles away, and a chord from happier 
 days having apparently been touched by that 
 harking back to his boyhood, he added, wistfully:
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 115 
 
 "There's a queer echo. You can count eight or 
 nine before your voice comes back." 
 
 "Ah," thought Stiles, "the strange mutterings 
 at night (in Spanish, presumably, such being the 
 language of Bolivia)," but the obtuseness of the 
 local genius struck Eksberger as incredible. 
 
 "But look here, man!" he exclaimed, "why 
 couldn't somebody drop a string down it? That 
 would tell you how deep it is." 
 
 For answer Pullar smiled faintly, then looked 
 toward his wife. Should he tell, or shouldn't he? 
 His wife informed him promptly: 
 
 "Oh, Bobby, there's no need of going into 
 that now." 
 
 She actually seemed to think that her words 
 were comprehensible, as they probably would have 
 been to any real resident of Eden, but they certain- 
 ly were not to Stiles, much less to Eksberger. 
 As for Rose, she didn't care, so far as one could 
 tell from the absent smile with which she was still 
 gazing down at the carpet. The matter was com- 
 ing pretty close home, however, to Stiles. He had 
 only been waiting for the proper moment to force 
 an issue on that second and apparently more im- 
 portant ghost. He saw that it was no use talking 
 to Pullar, and he carried the matter to head- 
 quarters. 
 
 "Really, Mrs. Pullar," he begged, "let's have 
 the story. You can't hurt my feelings." He looked 
 very eager and deferential, and inwardly he knew 
 that, however dubious she might consider him as
 
 ii6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 an individual, Mrs. Pullar could at least be made 
 to talk to him as a member of her own class, an 
 honor she had not accorded to every one that even- 
 ing. She did, with a little laugh. 
 
 "No, Mr. Stiles, you mustn't ask me." 
 
 Stiles looked at her whimsically. "In other 
 words, the Crater history is a closed book, a picture 
 we do not study, a page we do not scan ; but you 
 must grant that that still leaves me in the dark 
 as to why your husband or some other given scien- 
 tist could not drop a fish-hook down the copper- 
 mine." 
 
 Mrs. Pullar laughed again, the "dear boy" sort 
 of laugh that a woman with graying hair would 
 use, and, as Stiles had hoped, he saw that he had 
 established himself as an equal. 
 
 "Shall I put it this way," she askea, archly (that 
 being the manner in which duchesses conversa- 
 tionally tap gay, sad dogs like Stiles on the shoul- 
 der), "that in your uncle's day we did not come 
 up here with fish-lines or for any other purpose?" 
 
 She continued her smile suggestively, looking 
 straight into Stiles's eyes, and Stiles looked straight 
 back into hers. He, too, smiled with complete com- 
 prehension. ' ' But Heaven help the happy peasan- 
 try if they get too gay with that old bird !" was the 
 sentiment which rose to his mind, although it might 
 more naturally have risen to Eksberger's lips. 
 
 "Come, Bobby," said Mrs. Pullar, having de- 
 cided that the evening was at an end. "It must 
 be two o'clock."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 117 
 
 She gathered the evening wrap that she wore, 
 as she rose to her feet, and the act broke a sort of 
 spell that had hung over the group while the two 
 members of the upper classes had gazed into each 
 other's eyes and flung each other defiance. It 
 called the others back into the conversation, for 
 while Pullar had been dreaming off on a side-road 
 of spark-plugs or trout-lures or what not, Eksber- 
 ger had been left miles behind. Not once had he 
 had a chance to say: 
 
 "What do you mean, fish-lines?" 
 
 Like Baumgarten, however, the rising of the 
 company gave Eksberger an opening, and for the 
 first time appeared in him what Stiles had been 
 looking for ever since he had known him a trace 
 of Baumgartenism. 
 
 "Say, do you people ever get to New York?" he 
 asked (although Baumgarten would have said "the 
 big city"). 
 
 Mrs. Pullar turned sweetly from the door. 
 
 "Now, happy peasantry, here's where you get 
 yours," thought Stiles, with a grin, as he watched 
 the ominous suavity of her motion. 
 
 "We have a great many friends in New York," 
 she said, quietly. She looked at Eksberger and 
 saw that she had not quite carried her meaning. 
 She knew that in Stiles she now had an audience; 
 she could not leave any doubt, so she added, 
 succinctly: "But of course New York is so 
 changed. All our friends were on Murray Hill 
 and down around dear old Washington Square.
 
 ii8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 That shows you, Mr. Eksberger, what old fogies 
 we are." 
 
 It was too much to ask, however, that a man 
 who had never heard of Ticonderoga should be 
 very much excited by Murray Hill. 
 
 "Well, well, well," replied Eksberger in a patron- 
 age as hearty as her own, "you just leave it to me. 
 The next time you are in town and are lonely, you 
 just telephone Bryant four, six, eight, nine. I'll 
 fix you up with a box for anything you want to 
 see. Just do that little thing, will you? And say," 
 he shouted, as an afterthought, as the car was 
 about to move away from the gate, "if they ask 
 what you want, tell 'em that you are particular 
 friends of Mister Eksberger and that he told you 
 to call. 
 
 "They might have trouble in getting me," he 
 explained to Stiles, as the three walked back to the 
 house, "unless the people in the outer office knew 
 who it was. 
 
 "And now, folks," he concluded, in the lamplit 
 study, rubbing his hands briskly, "I don't know 
 what you're going to do, but I'm going to bed." 
 
 "I guess we all are," said Stiles, and, as Eks- 
 berger sauntered off up the stairs, he bent over to 
 turn down the big lamp. On the plate remained 
 a fragment of cake. Stiles took it absently, then, 
 looking up, he found that Miss Fuller was still in 
 the room. 
 
 "Have some?" he asked. 
 
 Miss Fuller looked at the crumbs and shook her
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 119 
 
 head, amused. She watched him a moment with 
 that mild indifference of hers, and then she re- 
 marked, "We seem to have spilled your beans 
 with Queen Victoria." 
 
 Stiles did not deny it. He stood as if studying 
 minutely the fragment of cake in his hand. The 
 deep lines around his mouth became suddenly 
 deeper. The girl saw them. 
 
 "What are you. laughing at?" 
 
 "I was thinking," replied Stiles, "what Eks- 
 berger would have said to that 'What do you 
 mean, spilled the beans?'" 
 
 The girl looked away without returning his 
 smile, and for an instant Stiles feared that he 
 had gone too far, that he had overestimated the 
 shrewdness with which she regarded her fa- 
 mous escort. Apparently, however, she was not 
 thinking of that at all. "Well, didn't we?" she 
 insisted. 
 
 "I don't care whether you did or not," replied 
 Stiles. "Queen Victoria is nothing to me. I 
 never saw her until to-night." 
 
 Miss Fuller, however, pursued her own logic 
 relentlessly. "I'm going to clear out, the first 
 train in the morning." 
 
 "That's not necessary," said Stiles, quietly. 
 
 "I know it's not necessary," retorted the girl. 
 
 "Well, then," replied Stiles, "I ask you to 
 stay." 
 
 It happened to be that which made the girl 
 raise her eyes slowly and look at him steadily,
 
 120 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 but if it had not been that, she would have done 
 it just the same. It was not the remark, but the 
 moment. Midnight, a country house, a disheveled 
 room, and their sudden fantastic intimacy. Such 
 moments breed almost an intoxication of con- 
 fidence. Stiles looked back into the girl's eyes, 
 which never moved. Three or four times he 
 stopped himself from saying what he felt tempted 
 to say, each time knowing that, sooner or later, 
 he would say it, just the same. As a preliminary 
 he put the crumbs of cake back on the plate. The 
 girl missed neither the gesture nor its significance. 
 
 "Don't let me spoil your supper." 
 
 The remark delayed the confession, but it 
 could not avert it. At any rate, the girl did not 
 move. Silence and the glow of the lamp restored 
 the spell of the moment, and, in a gentler voice, 
 only half bantering, she asked him: 
 
 "Well, what's on your mind?" 
 
 It was all that Stiles needed. He looked at 
 her with that same speculative smile. The truth 
 was that the evening had shown him that the r61e 
 of confessor for which he had cast Judge Tyler 
 would in all probability be played by this girl. 
 He began : 
 
 "There are several things that I want to 
 know." 
 
 With that almost brutal acuteness with which 
 she divined some things, the girl took him up. 
 "You want me to tell you what Charlie Eksberger 
 is after?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 121 
 
 Stiles nodded. 
 
 "And Stuffy Baumgarten, too?" 
 
 He nodded again. 
 
 "/'// tell you," replied the girl, promptly, "but 
 it's a long story. Only," she added, "it doesn't 
 amount to a row of pins." 
 
 "I'm not so sure of that," suggested Stiles. 
 
 The girl studied his face with a searching 
 expression almost motherly in its faint anxiety. 
 She seemed to fear he might still have some golden 
 hope. 
 
 "Of course," she hinted, carefully, "Charlie 
 never had any idea of buying this place for a 
 picture park." 
 
 Stiles dismissed the suggestion with a wave of 
 his hand. "I am not one of the hicks." 
 
 Miss Fuller laughed. "I didn't think you 
 were." She stood for a full minute more, look- 
 ing into the fireplace in front of which Stiles 
 was standing. "It's a funny thing to say," 
 she began, at last, "but I suppose I am the 
 mystery." 
 
 Stiles did not even look up. "I wondered if 
 that were not so." 
 
 The girl was surprised. ' ' What do you mean ?" 
 
 Stiles did look up then. "I didn't mean just 
 this nonsense about buying the place. I meant 
 the real tale. You said it was a long story.'* 
 
 "I see," said the girl. She hung her head and 
 came to a sudden stop. Stiles feared, to his regret, 
 that there might be no confession that night. A
 
 122 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 moment later he was sure there would be none, for 
 Eksberger's voice came hurtling down from the 
 head of the stairs: 
 
 "Hey, there! Are you people going to stand 
 there chewing the rag all night?"
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MRS. FIELDS was to have a delightful sur- 
 prise on the following morning. Stiles was 
 down for breakfast before nine o'clock. Even at 
 that his guests were both on the piazza before him, 
 enjoying what was for them the novel picture of 
 the sparkling, frostlike dew on the heavy grass 
 of the ragged lawn. As he came out the door, 
 Eksberger turned eagerly to include him in the 
 conversation. 
 
 "Say, Stiles," he called, "I've been thinking." 
 
 Stiles wondered whether that broad assertion 
 would go unchallenged by Rose, and Eksberger 
 must have wondered it, too, for he hastened to 
 anticipate her. "Yes, I know it isn't done, but 
 I'll stop it before the neighbors complain. But, 
 seriously, old man, I've been thinking that you've 
 got a gold-mine here, whichever way you look at it." 
 
 Stiles appeared open to any suggestion, and Eks- 
 berger went on: "You know those people who 
 were here last night weren't hicks." 
 
 Stiles nodded. 
 
 "Are there any more like them here?" 
 
 "I suppose so," said Stiles.
 
 i2 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Well, you can just bet there are," replied Eks- 
 berger. "People don't take the trouble to dress 
 like that for the dicky-birds. Didn't they say 
 they'd been out to a dinner-party or something?" 
 
 "Something of the kind," answered Stiles. He 
 recalled Pullar's modest statement of being a gen- 
 tleman on nothing at all, but, even at that, he was 
 inclined to accept Eksberger's snap observation as 
 the truer judgment. On his trips to the village he 
 had caught a glimpse of the red-tiled roof of a 
 distant villa on the other side of the town; he had 
 seen a liveried coachman in front of the post- 
 office, and other things which do not properly go 
 with a run-down township. From the gossip of 
 Mrs. Fields he had also heard hints of a vague and 
 alien aristocracy which hid itself behind hedges 
 and built big houses on mountain-tops and in- 
 dulged itself in other forms of madness. One man 
 had bought three thousand acres of good timber- 
 land just to let pa'tridges run wild, and so on. If 
 Stiles had been twenty-four and impressionable, or 
 if he had been a walking man or a riding man, he 
 might have investigated these things for himself; 
 but Stiles was not twenty-four, nor was he a riding 
 man or a walking man. He was a sitting man. 
 
 Eksberger was looking at him with an air of real 
 criticism. "The trouble with you," he said, "is 
 that you don't look around you. Do you know 
 where I'd have been if I hadn't looked around me? 
 Selling tickets in a Brooklyn theater ! Do you get 
 that? Selling tickets in a Brooklyn theater!"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 125 
 
 Miss Fuller hummed, '"And now I am the ruler 
 of the Queen's navee.'" 
 
 "That's all right," protested Eksberger, "but 
 I'm not selling tickets any more leastways for 
 any one else." 
 
 When Eksberger was in earnest he was very 
 much in earnest. 
 
 "I've been doping this thing out, and you know 
 what I think? Pullar and his crowd know what 
 this land is worth, and don't you forget it. Do 
 you know what land no better than this is worth in 
 some parts of Long Island? Ten thousand dollars 
 an acre. That's all ! Only ten thousand dollars an 
 acre!" 
 
 "This isn't Long Island," suggested Stiles. 
 
 "I didn't say it was, did I?" retorted Eksberger. 
 "And it isn't Hoboken, either. Do you know what 
 those rich people do?" He had evidently, in his 
 own mind, constructed a large colony of million- 
 aires on the basis of Mrs. Pullar's de"colletage. 
 "Do you know what those rich people do? They 
 just love to come off to a little jerk-water spot 
 like this where there's scenery and mountains and 
 everything. What does it matter to them how far 
 they go from New York? Haven't they got their 
 cars and yachts and everything? Do they have to 
 punch a time-clock every morning? You bet your 
 life they don't! Then they buy some old run-down 
 farm for a song and fix it up with fifty thousand 
 dollars' worth of improvements, and, after that, 
 farms all around that sold for five hundred dollars
 
 126 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 couldn't be bought for five thousand; no, nor ten 
 thousand, either. Then the old apple-chewer that 
 sold them the farm in the first place thinks he's 
 been cheated." 
 
 "I being the apple-chewer in this case," sug- 
 gested Stiles. 
 
 "Not unless you sell before you get your price," 
 replied Eksberger. "Say," he went on, "did you 
 pipe how they all sat up and took notice when they 
 got the hunch that I was going to buy this place ? 
 Last night, I mean." 
 
 "You may be right," replied Stiles, "but if they 
 wanted the land so badly, why didn't they snap 
 it up when it was on the market, as it was for 
 weeks before you and Baumgarten came along to 
 start the action?" 
 
 Eksberger positively backed away two or three 
 feet in his incredulous disgust. "Look here," he 
 commanded, as if he saw that he would have to 
 teach Stiles his alphabet before he could even 
 talk to him. "If you wanted to buy a horse, or 
 a house, or a play, or a piece of land, or a share of 
 stock, would you go to the man who owned it 
 and say: 'Now, come on, Freddie; you've got 
 something valuable here. I've got to have it right 
 off. What's the most you'll take for it?' Not if 
 you had any brains, you wouldn't. You wait until 
 he comes to you, you do, and then you say: 'That 
 rubbish? I wouldn't have it at any price/ You 
 let it stay on the market until he goes broke or is 
 sick of seeing it there, and then you snap it up
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 127 
 
 for just what you want to pay." Eksberger caught 
 Miss Fuller's cynical eye and finished, lamely, 
 "All except the show business, and that's dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 By turning to Stiles, however, so that he could 
 not catch Miss Fuller's eye, he was able to go on 
 triumphantly: "Now the proposition is this. For- 
 get that moving-picture bunk. Those kind of 
 people wouldn't be so likely to fall for that, but 
 here's the way they look at it. They've got their 
 estates and their tennis-courts and their little 
 click up here. They've been buying these farms 
 for ten and fifteen dollars an acre ten dollars' 
 worth of land and a million dollars' worth of view. 
 Nobody's found out this spot except them until 
 we happened along the other day, but the minute 
 we came over that hill outside the town, I said, 
 'Rose, hold your breath; you're seeing scenery!' 
 And what did I tell you the other day? Just as 
 soon as I saw the spot and let people know that I 
 liked it, didn't they begin falling all over your 
 neck?" 
 
 "They seem to have," admitted Stiles. 
 
 "Of course they did," argued Eksberger. "And 
 do you know why? Because they knew that their 
 good thing was gone. They knew me and they 
 knew my reputation that when I want a thing 
 I generally get it. You know what they said to 
 themselves? They said to themselves: 'Look 
 here, boys and girls, we've got to be getting on 
 the job. Here we've been dreaming away that
 
 128 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 we could go out and snap up that old Crater place 
 when we got darn good and ready, and now here 
 Eksberger he comes along and he's beat us to it. If 
 he gets to bidding against us, good night! The sky's 
 the limit with these theatrical men. It was our 
 money made the town what it is. We thought of 
 this game. What's the harm with us buying the 
 place first and squeezing the lad for a few?'" 
 
 "It sounds plausible," said Stiles, "so long as 
 you keep on wanting it." 
 
 Eksberger laughed. "Don't worry. I'm a good 
 sport. I'll keep 'em coming. And do you know, 
 Stiles, I wouldn't like it so bad to really have a 
 place up here. A bunch like Pullar and those 
 people, they have a lot of fun in a place like this. 
 Quiet people, yes, but I don't mind that. I was 
 thinking last night. With all I've got to carry, 
 sometimes I think I will go crazy unless I get away 
 to some little spot like this, kick around with 
 plain, quiet people like Pullar and his wife and 
 tneir friends, and just forget all about the show 
 business. I'm not so sure that I won't buy your 
 place, after all." 
 
 He paused, rapt in his dream, as if already he 
 saw himself leading the life of a country squire in 
 Eden with Pullar and those sort of people. In a 
 quieter tone he went on, breathing a spirit of 
 honest and almost pathetic good-will: 
 
 "And, after all, these people would still be the 
 gainers. If I bought a place up here I could get 
 publicity for them that they'd never know how to
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 129 
 
 get themselves subtle stuff. It would put the 
 town on the map. The very fact of my having a 
 place here would make their property worth that 
 much more. Like as not I could bring a regular 
 crowd of theatrical people here in the summer- 
 time. I guess they never thought of that, but 
 look what it would mean to them." 
 
 The screen door opened and Mrs. Fields stood 
 there, waiting. 
 
 "Breakfast, Mrs. Fields?" asked Stiles; but 
 Mrs. Fields gave him a look and departed. Break- 
 fast indeed! What else did he think at that hour 
 of day?
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 BIG as it was, the old Crater house had not been 
 able to offer asylum to the chauffeur. A bed 
 of some kind, to be sure, might have been found, 
 but, as Eksberger had said, tactfully, "Any kind 
 of a shakedown will do for me, but you have to 
 be particular about your chauffeur." Rather than 
 upset his elegance, he had been sent on to the white 
 house to sleep, and had evidently found comfort 
 there, for he had not returned. Two men from the 
 Felsted garage, with a crane on the back of a 
 truck, brought the first reminder of the wrecked 
 car. A peal from the outraged door-bell announced 
 their advent as Stiles and his guests were finishing 
 breakfast. Eksberger took the business in hand 
 briskly. 
 
 "You men just go on down the hill to the brook 
 and get the thing started, and I will come down 
 as soon as I finish my cigar." 
 
 The ringleader of the garage men wiped his 
 mouth with the back of an oily hand. "What 
 brook?" 
 
 "The brook at the foot of the hill. What way 
 did you come?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 131 
 
 The man jerked his head. "Town." 
 
 "Well, then, you passed it, right down there. 
 The car's in the water beside the bridge, and, be- 
 lieve me! it's some mess!" 
 
 The men never moved, and both looked at 
 Eksberger with a stony indifference. 
 
 "There's no car there," said the man who had 
 spoken before. "That's where they told us it was, 
 but we couldn't find it." 
 
 Eksberger laughed. "What are you trying to 
 tell me ? That car couldn't be moved with a steam- 
 shovel. You go and have another look." 
 
 Back in the 'sixties they say that a ticket-seller 
 for a theater and a hotel clerk entered a contest to 
 decide the sang-froid championship of the world. 
 By the rules of the contest they were stood facing 
 each other and attempted to stare each other down. 
 The first one that moved a muscle of his face or 
 showed any emotion except calm contempt was 
 to be judged beaten. For a day and a night they 
 stood there, neither moving nor giving way to 
 any expression except a fixed one of utter bore- 
 dom. To keep them from fainting, meals were 
 brought them and they were allowed to sit down. 
 Otherwise they kept up the contest just as before. 
 All during the 'seventies, the 'eighties, and the 
 'nineties they still kept at it. They were put in a 
 freight-car, just as they sat, and exhibited at the 
 Philadelphia Centennial and at the Chicago Ex- 
 position of 'ninety-three. They were carried 
 abroad and shown in Brussels and Paris until, in
 
 isa CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 common, they had as many gold medals as a pickle- 
 jar. The news of the Johnstown flood was read to 
 them as a test, but neither showed any concern. 
 The facts that John L. Sullivan had been knocked 
 out and that Jay Eye See had broken the record 
 were posted up on both sides of a bulletin-board 
 and placed between them, but neither even asked 
 where it had happened. They saw the Cornish 
 giant and declared it a fake at sight. They were 
 placed at windows and watched the troops march 
 away to the Spanish War with complete indif- 
 ference. It looked as if death alone would decide 
 the contest, until the century turned and automo- 
 biles came into use. One day, while they were 
 sitting in a ring at a country fair, staring away at 
 each other, a half -grown boy from a near-by garage 
 came up and looked at them both. "Aw, say !" he 
 drawled. "Will you look at de guys?" Both 
 turned at the same instant and both encountered 
 his stare. Shamefaced, they got up and walked 
 away. 
 
 Eksberger may have been a ticket-seller in a 
 theater, but years of disuse had lost him the art. 
 For thirty seconds, perhaps, he returned the stare 
 of the garage man; then he gave an apologetic 
 laugh. ' ' You come with me and I'll show you, ' ' he 
 said. Miss Fuller and Stiles appeared on the piazza 
 at that moment, and from the foot of the steps he 
 called: "These men are trying to tell me that 
 there is no car down there in the brook. I'll be 
 back in a minute."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 133 
 
 Neither Stiles nor Miss Fuller made any move 
 to accompany him, and both stood at the piazza 
 rail, watching the brisk hitch of his retreating 
 back. 
 
 "I can quote Baumgarten now," said Stiles, not 
 unkindly. 
 
 Miss Fuller looked toward him. "What did 
 Baumgarten say?" 
 
 "He said that he was a great Charlie." 
 
 "Well," said Miss Fuller, "isn't he?" 
 
 "He is," replied Stiles. 
 
 As if he had heard them, Eksberger turned sud- 
 denly and came back to the rail. For a moment 
 Stiles feared that he had heard them, but, on the 
 contrary, he was purely reminiscent. 
 
 "Say," he said, "I have to laugh when I think 
 what a jolt those people got when they found 
 out who I was." He chuckled and turned away, 
 then, in the usual sequence, he turned and added, 
 "What's more, I don't believe they've found out 
 who Rose is yet!" 
 
 Again the two on the piazza watched the ner- 
 vous, retreating figure almost trotting to catch up 
 with the garage men, and this time Stiles was 
 careful to let it get well away before he spoke. 
 Then he said, slowly, but with a scarcely veiled 
 curiosity : 
 
 "I must be one of the hicks, after all." 
 
 Miss Fuller apparently never spoke when silence 
 would tell the same story. She raised her eyebrows 
 a little, and Stiles explained:
 
 i 34 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "It seems to be hickish not to know who you 
 are." 
 
 In answer to this, Miss Fuller did not even raise 
 her eyebrows. 
 
 "Well," insisted Stiles, dryly, "who are you?" 
 
 Miss Fuller laughed shortly and almost impa- 
 tiently. "Charlie Eksberger thinks that the world 
 begins and ends at Broadway and Forty-second 
 Street." 
 
 It was a truth conclusive enough to focus atten- 
 tion again on Eksberger. His head and shoulders 
 were just disappearing at the brow of the hill, 
 bobbing humorously with his quick little steps 
 down the slope, and both stopped speaking to 
 watch them. After all, it was hard to keep one's 
 eyes from the man. Odd as it seemed and both of 
 them standing there were big enough to realize it 
 the pleasant young Jew with the Irish face was 
 not at heart a conceited man. He was simply naif. 
 He had that queer streak of childlike ingenuous- 
 ness which seems almost inseparable from men of 
 great practical achievement. 
 
 Everybody knew a bit of his story, even men 
 like Stiles, who had tried to ignore him. He had 
 been, as he had said, a ticket-seller in a Brooklyn 
 theater when a Broadway character who was little 
 more than a tout had induced him to put all he 
 had saved and all he could borrow into a play. It 
 had proved to be one of those popular plays which, 
 like popular people, are usually such because of 
 their instinctive genius for sticking closely to set-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 135 
 
 tied opinion. It was just such a play, by the way, 
 as Judge Tyler would have been a villain in. Every 
 popular misbelief had a place in it. Every deacon 
 was a hypocrite, every sneak-thief was a hero, 
 every failure was right and every success was 
 wrong. A play as consoling as that was bound to 
 succeed. It ran for years and years, and, after 
 that, Charles Eksberger was a dictator of dramatic 
 taste. People wrote articles about him telling of 
 his native genius, which he had, surely enough, 
 but not in the line where they found it. Yet one 
 could not help liking him. He had not said that 
 he was a genius until other people had said it so 
 often that he was bound to believe it. 
 
 It was with a smile far from unsympathetic that 
 Stiles turned back to Miss Fuller. "Put it this 
 way," he said. "If all the world were Broadway 
 and Forty-second Street, who would you be then?" 
 
 It was the one subject that was not agreeable 
 to the usually calm Rose Fuller. "Nobody," she 
 said, shortly. "Nobody at all." 
 
 Stiles could not believe that. "You are on the 
 stage?" 
 
 As if to end the unpleasant subject, Miss Fuller 
 let him have it all at once. "I was in 'The 
 Foibles.' That was what Charlie meant; and 
 'The Daisy Chain' and 'The Girl from Madrid.'" 
 
 Quite as much from the deprecatory manner in 
 which she said it as from the flattering tones of 
 Eksberger, it dawned on Stiles that what she really 
 
 was saying was that she had been the chief link 
 10
 
 i 3 6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 in "The Daisy Chain," a leading "Foible," and 
 the very "Girl from Madrid." He stood over- 
 come, acutely embarrassed. "The Daisy Chain" 
 had been a title burned into his consciousness for 
 a year in Subway cars and by electric signs and 
 the pages of Sunday newspapers. So had the 
 others. Perhaps for that very reason he had 
 scrupulously avoided seeing any of them (that 
 had been Stiles), but now, in this personal view 
 of their moving spirit, he found himself almost 
 pathetically eager to do her honor. 
 
 "Rose Fuller? Rose Fuller?" Surely the name 
 was familiar. But was it really so, or merely be- 
 cause he was trying to make it so? From all his 
 newspaper instincts, as well as what Eksberger 
 had said and what the girl had told him, he knew 
 that he was standing beside a celebrity, had stood 
 beside one for the best part of two days and never 
 known it. In the popular vision, Eksberger was 
 probably a humdrum earthling compared to this 
 planet. What in the world had he done with 
 those fifteen years of his in New York? Some 
 politics, some pageants, some precious interviews, 
 and a vast deal of law-courts; and all the time 
 he had let slip by in vague consciousness the things 
 that the great mass of people were thinking and 
 shouting about and enjoying, dismissed them be- 
 cause they were popular, thinking them thereby 
 contemptible. An office-boy would have known 
 this name in an instant. He recalled with a hot 
 flush his kind condescension of the evening be-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 137 
 
 fore because this girl had sat there beautifully un- 
 conscious that she was listening to Aristotle and 
 Kant. And all the time he had sat there beauti- 
 fully unconscious that he was listening to Rose 
 Fuller! Was she piqued now because he had not 
 known her, or slightly contemptuous, as he had 
 been on the evening before? Neither one. She 
 was laughing. 
 
 "You don't even know now!" 
 
 In view of his long moment of confusion, Stiles 
 could hardly protest, but, as he stood there em- 
 barrassed, the girl took pity on him. 
 
 "Don't let it worry you. You're not the only 
 one." 
 
 "Yes," agreed Stiles, "there are other hicks." 
 
 "Nonsense!" retorted the girl. But from his 
 pinnacle of detached philosophy Stiles had swung 
 to a very frenzy of self-abasement. He was awk- 
 ward and silent, and as if she did it only when it 
 was necessary, the girl gently assumed the lead. 
 "We didn't get very far last night." 
 
 Whether it was Aristotle or Kant or whether it 
 was the fragment of cake in front of the fireplace, 
 she really seemed to have friendly memories of 
 that evening. It was a direct invitation. 
 
 "Do you still want to tell me about the mys- 
 tery?" asked Stiles. 
 
 "If there is any," she answered. 
 
 Stiles did not reply for a moment. ' ' No," he said, 
 quietly, at last, "I guess there is no mystery now." 
 
 As if Miss Fuller saw that he could again stand
 
 i 3 8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 alone, she waited patiently for whatever he might 
 want to say next. Happily for him, although he 
 was totally unconscious of it, when he did begin 
 it was in that gentle air, half deference, half com- 
 radeship, that the girl liked best in him. 
 
 "You know," he suggested, "you said some- 
 thing yesterday when we were standing here be- 
 fore dinner?" 
 
 "Yes," said the girl, simply, but, to make sure 
 that they really did mean the same thing, he 
 quoted, "You said that you and Eksberger were 
 not married." 
 
 In her more usual manner, the girl let her silence 
 reply and stood looking straight before her. 
 
 "Well," suggested Stiles, "does Eksberger want 
 to marry you?" 
 
 The girl shrugged. "So he says." 
 
 "And Baumgarten, too?" 
 
 "Baumgarten is very silly." 
 
 "And that," concluded Stiles, "is the mystery?" 
 
 "Pretty much," said the girl. 
 
 This time Stiles himself adopted her own policy 
 of silence, but she was better at it than he was and 
 he found himself forced to go on. 
 
 "It is fairly clear," he began, "but I can't un- 
 derstand yet why either one of them should come 
 'way up here." 
 
 The girl smiled. "Charlie told you why Stuffy 
 came." 
 
 "Because Eksberger said that he had picked 
 out this place?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 139 
 
 This time it was rather more than a smile. 
 
 "Charlie Eksberger," said the girl, "is like a 
 stage-manager. ' ' 
 
 "A stage-manager?" 
 
 Miss Fuller explained. "He doesn't mean 
 anything by it, but when he has heard a thing 
 a couple of times he begins to think that he 
 wrote it." 
 
 "I see," replied Stiles. "Then he really didn't 
 shout with joy at these rocks and rills?" 
 
 "He did when they were pointed out to him." 
 
 "By you?" 
 
 "Who else?" 
 
 Stiles looked at her quickly. "Rose, hold your 
 breath; you 're seeing scenery." Both laughed ; but 
 in a different tone he went on, "Tell me, please, 
 did you want to buy this place?" 
 
 Miss Fuller threw out her hands. ' ' Oh, Heavens ! 
 it never got that far with me. I said that I liked 
 it. I said that I wished I owned it, that I could 
 make something out of it. Haven't you said that 
 about dozens of places you have seen?" 
 
 "Yes," said Stiles, "but it never threw the 
 market into a turmoil." 
 
 Miss Fuller laughed. "It wouldn't have in this 
 case if it hadn't been for Baumgarten." 
 
 Stiles felt the problem getting too knotty. "I'm 
 stupid," he said, "but please let's have this in 
 A B C." 
 
 Apparently Miss Fuller preferred this method 
 to any other. "Well," she replied, "we really
 
 i 4 o CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 did see Baumgarten after we got back that night. 
 He came up to our table in the Claridge." 
 
 "And Eksberger did really say that he had his 
 eye on this place?" 
 
 "Oh yes, he said all that, but Stuffy's not such 
 a fool as they think him." 
 
 "You mean that that was not all that was said 
 at the table?" 
 
 "Not all." 
 
 "You told him you wanted the place?" 
 
 Miss Fuller looked at him with rather wide- 
 open eyes. "I didn't tell him. He may have 
 guessed it." She broke off the story and then 
 picked it up again hurriedly, as if, as before, she 
 wanted to get it over and done with. "Stuffy is 
 always trying to do something expensive. He 
 offered to buy a theater for me once. And I will 
 grant him this that he is not a man to be bluffed." 
 
 "So he told me," said Stiles. 
 
 "He's told several people," said Miss Fuller. 
 
 "But," asked Stiles, thoughtfully, "where was 
 Eksberger all this time?" 
 
 "Where is he ever when he's got some wild idea 
 in his head? Lost to the world, swimming in the 
 clouds. As a matter of fact," Miss Fuller added, 
 "even I never had any idea that Stuffy would do 
 any such ridiculous thing as really come up here. 
 Of course, when he got your letter, Charlie was 
 surer than ever that it was merely on account of 
 him that Stuffy was trying to buy it." 
 
 "And he still thinks that?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 141 
 
 "So far as I've told him," replied Miss Fuller. 
 She paused a moment, then added a phrase which 
 probably summed up all her viewpoint toward life. 
 "What's the use?" 
 
 Without any reason except that both felt that 
 all had been said that could be said, they started 
 to walk to the gate. 
 
 "It's clear enough and ridiculous enough," com- 
 mented Stiles, slowly. "Just as ridiculous as I 
 feared it was going to be. All except," he added, a 
 moment later ' ' all except these local people. Wliy 
 did the mention of Eksberger scare them out of 
 their wits?" 
 
 ,Miss Fuller looked up at him and looked very 
 squarely. 
 
 "Can't you guess?" she asked, bluntly. 
 
 Unfortunately, Stiles could guess, and guess 
 very clearly, but, considering the fact that Miss 
 Fuller herself had come with Eksberger, he could 
 hardly say so. He had an idea that allowed him 
 to escape it. "Wait a minute," he said, suddenly, 
 and Miss Fuller obeyed the command literally. 
 She stopped in her tracks. 
 
 "Do you really want the place?" asked Stiles. 
 "You can have it if you do." 
 
 Miss Fuller tossed her head. "With a ghost on 
 it? I should say not!"
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 OTILES'S intention and Miss Fuller's, uncon- 
 ^ sciously, had been to walk down to the car 
 to see how Eksberger and his mechanics were 
 getting along, but Miss Fuller was left to finish 
 the walk alone. As they reached the gate there 
 drove up one Pullar, on the seat beside him a 
 handsome old colonel with brown spats and a 
 white mustache. In the open air, with a wheel 
 to hold, Pullar was a different man, and with the 
 assurance which Stiles had originally known him 
 to possess he introduced, "My brother-in-law, Mr. 
 Cady." He looked around to include Miss Ful- 
 ler, but Miss Fuller had slipped away. The hand- 
 some old colonel shook hands. He was genial 
 enough, but he looked Stiles over with a critical 
 eye. He was evidently a man used to forming 
 his own judgments, damme, whether they were 
 worth anything or not, and under that domineer- 
 ing eye (the brown spats and the white mustache 
 being still kept in mind) Stiles had a sudden il- 
 lumination concerning the unhappy state of the 
 boyish Mr. Pullar. Mr. Pullar, when one came 
 to think of it, had all the aspects of a man who
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 143 
 
 has married money, or, worse than that, a man 
 whose wife's relatives have money. 
 
 There was something in the air of the stiff Mr. 
 Cady that said he had come to see Pullar at work, 
 had been sent, hi other words, to see that he did 
 his duty now and no shirking, but, being a man 
 himself (who had lived in his time), he let his 
 brother-in-law go at it in his own way. 
 
 "I wonder if I could see you a minute," began 
 Pullar. 
 
 "Why, certainly!" replied Stiles. "Won't you 
 come up to the house? Will you come, Mr. 
 Cady?" 
 
 "Will you come, Jack?" repeated Pullar, as if 
 he were accustomed to act as interpreter between 
 his rich relative and the lower classes. 
 
 "I'll sit here," said the colonel. 
 
 The two others walked away, leaving the white 
 mustache to glower first at the house and then at 
 the wind-shield. At a conventional distance Pul- 
 lar rilled his pipe with all the fixings. 
 
 "Stiles," he said, abruptly (he had evidently 
 been told to be abrupt and had promised to do it), 
 "just what will you take for your place?" 
 
 "One million dollars," replied Stiles, promptly. 
 
 Pullar laughed. "You haven't come down a 
 cent, have you? But, seriously," he added, "I 
 really want to talk business this morning. It's 
 spot cash and dealing with people who hang it 
 all, Stiles! people who really have a right to be 
 given a chance."
 
 144 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Stiles looked at him. "Who are you buying for 
 this time?" he asked. "Mr. Cady?" 
 
 It was mean to remind Pullar of his former 
 quick change of clients, but, after all, if Pullar 
 were going to be in business, he had got to get 
 used to these things. Pullar blushed and replied, 
 "Yes and others." 
 
 "All local?" 
 
 "All local." 
 
 Stiles looked at him a longer time. It had not 
 needed the shrewd, almost cruel question of Rose 
 Fuller, a moment before, to tell him where the 
 value of this property lay with these people. 
 Even the hole two hundred feet deep had not 
 raised any hopes of a copper-mine. He knew that 
 he could talk to Pullar as he liked to talk to a man. 
 
 "Mr. Pullar," he asked, after some thought, 
 "would it make any difference if I told you that 
 Eksberger is not going to turn this place into a 
 moving-picture park?" 
 
 Pullar himself was a long time in replying. He 
 blew the hot coals off the top of his pipe, dre.v at 
 it deeply, and then watched the smoke. "Not a 
 great deal," he said, at last. 
 
 The two men were getting together now, nearer 
 than Stiles had been able to get with any one with 
 whom he had talked in the past few days, not even 
 excepting Rose Fuller, but the very degree to 
 which they were beginning to understand each 
 other made confidence more dangerous. Neverthe- 
 less, Stiles made an attempt to reach it.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 145 
 
 "Pullar," he asked, suddenly, "what was the 
 Crater ghost?" 
 
 In spite of his boyish weakness, in spite of his 
 queer streaks of yokel, there was a fine strain in 
 this tweedy young man who lived his life largely 
 for motors and trout-flies. He did not evade the 
 question. He merely pondered on how to meet it 
 squarely, seeking help from his real companion, 
 his big black pipe. 
 
 "What is the usual ghost of a country gentle- 
 man?" he asked, suddenly. 
 
 "Rum?" 
 
 "Rum." 
 
 "Did you ever know your uncle?" asked Pullar, 
 a minute later. 
 
 "No." 
 
 Pullar smoked a long time. Stiles himself had 
 to reopen the conversation. 
 
 "I think I get you," he said. "Then seeing a 
 nephew come along with unknown antecedents 
 and midnight parties and " 
 
 "Heavens and earth, Stiles," interrupted Pullar, 
 "I've got some sense!" 
 
 Perhaps if Stiles had been allowed to finish the 
 sentence he would have said all that there was to 
 say, but such sudden confidences, once interrupted, 
 are rarely finished, least of all to a man like Pullar 
 and in the broad sunlight. The two men had been 
 walking all the while they had talked. They had 
 walked rods past the house and had started to 
 turn when Pullar stood still. He seemed always
 
 i 4 6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 to have a guilty conscience of some kind, or at 
 least some fear of leaving a sting or of trampling 
 on somebody's code. As usual, Stiles had to help 
 him out. 
 
 "So the old gentleman was a good deal of a 
 rotter?" 
 
 "A good deal," confessed Pullar. He struggled 
 again, and at last he made it. "Stiles, you have 
 no idea what such things get to in the country a 
 country like this and with a man like that 
 nothing to do all day long practically nobody of 
 his own kind to see eight months in the year. In 
 the old days it was probably all right. They all 
 did it then. They said that when he was younger 
 he was a dandy. I can believe it. He was a Yale 
 man, famous in his time, I've heard. You knew 
 that the family was all split up?" 
 
 Of course Stiles knew it. That was why his 
 own mother had been brought up among distant 
 relations, why he himself had known of Eden only 
 in legend. He nodded, and Pullar went on : 
 
 "I guess, then, you never knew how far it went. 
 While the old major was alive his father it 
 wasn't so bad. He was just a good deal of a prob- 
 lem, that's all. Of course I don't remember; but 
 after the major died holy smoke!" 
 
 "Simply a case of packing a jug into a room and 
 staying therefor a week?" suggested Stiles, bluntly. 
 
 ' ' Oh, that was mild, " answered Pullar. ' ' When 
 he couldn't get whisky it was Jamaica ginger and 
 alcohol mixed fifty-fifty with water and bay rum
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 147 
 
 and wintergreen extract and oil of vitriol, so they 
 tell me. ' ' Even at that brutal moment Pullar would 
 not have been Pullar if he had not tried to make it 
 easier. " But he wasn 't the only one. Some funny 
 things have happened up in these hills. Only, 
 naturally, people did not come here a great deal. 
 That was what my wife meant." 
 
 "So I gathered," said Stiles, simply. 
 
 "Used to shoot at 'em with a shot-gun when he 
 was bad," explained Pullar, with his passion for 
 reminiscence. "Nearly killed a boy once." 
 
 The two men started walking again, just to make 
 the moment more tolerable. 
 
 "Was that all he did?" asked Stiles, at last, 
 "drink?" 
 
 "No," replied Pullar, briefly. 
 
 Stiles had no need to ask any more, and he 
 walked along silently. So far as Pullar was con- 
 cerned, which meant Mrs. Pullar and old Colonel 
 Cady and the local money (places you'd never 
 suspect it) , his mystery was solved and the answer 
 was even more sordid than he had feared. The 
 gold-mine for them on the old Crater place was to 
 dig the Crater family out of it, root and branch 
 to burn out the plague spot and all the queer 
 creatures it seemed to attract. 
 
 "But he left money," he did say at last; "a 
 good deal of money." 
 
 "Thanks to Judge Tyler," said Pullar. 
 
 Stiles looked up sharply. "Then the judge re- 
 mained his friend in spite of all?"
 
 i 4 8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Pullar's lips closed in a smile over the stem of 
 his pipe. "I don't know as friend would be the 
 word to describe it. Judge Tyler was one of 
 many he threatened to shoot damning and mut- 
 tering up and down the village street when he 
 was on the wild. You know the sort." 
 
 Even that taciturn man saw that his words 
 needed explanation. "The judge wasn't his con- 
 servator," he said. "He just took charge of the 
 property bodily and kept it kept it for him, of 
 course. Walked into the bank, for all I know, 
 and told them to give it to him. He used to dole 
 out old Crater's own money your uncle's own 
 money a dollar at a time. If it hadn't been for 
 the judge, he would have died in the poorhouse. 
 Still, I suppose you couldn't blame him for claim- 
 ing the judge had robbed him." 
 
 He looked at Stiles anxiously to see what he 
 would think of this high-handed exhibition of local 
 finance, but Stiles's eyes were twinkling. 
 
 "No wonder," he said, "that the judge was not 
 over-friendly." 
 
 Pullar straightened with interest. ' ' You've met 
 him, then?" 
 
 Stiles nodded. 
 
 "How did he act?" 
 
 "He wasn't bad. We're good friends by now." 
 
 Pullar appeared relieved, while Stiles mused 
 over the strange, strange story. There came to 
 his mind the earlier story the judge had told. He 
 wondered if the old man had had a moral purpose^
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 149 
 
 in telling it. Probably not; the judge was too 
 much the born antiquarian for that; but, almost 
 for Pullar's sake, he remarked. "This was a great 
 crowd of mine!" 
 
 He said it as a man does say those things, with 
 a fine show of humor, but no man ever felt very- 
 gay at the discovery of a skeleton like this in the 
 family closet in recent history, at any rate. He 
 felt no animosity toward Pullar and the people 
 for whom he was acting. He did not blame them 
 for what they were trying to do. For the first 
 time he really saw himself as he must have ap- 
 peared to Pullar's wife, and his scorn for the good 
 lady was not now so high and mighty. What 
 she had seen had been an unknown sprout of that 
 unhappy race who kept sullenly to himself and 
 persisted in letting the place go to rack and ruin, 
 who slouched through the streets in neglected 
 garments and cynically told Pullar himself that 
 the place meant what it would bring, and noth- 
 ing more; the overturned motor in front of the 
 door; the first visitor a man who looked like a 
 pawnbroker; the house guests a flashy Broadway 
 notable and an unexplained girl 
 
 But in his self-abasement, Stiles had carried his 
 argument just too far. With a sudden flash he 
 remembered who the unexplained girl had proved 
 to be. He almost laughed. 
 
 "Pullar," he said, "I can't give you an answer 
 now." 
 
 Odd to say, in spite of his orders, in spite of
 
 150 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 what must await him at home and in the house 
 of his brother-in-law, Pullar did not seem upset. 
 He even seemed rather glad. One cannot tell a 
 story as Pullar had told it without a reflex of 
 compassion. 
 
 "That's all right," he replied. "Take your 
 time, and when you can " 
 
 They continued to the house, and, with a wave 
 of his hand, Pullar drove off with his colonel. 
 Stiles looked around, but Rose was not to be seen. 
 He started to search inside, when he heard his 
 name, and, after a minute, he located Eksberger's 
 head bobbing back up the slope of the hill. The 
 gray-checked suit had been stripped down to 
 shirt-sleeves. Eksberger's hair was mussed, and 
 on his face was a very queer look. He motioned 
 with his hand, and, as Stiles hurried forward, 
 Eksberger caught his arm as if to lead him away. 
 As Stiles followed with him he looked to the right 
 and the left. 
 
 "Stiles," he said, in a very low voice, "they 
 were right. There's no car down there in the 
 brook." 
 
 Stiles looked at him blankly, uncertain as to 
 whether or not he should laugh. 
 
 "And what's more," gasped Eksberger, "there 
 isn't any brook!"
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 T UDGE TYLER, characteristic enough, and aris- 
 <J tocratic enough, in a new paneled-box run- 
 about, pulled up his horse on the bridge and gazed 
 philosophically at Eksberger and Stiles, who were 
 standing below on a mud-flat of clay and irregular 
 stones that once had been brook. At the clump 
 of hoofs on the boards above him, Stiles looked up. 
 
 "Judge, the earth has opened and swallowed 
 our automobile." 
 
 The judge snuffled in that not altogether pleas- 
 ant way that he had. "I mistrusted it might," he 
 said, calmly. 
 
 In his hand Eksberger held a guide-book, with 
 splotches of dried clay on the black leather bind- 
 ing, and a torn piece of top cover, the only relics 
 which remained of the car, but, as the judge spoke, 
 the lesser of the garage men came up and handed 
 him a second fragment of canvas. Eksberger 
 futilely tried to match them together, as if that 
 would prove anything. The leading garage man 
 was kicking morosely in the mud with the heel of 
 his shoe. 
 
 "I was coming up now to warn you," explained 
 
 the judge. "They told me your car had fell off 
 11 '
 
 i 5 2 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 this bridge, and, thinks I, 'If they don't get that 
 out pretty soon, they like not to get it out at all.' ' 
 
 Stiles looked at him uncertainly. "What is it? 
 Quicksand?" 
 
 The judge chuckled. "Would you be standing 
 there if it was?" 
 
 Eksberger moved uneasily toward what had 
 once been the shore, and even Stiles followed at a 
 more leisurely pace. 
 
 "No," said the judge, "it ain't quicksand." 
 He paused abruptly and became all attention. 
 ' ' Hark !" he commanded. 
 
 Even the garage men obeyed the command and 
 stood listening intently, but no one heard anything 
 except the panting of the judge's coach-dog under 
 the runabout. For a moment even the dog stopped 
 panting, but, hearing nothing, judged it a false 
 alarm and began again. 
 
 The mind in touch with the soil seems to fall 
 naturally into anecdote in preference to direct 
 narration. 
 
 "They was a feller," explained the judge, "come 
 through here fifty or sixty years back with a large 
 herd of cattle. They used to do it in those days 
 drovers they called 'em. Used to come from 'way 
 up in York State Canada, some of 'em. They'd 
 be one or two men and a couple o' dogs. They'd 
 work their way very slowly down through the 
 country, letting the cattle graze by the roadside, 
 buying and selling as they went. Nights they used 
 to turn 'em out into some farmer's lot eat a pile
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 153 
 
 of grass in one night, too, a big drove o' cattle 
 would. Sometimes they would turn 'em into places 
 they had special near the old taverns, and then 
 they had to feed 'em cornstalks, but that was 
 mostly when they wanted to give 'em salt. In 
 those tavern yards the earth would be trampled 
 down as much as two feet below the level of the 
 ground around it. 
 
 "Major Crater your grandfather," continued 
 the judge, "was living here then, but he was away 
 from home when this drover come along with his 
 cattle young stock mostly. Bugby, his name was. 
 He had a brother that made a fortune selling 
 clocks through the South before the war. I saw 
 him some years ago in Springfield, but this Bugby 
 I never seen from that day to this. 
 
 "Well, seems that day he had drove his cattle 
 farther than usual all the way from Seymour, in 
 fact. It was a dretful dry year and he couldn't 
 find no water. So when night come and he see 
 this meadow with a nice brook running through it, 
 he turned them critters in here without asking 
 aye, yes, or no two hunderd and thirty-six head 
 in all. Then he went up to Center for the night, 
 this Bugby did, thinking they was all right; but 
 when he come back in the morning, eight of his 
 best steers was gone, seven black-and-white ones 
 and one brindle with a crooked horn. Gosh! he 
 was the maddest man!" 
 
 The memory of Bugby's ire seemed pleasing to 
 the judge's contemplation. He paused for a
 
 154 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 period that promised to be indefinite; but when 
 Eksberger had wondered whether the judge had 
 ever been in the show business, he had spoken 
 more wisely than he knew, for here, with a ten- 
 thousand-dollar car vanished from the face of the 
 earth and a whole brook gone with it, the four 
 of them stood there absorbed in the tale of the 
 dead and gone Bugby. Even the head garage 
 man had ceased his kicking, while the coach-dog 
 panted only in the pauses and stopped to listen 
 whenever the judge began to talk again. 
 
 "He was mad, eh?" prompted Eksberger. 
 
 "Who?" asked the judge. "The drover? I 
 should say he was mad. He took his whip and 
 went up to Major Crater, surly as a buck maggot. 
 Major Crater he'd come back then. 
 
 "'Major,' says Bugby, 'I'd thank you to tell 
 me where them steers is.' 
 
 "'What steers?' says the major, knowing all 
 the time. 
 
 "'Eight prime steers that was in your lot last 
 night,' says Bugby. 'Seven black-and-white ones 
 and one brindle with a crooked horn.' 
 
 "'Well, while we're doing our thanking,' says 
 the major, 'I'd thank you, sir, to tell me who 
 ever gave you leave to turn your condemmed 
 stock into my meadow, trampling all the second 
 cutting.' 
 
 "And of course," said the judge, "he had him 
 there. He come right off his high horse, this 
 Bugby did. Hemmed and hawed and talked about
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 155 
 
 meaning to pay, but that was the kind of man the 
 old major was. 
 
 "'Now you look here, Mister Drover Bugby,' 
 he says, 'them steers may be right up in my barn, 
 for all you'll ever know, but if you don't get the 
 rest of them critters off my meadow just as fast 
 as the devil and Doctor Foster will let you, you 
 won't even have as many as you got now.' 
 
 "And that," said the judge, as if it were the 
 whole point to the story, "was all the satisfaction 
 he ever got. A great man for his rights the major 
 was, and, so long as Bugby had trespassed, he 
 was more than willing to let him go on thinking 
 he had those cattle right in his barn. Course he 
 knew where they was all the time." 
 
 "Where were they?" asked Eksberger. 
 
 "Same place your car is," replied the judge. 
 
 A curious instinct for dialogue, the heritage of 
 both these men, Eksberger and Judge Tyler, 
 seemed to bridge all their natural differences and 
 draw them together, to give them the art of 
 handling each other. For all his racial kinship 
 with the judge, Stiles had already noticed that 
 Eksberger was far better able than he to draw 
 out the old man. The one from his vast fund of 
 folk-lore, the other from his years of training in 
 the rapid fire of current drama, had acquired an 
 infallible ear for the turn of a story. To get the 
 most from this moment Eksberger did just the 
 right thing. He said nothing and waited. The 
 judge rewarded his listener's talent.
 
 156 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "I always understood," he explained, "that it 
 was almost exactly eight thousand miles from here 
 to a point in the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. 
 Just how far your car has got at the moment and 
 just where them steers air, I can't rightly tell you 
 except that they're both some distance nearer to 
 Sydney than we be." 
 
 "That's all very good," replied Eksberger, ap- 
 parently now at liberty to talk, "but those steers 
 weren't worth ten thousand dollars, and my 
 car is." 
 
 "That's a pile o* money," replied the judge. 
 The size of the pile apparently drove all the 
 whimsy out of him and restored him to a business 
 basis. "Mr. Eksberger," he continued, in a 
 purely matter-of-fact tone, "the truth of the 
 matter is that your car has fell into the Eden 
 copper-mine." 
 
 All four of them, even the garage men, looked 
 up, open-mouthed. 
 
 "Then there really is a copper-mine there?" 
 asked Stiles, eagerly. 
 
 The judge looked at him suddenly, as if, in the 
 sympathetic dialogue with Eksberger, he had com- 
 pletely forgotten his presence. 
 
 "Copper-mine?" he replied. "Bless you, yes! 
 That hill o' yourn is one mass of tunnels and 
 passages under the ground. Otherwise, how 
 would old Major Crater have known where them 
 steers had gone?" 
 
 Eksberger, sympathetic as he was for an anec-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 157 
 
 dote, had also a sense of shrewdness unsated. 
 "But look here, Judge," he demanded, "if that 
 car fell in here, where is the hole?" 
 
 The judge shook his head. "You'll have to 
 ask some one more acquainted with such matters 
 than me." Again he paused, listening, and this 
 time his face lighted with satisfaction. "There!" 
 he exclaimed. "Listen there! Do you hear 
 running water?" 
 
 Again all four of them listened, and this time 
 all of them heard what the judge directed, or said 
 that they did. 
 
 ' ' There ! ' ' concluded the judge. ' ' You walk up- 
 stream about thirty or forty rod round the hill 
 in them birches, and, 'less I'm mistaken, you'll 
 find what's become of your brook." 
 
 The four stood uncertain, awaiting a leader, 
 but it was apparently a rule of the judge's rhetoric 
 that, when no one asked or expected an explana- 
 tion, one should be given freely. 
 
 "You ask me where is the hole?" he volunteered. 
 "Well, that's something you'll have to ask of an 
 engineer, but I can tell you this that times has 
 be'n when the earth caves in here and the water 
 starts running in after it. What happens then I 
 don't know. I mistrust it gets to running and 
 raising hullabaloo around in those passages under 
 the ground and wears the top thin, for every time 
 that it happens the stream goes into the earth 
 up there in that spot that it's going in now and 
 this spot fills up. Then when it takes a notion,
 
 i$8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 or perhaps when the water gets higher, it quits 
 going in there and begins to mind its business 
 again on the surface." 
 
 Over Eksberger's face came that same half- 
 credulous, half-doubting expression with which 
 he had greeted Stiles's expos6 of his own apocry- 
 phal manuscript. 
 
 "But, Judge," he argued, "why didn't some- 
 body warn us of that when the car first fell in 
 the brook?" 
 
 The judge laughed. "Not everybody in this 
 town is as old as I be, and even I didn't know 
 that you and young Pullar meant to blow it up 
 like a powder-mill. If you hadn't done that your 
 automobile might have be'n here yet. The old 
 creek has be'n behaving herself as long as most 
 people living now can remember. So far as I 
 know, your car is the first as has took the trip 
 sence Bugby's steers." 
 
 There was small consolation in that honor for 
 Eksberger. Irresolute, he began the garage man's 
 idiotic plan of digging the dirt with his heel, but 
 Stiles had a mind that groped farther back into 
 history even than Bugby's steers. The Revolu- 
 tionary story came to his mind, and the un- 
 avenged bride. Vistas opened before him. It 
 was typical that that appealed to him more than 
 the copper. 
 
 "I wonder what else you'd find in those under- 
 ground tunnels if you dared to go down." 
 
 The judge snorted. "Young man, if you
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 159 
 
 dared to go down those tunnels and you wore 
 the right kind of glasses, you'd find about 
 twenty-eight thousand dollars of your ancestors' 
 hard-earned money and ten or twelve thousand 
 of mine."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 "AS a matter of fact, it was pounds, shillings, and 
 ** pence that was sunk in that mine, mostly," 
 explained the judge, "but I figured it out once, 
 and that was about what it come to thirty to 
 forty thousand dollars calc'lating a pound ster- 
 ling at four eighty-four." 
 
 It was not particularly to Eksberger's discredit 
 that the denomination of the money failed to 
 suggest to him the approximate date of the cop- 
 per enterprise. The judge, indeed, took it for 
 granted that it meant nothing to Stiles, and he 
 explained painstakingly, as he was doubtless ac- 
 customed to doing for a dull and dispirited gen- 
 eration incurious as to its forebears. "Course we 
 never had any dollars or such things until after 
 the Revolution nor for some time after. Forty 
 thousand dollars then," he added, "meant a lot 
 more than forty thousand dollars would now 
 two or three hundred thousand, if you figure it 
 that way." 
 
 "And all gone to pot?" asked Eksberger, 
 quickly. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know, I don't know," replied the 
 judge. "They may have got something out of it.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 161 
 
 During the war, probably they did, but you can 
 put this down for certain more has gone into that 
 hole than ever come out of it." 
 
 "Including my car," suggested Eksberger. 
 
 "And Bugby's steers," added the judge, with- 
 out smiling. 
 
 Judge Tyler's conversation was, in one respect, 
 like a gas-engine. It had every power except 
 that of starting alone. Eksberger might have been 
 able to tell the dramatic reason for it, but the 
 fact was that the speaker had to be started with 
 twists and crankings. The first two or three ques- 
 tions were certain to meet with evasion, if not 
 with downright rebuff. Then, after three or four 
 minutes of sparring, when all the auditors had 
 given up hope of learning anything, pop! some- 
 thing would catch and the judge would be off for 
 as long as any one wanted to listen. 
 
 The three men were sitting now on the un- 
 painted piazza, in carpet-back chairs, with cro- 
 cheted antimacassars which had been purloined 
 from the old parlor and which looked singularly 
 inappropriate for an outdoor life. The judge had 
 had this satisfaction, that exploration by Stiles, 
 Eksberger, and the garage men had proved abso- 
 lutely his theory regarding the brook. Around the 
 point of the hill and among the scrub growths the 
 stream had been found flowing merrily into a hole 
 in the turf, the bubbles and eddies positively 
 crowding one another for chances to fling them- 
 selves into the orifice, as if all agog for the novel
 
 162 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 fun. The judge had received their report with a 
 certain grim pleasure, but had declined invitations 
 to go down and see for himself. He had seen it 
 before fifty or sixty years back, to be sure, but, 
 like his shipwreck near Singapore and his exit from 
 Harvard College, once in a lifetime was enough 
 for that sort of thing. He had, however, accepted 
 the invitation for the porch. The garage men had 
 left in disgust. They were mechanicians, it ap- 
 peared, and not placer miners. 
 
 "No," said the judge, "it ain't so strange that 
 more didn't think to tell you about that cave-in. 
 I suppose there's one and another in town has 
 heard the story, but those things get forgot. The 
 last work done in the mine was in eighteen hunderd 
 and eleven, so I've always understood. They was 
 some talk of starting it up again during the 
 Civil War when they needed metal for making 
 fire-boxes of railroad engines. They used to make 
 them of copper then, but they sent some one up 
 to look it over, and they found the vein wasn't 
 worth the working." 
 
 The judge stopped abruptly and looked at 
 Stiles suspiciously. Stiles had, in fact, changed 
 expression, but he had never imagined that the 
 judge had noted it. 
 
 "No," said the judge, with a smile, "you'd 
 better not make any plans for taking a fortune 
 out of that copper-mine. If they was money to 
 be made out of that we'd all be living in mansions 
 now where the white birches is still growing."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 163 
 
 Stiles smiled guiltily and the judge let him off. 
 "No," he said, musingly, "mines is for miners and 
 farms is for farmers, and them as don't have to 
 be either had best keep to something comparatively 
 cheap, like race-horses or vain embellishments of 
 the flesh. It hain't troubled me much, what with 
 the stock-market and all, but my father had all 
 he could do to keep this town from ruining itself 
 about once a year with dreams of taking a fortune 
 out of that old mine." 
 
 The judge chuckled. "And, land o' living! I 
 don't know but what he'd better have let 'em 
 go at it, at that." 
 
 The engine of reminiscence was running 
 smoothly once more, and, as it did at its best, was 
 soaring over the whole field of history. 
 
 "The Craters was West Injy merchants from 
 Salem not your branch, young man another 
 branch, but the money come to your family 'way 
 back in colony days. They was already settled up 
 here, owning nobody knows how much land, clear 
 up to Spicer, so I've always heerd. Then come this 
 idea of the copper-mine and people went crazy, 
 I suppose, just as they do now. Some claim it was 
 in seventeen seventy-one that they started to mine 
 for it, but nobody knows, nobody knows. They 
 got miners to come here, a dozen or more men 
 that understood about copper-mines, foreigners." 
 
 "From Wales?" suggested Stiles. 
 
 "No," said the judge, as if it were a common- 
 place, "they was Spaniards."
 
 164 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Stiles's newspaper mind raced to the point. 
 Since the evening before, his literary instinct had 
 not been able to reconcile that Bolivian bride 
 with what he knew of New England. In what 
 tangled web of tradition started by Viscayan 
 miners had that myth originated? 
 
 "They was some queer kind of Spaniards," 
 went on the judge. ' ' Other Spaniards, sailors and 
 such, couldn't understand 'em." 
 
 "Basques?" said Stiles, quickly. 
 
 "What's that?" asked the judge, sharply. 
 
 "Basques?" repeated Stiles, eagerly. 
 
 "That may be it," assented the judge. The 
 term did not seem to strike his ear familiarly. 
 "Some of 'em lived and died here and left good 
 Yankee descendants. Mis' Fields, her family was 
 one of 'em. Inchgerry, they was always called. 
 What their name rightly was I don't know." 
 
 "The point is," interrupted Eksberger, im- 
 patiently, "the mine's a lemon." 
 
 The old judge turned slowly and looked at 
 him. For once the dialogue expert had made a 
 false move, and curiously similar, to Stiles's eyes, 
 was the way in which the judge turned on him 
 to that in which Mrs. Pullar had turned on him, 
 the previous evening. It was equally futile. 
 Eksberger did not even suspect the breath of 
 hostility, and the judge did not press his snub. 
 The faintest suggestion of a smile alone crept into 
 the cobweb of lines around his shrewd old eyes. 
 Fantastically Stiles wished that Rose had been
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 165 
 
 there to see it, and with that came the question, 
 Where was Rose? For a second, however, he 
 could not ask it, although the mellow thread of 
 narration was broken, and the judge knew that 
 it was. 
 
 "Yes," he concluded, in a brief and business-like 
 summary, "that mine is chiefly noted as a first- 
 class miner of family fortunes, like a suit in the 
 courts. If they did make anything out of it 
 during the Revolution, it wa'n't much. It petered 
 out and then they started it up again and it 
 petered out then." 
 
 Reminiscence had been killed so far as he was 
 concerned, and Stiles knew that he was free to 
 shake himself and stand up and ask, "What's be- 
 come of Miss Fuller?" 
 
 Eksberger looked around nonchalantly as if he 
 expected to find her on the piazza. She seemed to 
 come into his notice little more than that even 
 when she was present. "I don't know," he re- 
 plied. "She's somewhere about." 
 
 "I thought she was down there with you," 
 said Stiles. He went into the house and found 
 Mrs. Fields. She had a frying-pan in her hand, 
 the bottom of which she was scraping with a 
 piece of brown paper, and at sight of her Stiles 
 thought suddenly of the judge's new revelations. 
 He was ready to accord a sudden respect to her 
 fierce independence, now that he knew that in her 
 veins flowed the blood of the most inscrutable 
 race in Europe, of the slayers of Roland, of Car-
 
 166 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 men's Jos6, and of those mountaineers who, by 
 all tradition, had rolled stones on Charlemagne's 
 army. There was no disgrace in sharing defiance 
 which had been hurled at Christian and Saracen 
 alike. 
 
 "Mrs. Fields," he began, and, to show the 
 mind of the man, it seemed strange at the mo- 
 ment that he should address her in English. He 
 felt that he ought to be fishing around for a 
 mutual patois "Mrs. Fields, have you seen Miss 
 Fuller?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields scrubbed noisily a moment without 
 replying. "She's gone," she answered, at last, 
 choosing the moment for her reply when it had 
 the least chance of being heard. On that subject, 
 however, Stiles's ears were alert. 
 
 "Gone where?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields scrubbed some more. "She didn't 
 say. She took her hat and left me two dollars."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HTHE air of a man bearing news from a sick- 
 * room was rather on Stiles as he joined the 
 judge and Eksberger on the piazza. They had 
 found something to talk about during his absence, 
 but it couldn't have been much, for it died out 
 at his approach. 
 
 "Miss Fuller is gone," said their host, simply. 
 
 For a moment Eksberger did not grasp it, then, 
 as it came to him, he sat up. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Miss Fuller is gone." 
 
 If nicety of emotion could be measured on one 
 of those neat little charts which are used to show 
 fever, blood pressure, and heart-beat, a straight 
 line drawn through the three lowest squares would 
 have shown just about where Eksberger lurked 
 most of the time. Then, just as one was relying 
 on that for his maximum, suddenly, without 
 warning, his curve would shoot clear to the high- 
 est line, like that of a man who has smoked a 
 cigarette or envied his neighbor or done any of 
 the things of which chart-makers, as a class, 
 
 disapprove. 
 12
 
 i68 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 This was one of those moments. By his si- 
 lence, Eksberger atoned for all the excesses of his 
 Turkish manner. He was really touched. It took 
 a certain boyish chagrin like that of the present 
 instant to make one believe that he really was 
 fond of his Rose. 
 
 "She needn't have done that," he said. "I 
 would have taken her back if she only had told 
 me." He looked at his watch. "How did she 
 go? By the train?" 
 
 Stiles shrugged his shoulders, a most un-Stiles- 
 like thing for him to do, and one which showed 
 how much he himself was upset. Even the 
 judge had absorbed the gentle spirit of the mo- 
 ment. "They's the nine-fifty-eight," he volun- 
 teered, "and after that they's the twelve-six, and 
 then they's only the six-one from Felsted." 
 
 "Twelve-six?" asked Eksberger, taking out his 
 watch again, for of course he had not noticed in 
 the least what the time had been when he had 
 done it before. It was half past twelve, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, but he did not need to announce it. 
 His face told the story. All moments after twelve- 
 six were useless to that little group of three, for 
 even the judge was subtly among the mourners. 
 
 The judge stood up. "If you are going up to 
 Center " he suggested. Both Stiles and Eks- 
 berger were tacitly accepting his invitation, when 
 a livery car came rattling up the hill. It would 
 have been ludicrous, if it hadn't been so wholly 
 nice, the childlike eagerness with which both of
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 169 
 
 them looked at it, hoping that it was all a bad 
 dream, that Rose had come back to them. In- 
 stead, it was Baumgarten, smug and blue-sergy 
 and giving a tip to the man who had driven 
 him. . 
 
 "It's Stuffy Baumgarten!" exclaimed Eksber- 
 ger, but his moments of sublimity were very short. 
 Disappointment in him, as in most primitive souls, 
 very soon reduced itself to a childish rage. ' ' What 
 in thunder is that old fool doing up here?" 
 
 If there was belligerency in Eksberger's atti- 
 tude as Baumgarten sauntered calmly up the 
 gravel walk it was as wholly lost as Mrs. Pullar's 
 grand manner had been lost on Eksberger himself. 
 Nor was there the least surprise in the new-comer's 
 manner. ' " Lo, Charlie !' ' he began, calmly. ' ' How 
 are you, Mr. Stiles?" 
 
 If Stiles did not always find himself one with 
 Eksberger, they were allies in this encounter, but 
 he had some duties as a host. "Judge Tyler, Mr. 
 Baumgarten." 
 
 "Pleased to meet you, Judge," nodded Baum- 
 garten, cordially. 
 
 "Morning," said the judge, tersely. 
 
 Gruff as it was, that was the only actual greet- 
 ing that Baumgarten had yet received, but it was 
 all the same to him. He seated himself squarely 
 in the middle of the group and looked around at 
 the view spread before him that million-dollar 
 view. Having, on his previous visit, been kindly 
 patronizing to the interior of Stiles's house, he
 
 i 7 o CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 was now preparing to be patronizing to nature's 
 landscape. 
 
 "I see Rose has gone," he began, easily. 
 
 His casual use of the name probably grated on 
 Stiles more than it did on Eksberger, but it irri- 
 tated both of them sufficiently to keep either from 
 replying. 
 
 "Saw her at the station, "Baumgarten explained. 
 
 "Yes," said Eksberger, quietly, "she had to 
 get back." 
 
 "They tell me you smashed up the car," per- 
 sisted Baumgarten. It was evidently not so much 
 a present intention as a permanent habit of his 
 aggressive nature to touch, one after another, all 
 the tactless facts concerning the person to whom 
 he was talking. 
 
 "Yes," said Eksberger, coldly. Stiles expected 
 at any moment to hear him break forth into vio- 
 lent vituperation, but, strangely, he seemed to be 
 restraining himself. 
 
 "Either of you hurt?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Be able to fix it, won't you?" 
 
 As the two were talking, a curious thing was hap- 
 pening, a thing so curious that Stiles was prompted 
 to wonder whether it were real or whether he were 
 merely imagining it. It seemed to be a fact that 
 Eksberger was actually afraid of Baumgarten, at 
 least decidedly uncomfortable under his cross- 
 examination. Stiles had expected that, socially, 
 Baumgarten would last just about three minutes
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 171 
 
 in Eksberger's presence. Instead, little by little, 
 Baumgarten was becoming the relentless school- 
 master and Eksberger the unhappy school-boy. 
 That was just the quality of their accent senior 
 and junior, or, better, father and son, and father 
 on an unfortunate morning. 
 
 "Be able to fix it, won't you?" 
 
 Eksberger had not been able to answer, and 
 Baumgarten had repeated the question in really a 
 sharper tone. Even that had not been resented. 
 
 "Hope so." 
 
 "Where is it?" demanded Baumgarten. 
 
 It was a long time before Eksberger replied. 
 Then he jerked his head in a way not dissimilar 
 to that in which the garage man had done it. 
 "Brook." 
 
 Baumgarten made a motion to rise to his feet. 
 "Let's go have a look at it." 
 
 There was no doubt about it. The judge should 
 have been a stage-manager. He rose to his feet 
 with a sudden chuckle. "Gentlemen, I'm going," 
 he said, and it was not until five seconds after 
 this rustic intellect had done it that Stiles grasped 
 the essence of that incomprehensible dialogue to 
 which he had just been listening the utter ludi- 
 crousness of the position in which they were placed 
 the absolute futility of trying to make a man 
 like Baumgarten believe what really had happened. 
 
 The judge had, however, saved the moment if it 
 was beyond the power of mortal man to save the 
 day. "Whoa, boy!" he called to his horse, as he
 
 i 7 2 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 took the tie-line from its neck, but one likes to 
 imagine that he was still chuckling as he took the 
 reins from the whip-stock and then, as he settled 
 down in the seat, called again, "Back, boy, back!" 
 the command which is given by every rural driver, 
 no matter in which direction he wishes the animal 
 to move. 
 
 The judge rattled over the top of the hill, leav- 
 ing Eksberger and Stiles to face the new-comer 
 alone. 
 
 ''You didn't stay away long," said Eksberger, 
 morosely. 
 
 "I haven't been away at all," replied Baum- 
 garten, calmly. "At least, no farther than Fel- 
 sted." He took from his pocket a picture post- 
 card, one done in colors, colors which put nature 
 to shame. He handed it casually to Stiles, who 
 read, "First Methodist Church and Soldiers' 
 Monument, Felsted, Mass." 
 
 "How many of those do you suppose I put out 
 a year?" asked Baumgarten, modestly. 
 
 Stiles tried to think of a figure which would 
 be amazing but still leave the art-novelty king a 
 margin to spring his happy surprise. "Hundred 
 thousand?" he suggested. 
 
 "Five million," said Baumgarten, with a grin. 
 
 When Rose was absent, Eksberger evidently 
 played her part. "All of the First Methodist 
 Church?" he asked, promptly. 
 
 Baumgarten's only answer was a look of con- 
 tempt. He turned to Stiles as the man he had
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 173 
 
 come to talk to. "I've done a little business since 
 I've been up here." He left what he would have 
 called an elegant opening for Stiles to tell how he 
 had put in his time, but Stiles was as non-com- 
 mittal as Eksberger, and Eksberger had the air of 
 a man with a date to commit a murder. That side 
 of it was funny enough to Stiles, and, after all, 
 what preference did he really owe to Eksberger? 
 Both men, he felt subtly, were fighting for a chance 
 to get him alone, and neither one, so far as he 
 could see, in his capacity of host, had any imme- 
 diate prospect of it. He could hardly come out 
 from the shoulder and tell Baumgarten to be off 
 and about his business. He was not sure that he 
 would if he could. Since that talk with Rose he 
 had not looked at Baumgarten with quite the 
 same eyes. In the mean time, the three of them 
 were strolling about the lawn, round and round, 
 a sort of endurance contest, all of them talking in 
 monosyllables, no one of them daring to say what 
 was on his mind, the three of them rotating, really, 
 around a vacuum. How Rose would have loved 
 it, Rose, whose sudden departure had caused the 
 vacuum ! And all the time Eksberger still had that 
 uncomfortable air, not at all the manner that one 
 would have expected him to flourish, judging by 
 his previous allusions to Baumgarten. Stiles, the 
 cynic, began to wonder whether he owed him 
 money. The thing couldn't go on forever. 
 
 "Have you seen Pullar?" Stiles asked, sud- 
 denly. Through the corner of his eye he could
 
 174 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 see Baumgarten look at him suspiciously, but, 
 being prepared, he managed to wear an expression 
 of perfect innocence. 
 
 "Yes," said Baumgarten, gruffly, and Stiles 
 knew that the news had been broken to him, the 
 news about the returned check. And round and 
 round they kept on going. Eksberger finally could 
 stand it no longer. 
 
 "Say, what is this," he asked, "a merry-go- 
 round?" 
 
 Without meaning to, probably, he had forced 
 Stiles's hand, but there was nothing else for Stiles 
 to do. He looked at his watch. "Pretty near 
 lunch-time," he suggested. "Will you stay, Mr. 
 Baumgarten?" 
 
 Baumgarten affected an attitude of surprise. 
 "I had planned to pick up a bite in the village." 
 Seeing that he had just sent his car to the station, 
 two miles away, it was rather bald, but, at any 
 rate, Baumgarten knew all the ceremonies proper 
 to the occasion. He raised his fat, manicured 
 hands and turned them over doubtfully. "If I 
 might wash up a bit," he suggested, politely.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 "JET him take a bath if he wants to," exclaimed 
 i-' Eksberger, savagely, as Baumgarten disap- 
 peared into the house. He turned to Stiles, al- 
 most in a whispered haste. "We've got to get 
 rid of that boob.'* 
 
 Eksberger had, in supreme measure, the talent 
 of assuming that his listener's mood was his own, 
 but even he saw that his sudden change of front 
 needed explanation. He paused, disconcerted, not 
 sure just how to make it. Stiles, for his part, 
 had learned that his companion was used to a 
 language in which tact was only a casual element. 
 
 "You act as if you owed him money," he said, 
 boldly. 
 
 "I do," replied Eksberger, not in the least up- 
 set, "but it's not that. Everybody in the show 
 business owes him money. That's what he was 
 born for. But, good Heavens! Stiles, don't you see 
 what I'm up against?" 
 
 If he had seen, Stiles would still have preferred 
 to get it in Eksberger's own words. 
 
 "Stuffy is all right," explained the exasperated 
 impresario, with that grain of charity with which
 
 176 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 both he and Rose seemed to qualify every harsh 
 statement, "but he's a joke, he's a mark, he's a 
 professional easy thing. And he knows it. He 
 can't help knowing it. As long as I can remember 
 he's been our pet goat. In his own line, I guess he's 
 no fool, but he's like lots of others, he's actor-bit. 
 Anybody in the show business, he'll give anything 
 just to be seen with them, and that's the trouble; 
 he knows them all. Just let him get it into his 
 noodle what really has happened to that car, and, 
 after all these years of my kidding him, say! what 
 will he do to me? What will he do to 
 little George G. Me ?" 
 
 To tell the truth, while he saw the point, it 
 seemed to Stiles that Eksberger was making a 
 mountain out of a mole-hill. His attitude showed 
 it, for Eksberger turned in exasperation. 
 
 "Now I ask you! Who will believe that story 
 when once Stuffy Baumgarten begins to spread it 
 on Broadway? A ten-thousand-dollar car doing a 
 fade-away into the ground lost, gone, covered 
 up, not even the speedometer, while we, like a 
 bunch of goops, sat here and let it melt! Would 
 you believe it if you heard it?" 
 
 "No, I don't think I should," Stiles had to 
 confess. 
 
 "Well, then," demanded Eksberger, "what 
 makes you think that any one else will believe it?" 
 
 He seemed to assume that Stiles had maintained 
 that it was an every-day event, but Stiles saw that 
 it was useless to protest.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 177 
 
 "You don't seem to get it," continued Eksber- 
 ger, wilder than ever. "Why, there won't be a 
 musical show on Broadway next fall that won't 
 have something about it. There won't be a coun- 
 try newspaper next week that won't have some- 
 thing about that cock-and-bull story, and all the 
 while the wise guys will be sitting around and say- 
 ing, 'Now just what was the real dope about 
 Eksberger's car?' Then they'll begin explaining 
 there'll always be some one to wink his eye and 
 nod his head and tap your knee and say, 'Now this 
 is just between you and I, but I've got it straight 
 from a man who knows that well, there's some- 
 thing behind that story that you haven't heard.' 
 
 "Why, man alive!" Eksberger ranted on, 
 "there'll be stories that I haven't drawn a sober 
 breath in three years. I won't mind that, because 
 they say that of everybody when they can't 
 think of anything else to say. But then the funny 
 boys will get hold of it ''He tried to make us 
 think that his car went on the blink!' They'll 
 say I smashed it up on a spree, they'll say I 
 hocked it. Sooner or later they'll say that I 
 never had any car at all. Can you see what 
 will happen to me the minute I get to the 
 city?" 
 
 He paused, still fuming, but suddenly his whole 
 manner changed, and he added, quietly. "Besides, 
 there's Rose." 
 
 "Now you're talking!" Stiles did not say it 
 aloud, but he thought it, and immediately there
 
 178 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 followed the finest moment in his whole acquaint- 
 ance with Eksberger. 
 
 "Dammit, Stiles, the show business gets it in 
 the eye every time." He turned quietly, almost 
 fiercely. "You know there was nothing queer in 
 my being up here with Rose, don't you?" Even 
 the second that Stiles took to reply was not short 
 enough, and he insisted, "Don't you?" 
 
 "Of course I know it," replied Stiles, and Eks- 
 berger went on: 
 
 "What in the world are we to do? Sit in our 
 rooms with our hands in our laps ? She hasn't got 
 any home. I haven't got any home. We're not 
 six years old." 
 
 Stiles thought again of his conversation with 
 Rose that morning. 
 
 "You don't suppose that Baumgarten is going 
 to spread that side of it, do you?" 
 
 "No," said Eksberger, slowly, "but leaks, 
 Stiles, leaks. If the story gets out at all you might 
 just as well try to stop the ocean as cover a thing 
 like that." 
 
 From that point of view Stiles was enlisted, as 
 he had been the moment that Rose's name had 
 been mentioned. Before that, having accepted 
 the whole situation, he had not questioned any 
 of its minor ethics. ' ' What are you going to do ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I wish you'd tell me," said Eksberger. "So 
 far as I can see, we've got to dig it out sooner or 
 later. I suppose it will cost."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 179 
 
 "Thirty to forty thousand dollars," said Stiles, 
 smiling, "according to the judge." 
 
 Eksberger, however, was not in a rollicking 
 mood. He walked peevishly back and forth across 
 the piazza, but Stiles had an inspiration. 
 
 "Look here," he exclaimed, borrowing a bit of 
 Eksberger's own enthusiasm. "Why don't you 
 let it stay just where it is?" 
 
 Eksberger stopped walking and looked at him 
 in query. 
 
 "You said last night that it was insured?" 
 
 Eksberger nodded, but before Stiles could add 
 another word they both saw the flaw. Eksberger 
 voiced it. 
 
 "Say," he exclaimed, "I'd have a fat chance 
 to get any money out of any insurance company 
 with that pipe dream. They'd make me show 
 every spoke in the wheels." 
 
 There was logic in this, and Stiles had no more 
 to say. 
 
 "Unless your tame brook coughs it up in an 
 hour or two," mused Eksberger, fretfully, "the 
 only thing I can think of is to tell Stuffy that 
 the car had been taken to the garage and then 
 have it dug out secretly at night. And there we 
 are! We've got to act soon. Suppose the brook 
 starts business again. How are we going to dig 
 down through the water? If we do it at all we'll 
 have to do it to-night at midnight. What do 
 you think of that plan?" 
 
 Stiles did not think much of it. "In the first
 
 i8o CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 place," he said, "it wouldn't do any good. The 
 garage men know about it already. The judge 
 knows about it. Safe to say everybody in town 
 knows about it. If Baumgarten stays here half 
 an hour longer he will know about it, too. If I 
 were you I would simply tell him and ask him to 
 keep it quiet." 
 
 Eksberger shook his head vehemently "Noth- 
 ing doing. Stuffy's been waiting five years for a 
 chance of this kind." 
 
 Except for Rose, Stiles did not have very much 
 patience with this mighty issue erected on nothing 
 but Eksberger's own vanity, but the thing did 
 appeal to his sense of humor. He looked con- 
 templatively toward the lawn, and then he sug- 
 gested suddenly, "If that hill is a honeycomb of 
 underground passages, I wonder if there isn't 
 some other way to get at it." 
 
 "Oh, don't be an ass, Stiles!" exclaimed Eks- 
 berger as if he himself had been talking nothing 
 but sense. Then the potency of that haunted 
 house slowly caught him as it had the evening 
 before. He wavered a moment or two, and then 
 he said, tentatively: "Let's go look at that thing. 
 I haven't had really a decent look at it yet." 
 
 Together they started slowly across the lawn, 
 when a voice behind them boomed out, "Well, 
 gentlemen!" 
 
 Stiles started to turn, but Eksberger grabbed 
 his arm. "Quick," he said. "There's Stuffy. 
 What are we going to tell him?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 181 
 
 "The truth, I guess," replied Stiles. Pretend- 
 ing, nevertheless, not to have heard the voice, 
 the two continued their walk until they paused 
 on the rampart of the old cellar. Over his shoul- 
 der, Stiles noticed that Baumgarten was following 
 with the air of a king looking over his realm. 
 "Look here," he said, speaking rapidly, and only 
 because he knew that Eksberger was not the 
 only one who would suffer did he say what 
 he did. "Look here. Isn't there just one per- 
 son in the world who can keep him from saying 
 a word?" 
 
 For a second, not knowing what Stiles had 
 learned that morning, Eksberger did not grasp it. 
 "Who ?" he began, and then it flashed over him. 
 In violent congratulation he held out his hand. 
 "Stiles, you're a genius!" 
 
 "Brother Elks, Mr. Mayor, and visiting fire- 
 men!" declaimed Baumgarten, seeing the gesture. 
 He looked rather curious as to its meaning, but 
 he did not ask explanations. "Out inspecting 
 your property, Mr. Stiles?" he began, then he 
 stopped short and looked at the rampart on 
 which they were standing. ' ' Hello ! " he exclaimed, 
 and looked at the rampart again. "Stiles," he 
 said, suddenly, for the first time using the fa- 
 miliar term, "I bet I know something you don't 
 know." 
 
 "Aw, Stuffy, you know things that nobody 
 knows," broke in Eksberger, his poise completely 
 restored, but Baumgarten paid no attention to
 
 i8i CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 him. He stared at the pile of turf and debris 
 as if to make sure, and then he went on. "Did 
 you know that you owned a copper-mine?" 
 
 Stiles looked at Eksberger and Eksberger 
 looked at Stiles. 
 
 "Yes, I know it," answered Stiles, but he had 
 hesitated just a moment too long, and, as Rose 
 had said, Baumgarten was not such a fool as he 
 had the reputation of being. 
 
 "How long have you known it?" he insisted, 
 mercilessly. 
 
 Having just posed to Eksberger as an apostle 
 of truth, Stiles felt it incumbent on him to blaze 
 the way. "About two hours," he answered. 
 "How long have you?" 
 
 "About three minutes," confessed Baumgarten, 
 with equal frankness. "I wondered who owned 
 that mine." He fished in his pocket again and 
 brought out a brown envelop full of his picture- 
 cards. Sorting them over, he handed one to 
 Stiles. It showed, sure enough, the rampart on 
 which they were standing, and underneath it the 
 legend, "Old Copper Mine, Eden, Mass." 
 
 "Where do you suppose the guy had those?" 
 continued Baumgarten. 
 
 "What guy?" asked Eksberger. 
 
 "The guy in the drug-store. Underneath a pile 
 of candy-boxes in the back room. No wonder he 
 never sold any. Why don't you work your mine, 
 Stiles?" 
 
 "It's a quince," explained Eksberger, promptly.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 183 
 
 "So?" replied Baumgarten, looking at it mus- 
 ingly. "Copper's valuable now." 
 
 It may have existed only in the two timorous 
 minds with which he was dealing, but it still seemed 
 to be a fact that Baumgarten had complete control 
 of this little encounter. He turned in a lordly 
 manner to stroll back toward the house, and the 
 two others followed, lamblike. 
 
 "How do you know ?" he began, and then his 
 face brightened. "Well, look who's here!" 
 
 13
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 IT was Rose, true enough, but Rose looked tired 
 and not very happy. She had come from the 
 village on foot. The three men simultaneously 
 broke into what was almost a run and met her at 
 the end of the gravel path. 
 
 "What's the matter, Rose?" exclaimed Eks- 
 berger. "Did you miss your train?" 
 
 The girl shook her head, but gave no other 
 sign of wishing to answer. Solicitously the three 
 men followed her to the piazza, as kittens follow 
 a cat, and Stiles brought out one of the carpet- 
 backed chairs. She sank into it wearily. "It's 
 hot," she said, but she gave the impression that 
 she was on the verge of tears. Eksberger hung 
 over her, worried, and the two other men pre- 
 tended to be busy with the view. Lunch followed 
 in due course of time, but, as one might imagine, 
 it was not a vivacious repast. Rose was calm 
 enough now, but she did not pretend that she had 
 returned for a social visit. Without ado, she singled 
 out Eksberger at the close of the meal and they 
 walked away up the road, the road on which 
 Pullar had told his story that morning. Left be- 
 hind, Baumgarten and Stiles had that uncertain
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 185 
 
 manner of strangers who inadvertently have been 
 forced to witness a family quarrel. Baumgarten 
 looked after the two doubtfully. 
 
 "I wonder what's the matter with Rose." 
 
 He said it in tones of a real concern, and Stiles 
 did not resent it as he had resented the previous 
 use of her name. He had, in fact, found himself 
 slowly revising his estimates of this man who had 
 struck him so unpleasantly at first, this man at 
 whom Eksberger shouted in such derision. After 
 his talk with Rose and after seeing the two men 
 opposed to each other, he was not at all sure that 
 Baumgarten was not the finer character. He was, 
 at any rate, the more substantial. Baumgarten 
 had been a totally different man on this visit, 
 more sure of himself, more certain in his control of 
 others. Alone, Stiles had found him pathetic 
 the Broadway type away from his background. 
 Perhaps that was it. He had his background now. 
 
 "A wonderful girl, Mr. Stiles." 
 
 Still Stiles did not resent it, and, after all, what 
 right had he to resent it if Rose did not? He 
 wanted to talk about her himself, but, Stiles-like, 
 he could only do it by way of a tangent. 
 
 "Eksberger," he hinted, tactfully, "is quite a 
 genius." 
 
 Baumgarten held his arm at full length and 
 snapped his fingers. "A child, Mr. Stiles, a child !" 
 
 He had said in one word what Stiles had sup- 
 posed would be utter heresy in the Eksberger 
 cult, and Stiles looked at him in amazement.
 
 i86 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Have you known him long?" he asked. 
 
 "There's nobody in the show business that I 
 don't know," replied Baumgarten. "I've put 
 money in some of his shows most of 'em, in 
 fact." He paused and grunted, but not ill- 
 naturedly. "Never lost anything by it, and I 
 don't intend to." 
 
 Strikingly like the judge when a favorite subject 
 had been opened to him, he went on of his own 
 free will. "Charlie is the one you hear about, 
 but Al Segal, his partner, is the real brains of that 
 concern. Know him?" 
 
 Stiles shook his head. 
 
 "No," said Baumgarten, "and few people do. 
 He keeps in the dark as much as Charlie keeps in 
 the lime-light. 
 
 "Al Segal," continued Baumgarten, "has for- 
 gotten more than Charlie Eksberger will ever 
 know; but there you are! I wouldn't give a nickel 
 to Al if it had a lock on it, but Charlie Eksberger 
 could have anything I've got." 
 
 "Perhaps," suggested Stiles, "that in itself is 
 one form of genius." 
 
 "It may be," replied Baumgarten, but his tone 
 did not sound convinced. He turned and looked 
 at the pair walking back and forth up the road. 
 They might have been in the midst of a summer 
 proposal for the picture they made, and a proposal 
 not very well received. Eksberger was walking, 
 hatless, shoulders hunched, his hands in his 
 pockets, talking imploringly, his head making little
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 187 
 
 convulsive jerks. Rose was replying only casually 
 and from time to time, looking away, more often, 
 over the fields to her right. The only thing in her 
 view was an isolated and abandoned chicken- 
 house, gray, weather-beaten, and falling to pieces, 
 and beyond that a brown field and the ever-present 
 belt of white birches. Did it strike her as queer 
 that one of the moving moments of her life, what- 
 ever might be the cause, should be passed in that 
 homely and typical bit of New England landscape 
 so little like the scenes to which she was accus- 
 tomed? Or did she take it for granted, giving it 
 no notice at all ? 
 
 It was fair to believe that both of the men 
 there watching her were moved by the same 
 mingled feelings of sympathy and faint pique at 
 their own exclusion. If they were, the older man's 
 longings were those of hope too often rebuffed to 
 be reassuring, the younger man's those of hope too 
 recently born to seem very real. For the moment, 
 the man beside him became the more vivid figure 
 to Stiles. 
 
 In a few curt words Baumgarten had drawn a 
 picture of himself which, on the surface, was not 
 unlike that wriich Eksberger had drawn of him, 
 but, in the latter, how the values had been dis- 
 torted by Eksberger's naive conceit ! By no stretch 
 of the imagination, even the sentimental imagina- 
 tion which Stiles possessed in spite of himself, 
 was it possible to make Baumgarten a noble char- 
 acter, even a pleasant one, but it was possible to
 
 i88 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 read a certain crude aspiration into what he was 
 doing and what he was. A man to whom pictures 
 would never mean anything, except those on a 
 card, a man for whose untutored senses music 
 became bad as soon as it became good, a man by 
 whom fame and notoriety were wholly confused, 
 he nevertheless found his glory, his glamour, his 
 esthetic relaxations among these children of the 
 only art that appealed to his common sense. In 
 awe of them for the very little that they were 
 which he was not, he stood their rebuffs and 
 fathered their follies, his eyes wide open. And 
 then there was Rose! 
 
 "Rose ought to marry." 
 
 Like a bombshell the words had burst into 
 Stiles's meditation. Baumgarten had spoken 
 them, but so perfectly had they timed themselves 
 with Stiles's own reverie that he actually wondered 
 whether he had been thinking aloud. He had not, 
 however. Baumgarten had merely received the 
 same suggestion that he had received himself from 
 the silhouette of the two figures now disappearing 
 at the turn of the road. 
 
 "Eksberger?" asked Stiles. 
 
 Baumgarten had not meant that necessarily. 
 "She ought to marry somebody," he said. He did 
 not say why, but Stiles found the lead an attractive 
 one. 
 
 "Miss Fuller, I imagine, has made a very great 
 success." 
 
 He expected to this, at least, immediate and
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 189 
 
 enthusiastic acquiescence, but even the woman he 
 loved this unaccountable man saw with that 
 strange impersonal clearness with which he saw 
 all that romantic profession by which, nevertheless, 
 he allowed himself to be judged a fool. 
 
 "Rose is funny," he said. "She's a better girl 
 than she is an actress." 
 
 The surprised expression of Stiles's face led him 
 into an explanation still more blunt, but, curi- 
 ously, not more offensive. 
 
 "Rose," he explained, "is what you might call 
 a work-horse." 
 
 The term seemed ludicrous applied to the slender 
 figure coming in sight again at the turn of the 
 road, and even Baumgarten saw that it needed 
 revision. 
 
 "Oh, Rose is good," he added, hastily. "She's 
 very good. She knows how to dance and she's got 
 a beautiful voice." 
 
 He hesitated to find the exact words to convey 
 his meaning, but even those words had aroused 
 for Stiles a rare and puzzling vision. For a second 
 there flashed before his eyes the picture of Rose in 
 a flopping hat, a basket of flowers on her arm, with 
 high-laced ankles and toes twinkling mischievously 
 to the notes coming over the footlights. For a 
 man who knew as little of comic opera as he did, 
 the picture was a marvelously accurate one. It 
 had the clearness of inspiration, but it lasted only 
 a second. He could not recall it. He had tried it 
 before, but he could not connect that quiet, almost
 
 190 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 morose girl who had sat in his study with any such 
 picture as that. 
 
 "Charlie knows it," said Baumgarten. "I 
 guess Rose knows it herself. Rose is good for 
 three hundred a week any day. She's a star, all 
 right, but she's just so much of a star and she'll 
 never be any more. Do you know what I mean ?" 
 Stiles did know approximately, but he wanted 
 to hear more, and Baumgarten was willing to tell 
 him. 
 
 "There's nobody in the profession has a better 
 name than Rose Fuller; but in the profession, 
 mind you. The public's another kettle of fish. 
 When they get up a show they try one girl after 
 another, and she makes a muff of it, and then, 
 when they've got to the end of their rope, they 
 call in Rose and she carries it off. She does it 
 because she knows her business down to the final 
 flip. That's just what happened in 'The Daisy 
 Chain.' That's just what happened in 'The Girl 
 from Madrid.' She's saved more shows than you 
 ever saw, but there you are! Then along comes 
 some chicken with baby eyes and a solid ivory 
 dome who can't dance and can't sing and pulls 
 down five hundred a week and fame. When the 
 public goes to one show they say that they've 
 seen Elsie Fair in 'The Dancing Girl,' and when 
 they go to another they say that they've seen 
 'The Girl from Madrid' and that Rose Fuller 
 was in it. Do you get me now?" 
 
 Stiles nodded. It came to him now that there
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 191 
 
 had been more than mere deprecation when Rose 
 had spoken impatiently of her own career. He had 
 even been unwittingly cruel when it had been forced 
 out of him that he knew "The Daisy Chain," 
 but knew not her. How depressingly often she 
 must have had just such a conversation before. 
 Like all persons who have not practised them, he 
 had assumed that to earn a good living in the arts 
 is the same as success. A sudden recollection of 
 Baumgarten's own quixotic offer came to him, 
 and in the same wave of sentimentality which 
 must have prompted Baumgarten himself at the 
 time he said: 
 
 "It's too bad. Never mind. If my copper- 
 mine only pans out, we'll buy her a theater of her 
 own." 
 
 It was a very foolish thing to say, knowing, as 
 he did now, the kind of man that Baumgarten 
 really was. The latter flushed. He stared down 
 at the ground, then looked at Stiles with little, 
 appraising eyes. 
 
 "Mr. Stiles," he said, "you've got something 
 that's worth a damn sight more than that copper- 
 mine." 
 
 Stiles searched his face, but Baumgarten never 
 flinched. His gaze was unrelenting, but it was 
 not unfriendly. A suggestion of a smile was even 
 creeping into his eyes. 
 
 "Oh, don't think I'm going to tell you," he 
 said, "if you don't know it yourself. Hello, Ike! 
 where did you come from?"
 
 192 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Stiles turned and saw the forgotten chauffeur 
 running in great excitement over the lawn. Re- 
 gardless of ceremony, regardless of explanation, 
 he waved his arm and commanded : 
 
 "Hurry up! You oughtn't to miss it. It's 
 better than a dog fight! I bet there's a hundred 
 men and five hundred kids got ahold of that 
 rope."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE best account of the rescue of the colossus 
 was undoubtedly that given by the chauffeur 
 some weeks later. His audience-room was over a 
 Sixth Avenue garage, his audience grouped around 
 a deal table on which cards were dealt. From time 
 to time there clinked sundry coins. 
 
 '"Air ye ready?' says the old Wheat with the 
 whiskers, the one who was bossing the job. 
 
 "'Let 'er rip!' says the lad in the hole, the one 
 with the rubber boots. 
 
 '"Hey, there! Wait a minute!' says I. 'The 
 way you've got that rope tied you'll pull out 
 every water connection she's got.' The big boob 
 had tied it around the radiator. 'Here, let me 
 show you,' I says, and I has them tie it around 
 the front ex. 'All right! Go to it!' I says.. 
 
 "'Let her rip!' says the lad in the hole. 
 
 "'Heave away!' says the old Wheat, and with 
 that the men starts pulling and the kids starts 
 yelling and the dogs starts barking, and galoop! 
 out she comes like a bucket of glue. If I hadn't 
 stopped 'em they'd have pulled it clear into 
 Dutchess County. Who's dealing? Me?"
 
 i 9 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 The chauffeur, indeed, had been so elated about 
 the professional aspects of the affair that he failed 
 to notice how strangely little excitement was 
 shown by his master. Stiles noticed it, however, 
 and presumably Baumgarten did. Eksberger, in 
 fact, was almost indifferent. He did not arrive 
 until after the car was well up on terra firma, and 
 then he hardly gave it a glance. 
 
 "Have it towed to the garage and cleaned up 
 as much as you can," he commanded, listlessly. 
 "We may have to ship it to town." 
 
 The happy villagers, gathered in groups, were 
 chilled by this slight applause for their Herculean 
 labors, but solaced themselves by bossing the men 
 who were tying the car to the back of a four- 
 horse wagon. 
 
 "Tie it to the ex," they cried. "Do you want 
 to pull out every water connection she's got?" 
 
 Alone of the forty or fifty who actually did take 
 part, the judge, Baumgarten, and Stiles had the 
 curiosity to look in the vacated hole. Sluggish 
 yellow water filled it to a depth of about two feet 
 as the man with the rubber boots could have testi- 
 fied, but gave no signs of rising. 
 
 "I had them shut the gate at the pond, to make 
 sure," explained the judge, "but I don't think it 
 would have filled up much, anyway. The water 
 goes somewhere else. It probably fills the whole 
 mine before it begins running top the ground 
 again." 
 
 Stiles -looked at the hole musingly, and Baum-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 garten with an alert and scholarly interest, but 
 neither had any comments. Baumgarten, safe 
 to say, was now in possession of the whole story. 
 
 "Funny," remarked the judge. "If I'd wanted 
 a man to cut cord-wood or pick up apples, they 
 wouldn't be one in town that wa'n't too busy, 
 but here we've had fifty men sweating like horses 
 right in the middle of haying." 
 
 Stiles had already had on his conscience Eks- 
 berger's too scanty thanks. "We appreciate it," 
 he said. "In the country, people are always 
 ready to play the Samaritan." 
 
 The judge's eyes rather twinkled. "I wa'n't 
 thinking so much about the Samaritan part. 
 Have you ever seen city folks too busy to stop 
 to look at a street fight? 
 
 "There's no hurry," he added, a minute later, 
 "but I promised Bill Connor half a day's time for 
 doing the digging."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 FROM appearances, one might have supposed 
 that Rose and Eksberger had hardly been in- 
 terrupted when Baumgarten and Stiles made 
 their way up the hill. They were standing in the 
 pathway before the house in much the same atti- 
 tudes in which they had walked up the road. 
 The only difference was that they were no longer 
 talking. One gathered that what they had had 
 to decide had been decided finally, completely, 
 once and for all. Rose was as calm and as non- 
 chalant as she had been on her first appearance. 
 Eksberger was not. He had had a bad half- 
 hour. He showed it, even to his hair. They 
 were merely waiting, apparently, for the return of 
 their host and his other guest. 
 
 Rose set matters in motion at once. With her 
 hand held out, she walked up to Stiles. 
 
 ' ' Good-by, Mr. Stiles. You've been very good. ' ' 
 Stiles made no motion to take her hand, not so 
 much from surprise as from a deliberate refusal 
 to let her go, but she still held it out before her. 
 Her mouth was drawn into that firm, straight 
 line which a woman commands when she means
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 197 
 
 to do something unpleasant, yet, in doing it, 
 means to set an example of perfect good nature 
 and self-control. Standing over her there, in her 
 efforts, Stiles had never realized before how much 
 taller and how much older he was than she. 
 With that sudden magnetic attraction which al- 
 ways comes at grotesque moments, he had an 
 impulse to put his hands on her shoulders. He 
 almost feared that she read his impulse. The 
 tableau seemed to him to occupy minutes. It 
 actually lasted for seconds only. 
 
 "But you can't," he exclaimed. "How are you 
 going to go?" 
 
 "There's a train at six-one." 
 
 "From Felsted." 
 
 "I suppose I can hire a car." 
 
 The tableau at last was becoming conspicuous, 
 and previous arrangements had evidently been 
 made to keep it from becoming just that. 
 
 "Stuffy, come here. I want to talk to you." 
 Eksberger, in tone at least, was quite his old self, 
 and, with a smile, Baumgarten became his old 
 self; he obeyed. As they walked away, Rose 
 dropped her hand, but she and Stiles continued to 
 look at each other almost defiantly. At the faint- 
 est sign of relaxing only did Stiles dare speak. 
 
 "My dear Miss Fuller," he said, "what is this?" 
 
 She chose deliberately to misunderstand him. 
 "I know I should not have come back," she said, 
 but Stiles had an instinct that made up for lack of 
 experience.
 
 i98 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "You mean that you should not have gone 
 away." 
 
 "Very pretty," she answered, but Stiles refused 
 to be snubbed. He stood looking at her a moment 
 more, and then he turned toward the house. 
 
 "At any rate," he suggested, "it won't take you 
 two hours to get to Felsted. For a soul in torment, 
 I do not recommend the view from the Felsted 
 station." 
 
 She was not, perhaps, wholly eager to combat 
 the statement, and she turned to walk beside him. 
 They did not, however, continue toward the piazza. 
 Those are not moments in which one sits calmly 
 in chairs. Not so much by attraction, but because 
 there was nowhere else to go, they strolled toward 
 the old cellar. They reached it and Rose looked in 
 with complete indifference. The hole, half covered 
 with debris, was fully visible now under the wall 
 on which they were standing. 
 
 "It's not very terrible by daylight," suggested 
 Stiles. 
 
 Rose did not reply. 
 
 "Will you sit down?" asked Stiles, and, no 
 reason offering to the contrary, Rose did sit down 
 on the turf of the rampart, while Stiles sat beside 
 her. Eksberger and Baumgarten, apparently, 
 were not so particular about their setting. Seeing 
 that the others did not intend to use them, they 
 had promptly taken possession of the piazza 
 chairs. Baumgarten was talking now, rather laying 
 down the law, and Eksberger, one foot on the
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 199 
 
 rail, was looking disconsolately out at the view. 
 Rose caught sight of the other couple and 
 laughed. 
 
 "You'd think we'd been fighting." 
 
 The slightest wedge had been all that Stiles had 
 been waiting for. 
 
 "And have you?" he asked. 
 
 For answer, Rose shrugged. It was not the 
 easiest thing to talk to answers like that, but 
 Stiles knew that time was fleeting. 
 
 "Will you please tell me?" he begged. "Was it 
 anything I did or said or didn't say?" 
 
 At last Rose turned to him squarely. "Why do 
 you pretend to be such a fool? Because you're 
 not, really." 
 
 No, he was not, but the admission involved 
 further silence. Because of that silence, probably, 
 Rose relented. 
 
 "Mr. Stiles, be sensible. You can see the posi- 
 tion that I have been in. Perhaps you thought 
 I didn't care. You know as well as I do that I 
 ought not to have stayed here. I ought to have 
 gone home last night, if I had to walk." 
 
 She added, faintly, "It didn't seem so queer 
 then." 
 
 "Why does it seem queer now?" 
 
 He did not mean his question to be cruel, and 
 she did not take it as such. She looked down at the 
 turf, and then she said, musingly, "I saw Stuffy 
 Baumgarten at the station." 
 
 Stiles knew from the tone of her voice that at 
 
 14
 
 200 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 last he could adopt with success her own policy of 
 silence, and in time, sure enough, she went on, 
 with effort and f ragmen tarily : "He said he was 
 coming here. Even then I didn't think of it much. 
 Just before the train came in I got scared. Those 
 two together. I knew he would make an awful 
 mess of it all." 
 
 Her voice had not changed, but Stiles knew that 
 "he" meant Eksberger, not Baumgarten. She 
 went on, as before, "I don't know that I helped 
 matters any." 
 
 "You don't mean to say," asked Stiles, "that 
 Baumgarten is going to say anything about this 
 this adventure." 
 
 "Oh no, he won't now. That's all right. I 
 made Charlie ask him not to, but it wasn't just 
 that." By the way that she prefaced the next 
 remark Stiles foresaw its nature. "They're good 
 as gold, both of them, but they don't always see 
 things the way " 
 
 "The way that you do?" 
 
 "That was not what I was going to say," said 
 Rose, quietly. 
 
 She sat in silence again, trying to find words to 
 tell him what seemed so clear to her and ought to 
 be so clear to him and probably was, except for 
 his obstinacy. 
 
 "It's that Mrs. What's -her -name? Queen 
 Victoria." 
 
 "Mrs. Pullar?" asked Stiles. "Look here," he 
 went on. "If that old duchess is bothering you,
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 201 
 
 you just get her right out of your head once and 
 for all." 
 
 Rose smiled. "I didn't mean her so much, 
 herself. It's You know what I mean. Charlie 
 is the best fellow in the world, and Stuffy is all 
 right in his way, but " 
 
 Stiles helped her. "You thought it was time to 
 call off your dogs?" 
 
 "That's about the size of it." 
 
 "Look here," Stiles commanded again; then he 
 stopped abruptly. He was silent so long that 
 Rose turned in question. She found him staring 
 at her, and her own expression changed at the 
 look she saw on his face. 
 
 "What's the matter?" she asked, in alarm. 
 
 Still Stiles did not reply for minutes. When he 
 did it was in a very low voice. "I was trying to 
 make up my mind whether I dared to ask you to 
 marry me." 
 
 She seemed relieved that it was only that. 
 
 "We can talk about that later," she said. Her 
 eyes twinkled. ' ' Once is enough for one afternoon. ' ' 
 
 Stiles nodded toward Eksberger. 
 
 "Again?" he asked. 
 
 "Still," corrected Rose. "What were you going 
 to say?" 
 
 "I'd rather know what you said," suggested 
 Stiles. 
 
 "I said 'No," she answered, emphatically, 
 "what I've always said and always will say." 
 
 "Good gracious! I didn't mean that," inter-
 
 202 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 jected Stiles, hastily. "I meant what did you say 
 when you tried to call off your dog?" 
 
 On any such complex subject as this, however, 
 Rose was dumb. After waiting a minute, Stiles 
 tried to help her again. 
 
 "I'm going to talk plainly," he began. "Have 
 you got it into your head, in view of Queen Vic- 
 toria and Pullar and all that rarefied bunch, that 
 Eksberger and Baumgarten " 
 
 "Go on, say it," interrupted Rose. 
 
 "Say what?" 
 
 "Eksberger and Baumgarten and I " 
 
 "I won't say it," replied Stiles, flatly. 
 
 "You might as well. It's true." 
 
 "That Eksberger and Baumgarten " insisted 
 Stiles. 
 
 "Are about as welcome in this town," finished 
 Rose, curtly, "as smallpox, and neither of them 
 has brains enough to see it. I have." 
 
 She left him rather flat, but Stiles had courage 
 to ask, "Did you tell him that? Eksberger?" 
 
 Rose looked at the figure on the piazza, then 
 held out her hands helplessly. "Don't you know 
 him by this time?" she asked. "Of course I 
 couldn't tell him in so many words. I don't think 
 he would have believed it, even if I had. 
 
 "Of course, Charlie is an awfully nice fellow " 
 she added. 
 
 "I understand that," interrupted Stiles, quickly. 
 He paused thoughtfully, and then asked, "What 
 did he say?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 203 
 
 Rose smiled. "He said, 'I get you, Steve, I get 
 you,' and he didn't get me at all. He spent the 
 rest of the time asking me to marry him," she 
 added, ruefully. "You both seem to think that 
 would help matters." 
 
 The lines around Stiles 's mouth grew deeper as 
 they had the evening before when they had talked 
 in front of the fireplace. "Do you mind if I 
 smoke?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, very much," replied Rose, pettishly. 
 
 Stiles lit his pipe nevertheless. "I want to tell 
 you something," he said. "You mentioned small- 
 pox. The smallpox those people are afraid of is 
 right here beside you." 
 
 She gave him the tiny lift of the eyebrows that 
 allowed him to go on, and he told her the story of 
 the real Crater ghost, the story that Pullar had 
 told him that morning. He did not spare himself 
 or his family. In fact, being Stiles, he made it 
 rather worse than it need have been. She had seen 
 just enough the evening before to know that he 
 spoke the truth, and she listened quietly, never 
 taking her eyes from the ground. She did not even 
 lift them when Stiles had finished. 
 
 "A pretty story," he added, bitterly, to draw 
 some response. 
 
 "It is not very nice," she answered, candidly. 
 Still she did not look up, and Stiles insisted: 
 
 "So you see who is really not wanted." 
 
 She did not answer, and he asked her again, 
 "Don't you?"
 
 204 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "It's not the same thing," she said, curtly, 
 and, as usual, she spoke the truth. "What are 
 you going to do?" she asked, at last. 
 
 "I'm going to do the same thing that you did," 
 he answered. "I'm going to clear out." 
 
 "Then you do admit that I ought to have gone?" 
 she asked, quickly. 
 
 "I admit that both of us are more or less 
 sensitive," replied Stiles, "and that neither one 
 of us, guilty or not guilty, has any desire to dis- 
 turb the peace and calm of profound and ordered 
 society. Do you happen to recall that I just 
 asked you to marry me?" 
 
 "You didn't ask me. You said that you were 
 trying to make up your mind whether you dared 
 to or not." 
 
 "Very well, I dare. Will you?" 
 
 Rose laughed. "Mr. Stiles, people don't marry 
 that way." 
 
 "Neither do people lose automobiles in the 
 ground; neither do people find copper-mines in 
 their back yards; neither do people give house 
 parties to leading ladies whom they have never 
 seen before." 
 
 "And don't know when they do see them," con- 
 cluded Rose. "Mr. Stiles, why do you want to 
 marry me?" 
 
 "People do, don't they?" 
 
 "Sometimes," she admitted. "Would we have 
 to live here with the ghosts? Your family rather 
 goes in for cutting brides' throats, doesn't it?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 205 
 
 "Strangling, strangling," corrected Stiles. 
 "Don't make us any messier than we are." But 
 as he spoke Rose clutched his arm in a grip of 
 terror. 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 In her clutch Stiles became rigid. They sat in 
 silence, and then, from the cellar behind them, 
 crawling up their very spines, came a deep, mut- 
 tering voice, "Madre, Madre, Madre!" 
 
 Even in daylight it was terrifying. Even Stiles 
 felt his hands grow cold. Then he laughed, or 
 tried to laugh. 
 
 "It's Mrs. Fields, but how the" 
 
 He had looked up and seen Mrs. Fields coming 
 out of the house, the perpetual basket of clothes 
 under her arm. Rose, in terror, was still clutch- 
 ing his arm and drawing away. He looked back 
 at the cellar, but heard nothing more. 
 
 "I think we'd better go," whispered Rose, and 
 Stiles allowed her to draw him across the lawn 
 to the house. 
 
 "Well, friends and fellow-countrymen," ex- 
 claimed Baumgarten, in a loud voice as he saw 
 them coming, but Stiles held up his hand. 
 
 "Sst!" he cautioned, and then beckoned. 
 
 Baumgarten looked at Eksberger and Eksberger 
 looked at Baumgarten. At last the former got 
 up and the latter followed. In obedience to Stiles's 
 gestured cautions, they tiptoed across the lawn, 
 while Rose rather skirted the porch for protection. 
 
 At the rampart, Stiles held his finger to his lips
 
 206 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 in a final caution, and the three looked down at 
 the hole. For a minute they heard nothing, then 
 came a deep, mumbling voice, "Mad', Madre!" 
 
 "Jove!" whispered Eksberger, and Stiles cau- 
 tioned him again. Motioning the others to stay 
 where they were, he hastened across the lawn. 
 
 "Mrs. Fields," he said, "I want you to come 
 here a moment." 
 
 Mrs. Fields calmly finished hanging a towel 
 before she gave any sign that she heard, then she 
 followed him to the rampart. 
 
 "Mrs. Fields," said Stiles, firmly, and speaking 
 very close to her ear, "do you speak Spanish?" 
 
 He pointed into the cellar, and at that moment 
 came two deep voices at once. All three of the 
 men looked at her and she looked at the hole. 
 
 "Maybe I do and maybe I don't," she replied, 
 "but I shouldn't say that was Spanish."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 "TF you can keep butter down there, why can't 
 
 * you keep cows?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields gazed fiercely at the group standing 
 around the entrance to the old mine shaft and 
 demanded a flaw in her logic. 
 
 "The container for the thing contained," mur- 
 mured Stiles, softly. "What is true of the part is 
 true of the whole." But Mrs. Fields did not hear 
 him, and the others were too intent on amazing 
 facts to have time for abstract excursions. 
 
 "Cows," exclaimed Eksberger, looking down at 
 the hole. "Are there cows down there?" A look 
 of incredulity spread over his face. "Say," he 
 said, "don't try to tell me that Bugby's steers 
 are still there." 
 
 "I don't try to tell you anything," retorted the 
 housekeeper, with a fierceness which was almost 
 witchlike, "except that no Bugby or anybody else 
 had a claim to a hoof or a horn." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, how many are there?" de- 
 manded Eksberger. 
 
 "Four," replied Mrs. Fields, her lip trembling, 
 "and a three days' calf. It was him that was
 
 208 
 
 talking Spanish," she had to add, however, with 
 a twitch in the lines of her face which only made 
 her expression the grimmer. "The quilt I'm will- 
 ing to pay for." 
 
 "They are your cows, then?" asked Stiles. 
 
 Mrs. Fields looked at him as if the issue had 
 come to a head at last. "They most certainly air 
 my cows. Did the judge want to think I was work- 
 ing for nothing the last four years?" 
 
 Eksberger and Baumgarten looked at Stiles as 
 if this were a matter which he understood; and 
 he did, to a certain extent. His talk with Pullar 
 had prepared him for developments such as this, 
 but it was hardly a matter that he wished to re- 
 open. He stood gazing down at the hole in the 
 cellar, saying nothing, but Mrs. Fields was deter- 
 mined to have it out on the spot. 
 
 "I hain't any papers, but I'm willing to go to 
 law on it before I'll give them cows up. The calf 
 is mine, anyway." 
 
 ' ' Nobody is going to take your cows away from 
 you, Mrs. Fields," said Stiles, quietly. "How 
 long have you had them down there?" 
 
 "When did you come?" parried his housekeeper. 
 
 "Three weeks ago," answered Stiles. 
 
 "Well, then, they've been there two weeks." 
 She still looked at him with lingering suspicion, 
 but in her queer, crooked old mind honesty fought 
 with defiance. "You come on a Tuesday and they 
 went in there the following Saturday. I had 'em 
 up in the woods for a month while the judge was
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 209 
 
 counting the towels and winding up the estate, 
 but after you come it was too far to go up there 
 nights." 
 
 Stiles looked at the fierce little figure and there 
 came to his mind the pitiful picture of that frail 
 old woman stealing out at night and trudging her 
 bitter, determined way through the dark, silent 
 woods to care for and shield her one little property. 
 Her mountaineer ancestors, guarding in secret 
 their flocks and herds from Saracen bands, could 
 have done no better. 
 
 "Look here," he said, suddenly, Eksberger or 
 no Eksberger, Baumgarten or no Baumgarten. 
 "Did my uncle leave you anything in his will?" 
 
 "Your uncle never made no will. You ought to 
 know that." 
 
 Stiles hung his head, but, like Mrs. Fields, he 
 wanted to have it out now. 
 
 "And for four years he never paid you a cent?" 
 
 For the first time since he had known her Mrs. 
 Fields visibly softened. "He was a man accus- 
 tomed to using his money what money the judge 
 let him have." 
 
 "So you took the cows?" 
 
 "The first year he told me to call the Clark cow 
 my own, and after that they wasn't much said 
 about it. They was another spotted heifer that 
 was still his, but that died last fall of being 
 bloated." 
 
 "But what I don't get," broke in Eksberger, 
 "is how you ever got them down there."
 
 210 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 He spoke loud enough so that Mrs. Fields heard 
 him and she turned to him with a snort. "They's 
 plenty o' ways if you only know them." 
 
 Stiles hastened to intervene 
 
 "Would you be willing to show us?" he asked, 
 gently, but, while the forced strain was telling on 
 Mrs. Fields, she still managed to summon one 
 last show of fierceness. 
 
 "That's understood, then, that the cows is 
 mine?" 
 
 "Full and free, without let or restraint, without 
 secret covenant or implied reservation," Stiles 
 answered, with a smile, "and before two witnesses 
 three," he amended, as Rose, seeing that none 
 of her companions had been eaten alive, slowly 
 conquered her fear and came across the lawn. 
 
 "And the calf, too?" insisted Mrs. Fields. 
 
 "The calf, too." 
 
 "Come on, then." 
 
 Rose met the group returning to the main 
 house under the trudging lead of the little old 
 woman, and her face implied a question. 
 
 "Fall in," called Eksberger, gaily. "We're 
 going to explore the mine." 
 
 As if she had hardly heard him, Rose looked 
 ,at Stiles and he repeated Eksberger's exact words. 
 "There's no danger at all," he added, and, timor- 
 ously, Rose walked along with them. 
 
 In her kitchen Mrs. Fields lit a lantern and led 
 the way through the hall to the cellar stairs, 
 where she turned.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 211 
 
 "This ain't the way I got them in," she ex- 
 plained, laconically. 
 
 She led her explorers down the rickety stairway, 
 and, turning at the bottom, held up the lantern 
 while they followed, Rose last of all. As they left 
 the main floor they were met by a smell of mold 
 and their faces were brushed by cobwebs. Rose 
 shivered, but kept on bravely. 
 
 The cellar floor was of dirt and wavelike in its 
 levels, but sooty windows helped out the lantern, 
 and Stiles with his party looked around. There 
 was little to see except the base of the immense 
 chimney which filled a considerable part of the 
 cellar. Along the walls were innumerable crocks 
 and earthen jars of all sorts and shapes, and a 
 rusted machine of which not even Mrs. Fields knew 
 the purpose. "I got them in there," she said, 
 and pointed to the closed door of the hatchway. 
 
 Indeed, relieved of her secret, Mrs. Fields was 
 actually garrulous. A brisk and almost hysterical 
 amiability had come over the dour and defiant 
 woman who had waited grudgingly on Stiles for 
 three weeks. Was it relief? he wondered. Had 
 the guilty knowledge of those four pitiful cows 
 hidden under their feet been gnawing at her vitals 
 ever since his arrival, furnishing her with the 
 source of a mental turmoil as great, in its homely 
 way, as Lady Macbeth's, transforming her from 
 a harmless, gossipy woman-of -all-work to a hostile 
 old crone? It could be. Four cows to her meant 
 the prop of old age.
 
 2i2 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Behind the chimney, the cellar continued under 
 an ell, a space without windows, and here in the 
 floor the lantern showed a slanting passage lead- 
 ing into a gaping hole. Beside it were big piles of 
 dirt. 
 
 "Why, it's fresh!" exclaimed Baumgarten, 
 leaning down and examining it in the light of the 
 lantern. 
 
 Mrs. Fields stood still and said nothing while 
 Baumgarten took up a shovel. 
 
 "Some one's been digging here." 
 
 The old woman smiled, a thing Stiles had never 
 before seen her do. "A cow's a pretty big ani- 
 mal," she replied. 
 
 Baumgarten straightened himself and looked at 
 her, his hands on his hips. It was a mannerism of 
 his, one of his detestable mannerisms. One would 
 never have believed that it could be noble, but 
 it was at that moment. It was an attitude of 
 utter respect. At the sight of those huge piles 
 of dirt and the sight of that little old woman, 
 bent and frail in the light of the lantern, the 
 pompous, well-fed New-Yorker had seen, in its 
 every atom of pathos, the picture that Stiles had 
 seen the moment before. 
 
 "Well, my gosh!" he said, slowly, and of that, 
 too, every syllable was laden with pure respect. 
 
 Before them the blackness of the gaping hole 
 apparently led into the base of the wall. 
 
 "But some hole was there?" suggested Stiles. 
 
 "Oh yes, there's always be'n a hole," replied
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 213 
 
 Mrs. Fields with the same willingness, "one that 
 you could go in with stooping. The frost broke it 
 in, I guess, or perhaps boys did it long ago. We 
 used to keep butter to cool there and your uncle 
 used it for for things he wanted but it was too 
 small for a cow." 
 
 "And you shoveled it out?" said Stiles. 
 
 "The wall was broke anyway," said Mrs. Fields, 
 fearfully. 
 
 She turned the wick of the lantern higher and 
 led the way into the tunnel. It was here that the 
 old woman had evidently done her heroic and 
 secret digging, for the passage sloped very steeply 
 for ten or twelve feet through new, fresh earth so 
 soft that the explorers sank into it to their ankles, 
 while once a sifting of loam came tumbling down 
 off the walls. Baumgarten, who was in the lead 
 after the housekeeper, stopped fearfully. 
 
 "It won't fall," said Mrs. Fields, turning. "The 
 top's just the same as it always was. I only dug 
 out the bottom." 
 
 At the end of the slope they came suddenly into 
 a large subterranean gallery where the footing was 
 hard. Mrs. Fields stopped with the lantern and 
 the others gathered around her. Here they could 
 stand erect and, looking up, they saw that the 
 top and the sides were held up by hand-hewed 
 beams set close together. Stiles looked back the 
 way they had come. 
 
 "How long did that take you?" he asked. 
 
 "Only four nights," she replied.
 
 2i 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Stiles and Baumgarten looked at each other and 
 the latter shook his head in despair. Rose, who 
 had come through the tunnel clinging to Stiles, 
 slipped one hand through his arm and one through 
 Eksberger's. With a little shudder, she drew them 
 both close to her for protection as she had done the 
 first night. Mrs. Fields held the lantern over her 
 head and its light brought out weirdly the wonder- 
 ing, upturned faces. 
 
 What a band to gather in that dank gallery of a 
 lost colonial mine to unearth by flickering lantern- 
 light the marks of men forgotten a hundred years ! 
 Eksberger the trumpet of Broadway, Baum- 
 garten the ponderous and immaculate salesman, 
 Rose the dainty and fragile comedienne all the 
 picture of utter sophistication, but all now sub- 
 dued and with faces transformed by awe and 
 wonder. 
 
 Stiles reached over his head and touched one of 
 the beams gingerly. The surface, which still bore 
 the marks of the adz, was hard enough, but it 
 gave to his touch and showed that the heart of the 
 wood was soft and rotted. 
 
 "This must have been the end of a sap," he 
 said. He looked back toward the cellar. "I don't 
 know much about mining, but I shouldn't have 
 looked for copper so near the surface." 
 
 "I don't guess they knew very much about it 
 themselves," volunteered Mrs. Fields in her new 
 sociability. "My father's grandfather, he was a 
 miner, and my father always told about hearing
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 215 
 
 him say that all the copper he ever see would go 
 in a four-quart pail." 
 
 It occurred to Stiles that such a rush of confi- 
 dence had better be drawn on. It might never 
 come again. 
 
 "Mrs. Fields," he said, "the judge told me that 
 your family was Spanish." 
 
 Mrs. Fields grunted. "That's what they say. I 
 don't know whether it's so or not. My father, he 
 might have known." 
 
 Stiles looked at Rose, then at Baumgarten, 
 then at Eksberger. The lantern-light was strong 
 enough, but their faces brought no response, no 
 indication that they saw anything strange in the 
 statement. At this new wonder, he realized, he 
 must marvel alone. 
 
 Only a few, few years before, this woman's fa- 
 thers had lived in the Pyrenees. Before the Moors, 
 before the Goths, before the Romans, before the 
 Phenicians, before the Celts, before the first faint 
 traces of history itself, her race had established 
 itself, and, through all the millenniums of wars and 
 migrations in Europe, had bitterly kept its purity 
 intact. A hundred years, fifty, this side of the 
 water, and even the memory had been lost. With- 
 out a struggle, the Basque had become plain 
 Yankee. Even the name had been stunted. A 
 nasal Inchgerry was all that remained of it now. 
 
 Stiles looked at the others standing around him, 
 their upturned faces greenish pale in the lantern- 
 light. For that matter what did any one of them 
 
 15
 
 216 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 know of his heritage? What did Eksberger, what 
 did Baumgarten, both Americans, unable to 
 speak a syllable of another tongue? Could either 
 one have told with certainty where his family had 
 lived three generations before? What had he 
 known himself or cared until the death of the 
 last of a fading line had brought him back to close 
 the book on a name he did not even bear ? Except 
 for that accident he would have been just like 
 the others, living, smugly, a life of which the very 
 roots did not go back of yesterday. On the other 
 hand, the judge knew. The judge saw as living 
 figures men who had died before this country was 
 born Solomon Crater, the massacreed uncle, the 
 West Injy merchants. But the judge, for all his 
 tradition, for all his background, how was his 
 life the richer? Where was his culture from Har- 
 vard? Where was the thrill of his shipwreck near 
 Singapore? Where was his romance of the days 
 of the forty-niners? Wherein even did he speak 
 purer English than Eksberger? The judge? As 
 Baumgarten would have said, with a shrug, 
 "There you are!" 
 
 "But where are the cows?" asked Eksberger, 
 suddenly. 
 
 "They're here just a piece," replied Mrs. Fields. 
 "The rest is easy. Don't step on the beams; 
 they're soft." 
 
 She picked up the lantern and led the way 
 down the passage in which the timbers arched 
 overhead like the ribs and deck beams of a ship.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 217 
 
 At intervals one or two lay fallen. She rounded 
 a curve and, for a second, the light of the lantern 
 came to them only by reflection. 
 
 "It smells like the circus," said Eksberger. 
 
 "That's them," replied Mrs. Fields. "Soo, 
 Blacky!" 
 
 In a larger underground chamber around the 
 curve the four cows were standing, chewing their 
 cuds with the nonchalance of domestic animals, 
 perfectly unconcerned so long as they were fed. 
 With a proprietorship which was mounting to 
 pride, Mrs. Fields held the lantern over the tail 
 of the farthest. She looked at the visitors ex- 
 pectantly and Rose followed Stiles at the safe dis- 
 tance from the animal's heels. 
 
 "The darling!" she exclaimed, her eyes bright- 
 ening in the lantern-light. Between the last cow 
 and the wall, a little black head looked up at her 
 in friendly impudence and widespread little black 
 legs tottered in front of her. Suddenly she burst 
 into a laugh. "What in the world has he got on ?" 
 
 Mrs. Fields looked at Stiles. "It was tore any- 
 way," she said. "I thought you'd cotched me 
 that night. If you'd come three or four minutes 
 later, you would have." 
 
 "If I'd come three or four minutes later," re- 
 plied Stiles, "you might have been shot." He 
 picked up the corner of a pink padded quilt which 
 was tied with a girth of bed-ticking around the 
 little black calf. "You're welcome to it," he 
 said. "What else is there here?"
 
 2i8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 The vault in which they were standing had evi- 
 dently been used for some sort of headquarters, 
 possibly the head of the shaft, for the top was 
 still ceiled with planks, while rotted boards 
 crumbled into a sort of red dust under foot. 
 
 "This is as far as it goes," replied Mrs. Fields, 
 " leastways as far as it goes now. The rest is 
 water. Better not go there," she called, sudden- 
 ly. "You'll break your neck!" 
 
 With his usual talent for exploration, Eksberger 
 had started strolling nonchalantly around the 
 cavern, but he stopped with a start at the house- 
 keeper's voice. One scare was enough from that 
 mine. With a willingness almost effusive, how- 
 ever, Mrs. Fields picked up the lantern and walked 
 to his side. 
 
 "Careful, now," she warned, "if you want to 
 see it. Don't git ahead of me." 
 
 On the opposite side of the chamber to that by 
 which they had entered was the rotted frame of 
 a broad, heavy doorway with two planks propped 
 crisscross to bar it. Mrs. Fields took these down, 
 and, holding the lantern at arm's-length before 
 her, she shuffled through the doorway, not lifting 
 her feet from the ground, while, inch by inch, the 
 others followed. For eight or ten feet from the 
 doorway the footing sloped moderately and then, 
 with a jerk, the housekeeper stopped. At their 
 feet, like the mouth of a funnel, yawned inky 
 blackness. The old woman picked up a chunk 
 of dirt and tossed it off into space. With a vel-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 219 
 
 vety, uncanny silence it vanished from sight, while 
 the faces in the lantern-light, leaning over Mrs. 
 Fields 's outstretched arm, waited tense and ex- 
 pectant. Five seconds passed and then came a 
 faint hollow splash. 
 
 "Water," said Baumgarten, significantly. 
 
 "I should say it was water," exclaimed Eksber- 
 ger, in a dry voice, "and except for the grace of 
 Heaven it might have been me." 
 
 "Don't, Charlie," said Rose, with a shudder. 
 "Hadn't we better get back? It might fall or 
 something." 
 
 "If it hasn't fallen for a hundred years I guess 
 it won't fall now," replied Mrs. Fields. 
 
 She drew back her lantern from over the shaft 
 and turned, but as she did so, Eksberger, crowding 
 forward, made a sudden motion to throw an old 
 piece of iron and struck her arm violently. 
 
 "There, you've done it!" she cried. 
 
 The lantern flashed up and down and then there 
 was utter darkness.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 /CURIOUSLY, it was Baumgarten, Baumgar- 
 ^> ten the pampered sybarite, who rose to the 
 crisis. 
 
 "Don't any one stir an inch," he said, in a low, 
 firm voice. 
 
 Before that, there had been an instant of light 
 and dark and of confusion in which nobody had 
 been quite sure what had happened. After that, 
 they had found themselves standing in damp, 
 pitchy blackness, hearing one another's breathing. 
 
 Even when Baumgarten's voice came out at 
 their shoulders, no one else dared to speak. Each 
 waited for some one else to ask the terrible ques- 
 tion. Finally, from sheer tension, Rose began to 
 sob, softly. Some one else began to stir. After 
 that, without asking, they all seemed to know 
 that they all were still there. Stiles suddenly dis- 
 covered that he had been standing with eyes 
 tight shut. He opened them slowly, cautiously, 
 but it made no difference. It was just as black 
 as before, but, curiously, with his eyes open, he 
 seemed able to hear better and smell. He could 
 now smell distinctly the cold, swamp air from the 
 shaft at their feet.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 221 
 
 Again Baumgarten took command. "Light a 
 match, somebody." 
 
 There was another silence and again all felt a 
 foreboding of what would prove to be the awful 
 truth. In a queer, strained voice, Eksberger 
 spoke what they knew was the common fate: 
 "I haven't got one. Have you?" 
 
 Nobody answered and Eksberger broke out in 
 a sort of falsetto, "Stiles, light a match," and then, 
 as Stiles did not answer, he cried out in fright: 
 "Stiles! Stiles!" 
 
 "Yes, yes, I'm here," answered Stiles. He had 
 become conscious of a faint scent from Rose's 
 gown and he had been wondering whether it would 
 reassure her or only startle her the more to touch 
 her. After he had spoken he did put out his 
 hand and touched her shoulder. Like a child 
 she came into his arm and he held her. He 
 could feel her heart beating rapidly. There was 
 another moment of that uncertain groping and 
 then Baumgarten could be heard in a husky 
 voice : 
 
 "I think I've got just one, but for the love of 
 Heaven don't anybody move." 
 
 With ears strained, they waited ages while 
 Baumgarten fumbled through his pockets. They 
 could hear his stiff collar creak as he moved his 
 arms. "Here it is," he said at last. "Now give 
 me the lantern." 
 
 "The lantern?" cried Mrs. Fields. "The lan- 
 tern is down the hole!"
 
 222 
 
 A sinking feeling seemed to follow. Baumgar- 
 ten grunted at last: 
 
 "Well, anyway, we'll make the most of it." 
 
 He could be heard making motions to strike 
 the match, but Stiles stopped him. 
 
 "Wait a moment," he said. "That match is 
 precious. Before we light it, let's find out where 
 we all are." 
 
 "I'm here," said Miss Fuller, speaking two 
 inches under his chin. 
 
 "Who's that?" asked Stiles, as his groping 
 hand touched a coat-sleeve. 
 
 ' ' That's me, ' ' replied Eksberger. ' ' Here's Stuffy. 
 Where's Mrs. Fields?" 
 
 "All right now," commanded Stiles. "Keep 
 hold of hands." 
 
 "Are you ready?" called Baumgarten. They 
 could feel him poised. 
 
 "All ready," said Stiles. 
 
 The breathing became strained again as they 
 waited nervously for the brief moment of light. 
 Once, twice, they heard the match rub over cloth 
 and then a muttered word "Hell!" 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Eksberger, pet- 
 tishly. 
 
 Baumgarten did not reply and the match again 
 rubbed over cloth. "I thought so," he said at 
 last. 
 
 "What's the matter?'* insisted Eksberger. 
 
 "It's a safety match. I knew there was some- 
 thing wrong," muttered Baumgarten after a mo-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 223 
 
 ment, "because I never carry matches in that 
 pocket, never carry 'em loose anyway." 
 
 They stood helpless, waiting for any suggestion. 
 
 "If I were only sure just where the door is," 
 complained Stiles. 
 
 "It's right on my left," said Eksberger. 
 
 "Well, is it?" insisted Stiles. "I'm all turned 
 round." 
 
 "Rose must be nearest," suggested Baum- 
 garten. "She came in last." 
 
 "Just the same," said Stiles, "it won't do to 
 take any false steps. We can't be a foot away 
 from that shaft." 
 
 "I think I can find it," said Mrs. Fields, "if 
 you hold on to me." 
 
 "Are there any other holes?" asked Stiles. 
 
 "Yes, two," replied Mrs. Fields, "but not here. 
 I know where they be. You hold me up and I'll 
 try it." 
 
 Feeling her way over faces and coats, she made 
 her way, each man passing her up the line until 
 she reached Stiles. "Now then," she said, with 
 assurance, "but take little steps. Don't stir up 
 the dirt." 
 
 With one hand clutching her arm and with the 
 other supporting Rose, Stiles followed her, inch 
 by inch. Behind him Eksberger held his arm 
 and Baumgarten clutched Eksberger's. 
 
 "This would be funny," said Eksberger, "if" 
 
 "Well, it isn't funny," interrupted Baumgarten. 
 "You save your jokes until we get on safe ground."
 
 224 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Shuffling and testing the ground with his feet, 
 half carrying Rose, it seemed to Stiles fifty yards, 
 before his foot struck something hard. 
 
 "What's that?" he exclaimed. 
 
 "The door sill," replied Mrs. Fields. "Step 
 high and then you're all right." 
 
 The inner chamber was blacker if possible than 
 the head of the shaft, but the air was better and 
 they felt almost as if they had reached home. 
 
 "Are we safe?" asked Rose, as she felt Stiles 
 relax. 
 
 "Safe and sound," he replied. The girl slipped 
 out of his arm, but fumbled her hand through it 
 in the now familiar way. 
 
 Behind them, Baumgarten and Eksberger could 
 be sensed moving around, but not one of them 
 could see six inches ahead. The blackness was so 
 oppressive, so different from the darkness of a 
 room, that they felt themselves groping as if to 
 ward off something, even when standing still. 
 
 "Now you stay there," commanded Mrs. 
 Fields, "and don't move hand or foot." 
 
 A minute later her voice could be heard from 
 an incredible distance. "All right, I've found it." 
 
 "Found what?" called Rose, eagerly. 
 
 "The entrance to the passage," explained 
 Baumgarten. 
 
 "Stand still," commanded the housekeeper, 
 sharply, and with that parting word the shuffling 
 and rustling of her movements suddenly ceased. 
 
 ' ' Mrs. Fields !" called Stiles, but no answer came.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 225 
 
 With her departure, a loneliness and a vague- 
 ness more dread than ever seemed to settle down 
 in the vault and with it a silence. Each one felt 
 that all of the others had gone and hesitated to 
 say the first word. After a moment, out of the 
 cavern, came a slow breathing. 
 
 "What's that?" asked Baumgarten in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "The cows," replied Stiles. 
 
 "Oh," muttered Baumgarten. "I'd forgotten 
 they were there." 
 
 There came another long silence and then Eks- 
 berger spoke with tentative cheerfulness. "You 
 there, Rose?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm here." 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 "Where are you, Stuffy?" 
 
 "I'm here." 
 
 Some quality in the black, echoing void seemed 
 to change their voices from place to place, for, 
 when Eksberger spoke again, he seemed to have 
 moved from behind Stiles to far off on his left. 
 
 "Well, anyway," he exclaimed, decidedly, "I'm 
 going to sit down. No, I'm not, either," he added, 
 hastily. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 "Wet and cold as ice. Say," he suggested in 
 a lower voice, "suppose she never came back." 
 
 "Don't worry," answered Baumgarten from 
 some other point in black space. "She may not care 
 about us, but she'd never abandon those cows."
 
 226 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "I know, but suppose she fell down a hole 
 herself." 
 
 "Oh, don't," begged Rose, almost sobbing, and 
 Baumgarten intervened. 
 
 "Cut it out, Charlie, cut it out." 
 
 Unconsciously they were relaxing, becoming ac- 
 customed to that uncanny conversation, questions 
 and answers heard in familiar voices, but shot out 
 of changing points of the darkness from figures 
 invisible. There followed a very long silence, but 
 a silence more tolerable, and then Eksberger's 
 voice could be heard saying, musingly: 
 
 "I wonder if cows would get blind if you left 
 them down in a place like this long enough?" 
 
 With the fatuous earnestness of people stranded, 
 uneasy, and helpless, their voices discussed the 
 idea for minutes. One who has wondered what 
 people would do if suddenly volleyed out of their 
 usual world, cast on a desert island, or, for 
 that matter, translated to another era, would do 
 well to study that moment down in that damp, 
 pitchy mine, when once the first wave of fright 
 had subsided. 
 
 "I knew a man once," said Eksberger's voice. 
 "He was a comedy juggler." 
 
 Even in the solid darkness, Baumgarten could 
 be felt bristling with a sudden and jealous interest. 
 
 "Who was that?" he asked, sharply. 
 
 "Nobody you know," replied Eksberger's 
 voice, teasingly. "He was one of the 'Juggling 
 Jordans' his real name was McCarthy but he
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 227 
 
 lost three fingers in the revolving door of the post- 
 office in Montreal, and then he couldn't be a jug- 
 gler any more, so he went to training beagles." 
 
 ' ' Training what ?" asked Rose from Stiles's elbow. 
 
 "Beagles," replied Eksberger. "What did you 
 think I said?" 
 
 "I thought you said eagles." 
 
 4 ' Eagles ! ' ' retorted Eksberger, scornfully. ' ' How 
 could he train eagles?" 
 
 "I don't see why he couldn't train eagles just 
 as well as he could train beagles. What are 
 beagles?" 
 
 "Dogs," replied Eksberger from the height of 
 superior knowledge. 
 
 ' ' Well, wha t did he train them to do ? Tricks ?" 
 
 "Tricks?" snorted Eksberger. "Of course not. 
 He trained them to hunt." 
 
 "Hunt what?" persisted Rose. 
 
 "Why, why " answered Eksberger. "I don't 
 know. What do beagles hunt, anyway?" 
 
 "Search me," said Baumgarten, speaking ap- 
 parently from a comfortable, stationary attitude 
 in the darkness. "What do they hunt, Stiles?" 
 
 "Foxes or something, don't they?" suggested 
 Stiles, startled at his own sudden bass voice. "I 
 never saw one except in a picture. All I know 
 is that they always wear white gaiters when they 
 hunt them." 
 
 "The beagles?" asked Rose. 
 
 "Oh, say!" interrupted Eksberger, impatiently. 
 "Who's telling this story, anyway?"
 
 228 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 4 'Go ahead," said Rose, demurely. "Juggling 
 Jordan lost three fingers in the post-office and 
 went to training beagles in white gaiters. What 
 then?" 
 
 "I've forgotten what I was going to say, 
 now," replied Eksberger. "What were we talk- 
 ing about?" 
 
 "About cows getting blind if you left them in a 
 mine long enough," suggested Stiles. 
 
 "Oh yes," Eksberger recalled. "That was it. 
 Well, this fellow used to do a trick in which he 
 caught five lighted candles between the fingers of 
 each hand." 
 
 "I see why he had to quit," suggested Baum- 
 garten, and then he added: "That must have 
 been some hand he lost. I've only got four spaces 
 in mine." 
 
 In the darkness Eksberger counted. "Well, any- 
 way, what difference does it make? Call it four. 
 The point was that he hadn't tried to do this trick 
 for four or five years, but one day he was going 
 out to his barn when a fellow came along with a " 
 
 "Listen!" whispered Rose, suddenly. "What 
 was that?" 
 
 Instantly all of them were listening intently. 
 At first they heard nothing, then two cows clashed 
 horns at the other side of the cavern. 
 
 "Cows," exclaimed Eksberger. "Well, any- 
 way " 
 
 "Keep still," whispered Rose. "It wasn't that. 
 I heard somebody talking."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 229 
 
 They stood in silence. 
 
 "There!" whispered Rose, and all of them heard 
 a faint crackling sound. 
 
 "It's Mrs. Fields," said Eksberger aloud, but 
 Baumgarten checked him roughly. "Keep still. 
 It's behind us." 
 
 In the darkness Rose pressed against Stiles, 
 while all of them strained their ears. There was 
 no doubt about it now. They did not dare move, 
 they did not dare even turn, but more and more 
 distinctly, behind them, came the crackling sound 
 as of some one walking over brush. 
 
 "I hear it !" whispered Eksberger, and distinctly 
 they heard a mumble of voices. Some one of them 
 stirred. 
 
 "Stand still!" ordered Baumgarten. 
 
 The crackling grew suddenly louder at their 
 backs and then a voice said so clearly that it 
 seemed to be right in the room: 
 
 "Twenty-five thousand dollars!"
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 A 5 the crackling had sounded nearer and nearer, 
 the little group in the cavern had, by some 
 process of gravitation, drawn in closer. Its 
 members found themselves touching one another, 
 seemingly counseling silence. Again the voice was 
 followed by crackling and then it sounded again, 
 this time over their heads. It was a casual voice, 
 speaking casually: 
 
 "It hasn't changed since I was a boy. The very 
 same rubbish is here." 
 
 Eksberger's face leaned across Stiles's. ' ' Pullar, ' ' 
 he whispered, but all of them knew it already. 
 ' ' I know where he is," Eksberger whispered. ' ' He's 
 in the old cellar. It can't be ten fecL" 
 
 "Sst!" ordered Baumgarten; but then came a 
 shout almost at their elbows "Hallooo!" a 
 pause and then a shout from far off "Hallooo!" 
 
 It was Eksberger's happy lot in life to assume 
 continually that he had discovered things already 
 perfectly obvious to every one else. "Do you get 
 it?" he whispered. "That's what he's doing. 
 He's shouting down here. He said that he used to 
 count nine. I'm going to answer."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 231 
 
 ''Shut up!" hissed Baumgarten. 
 
 For a moment it did seem as if Eksberger had 
 disclosed their position. For a moment there was 
 a silence and then a voice spoke, a woman's voice, 
 spoke precisely and a little impatiently: "You 
 must see how we feel about the whole matter, 
 Judge." 
 
 In recalling that moment afterward, three of 
 the four would have sworn that they looked at one 
 another and grinned, darkness or no darkness, but 
 whether the judge saw or not, they were never to 
 learn, for his voice was a mumble. 
 
 "We don't want to be unjust or hasty," went 
 on Mrs. Pullar, "but you must realize that all of 
 us have spent a great deal of pains and money up 
 here. We think of the town as our own. We dis- 
 covered it, in a manner of speaking." 
 
 It was too much for Eksberger. "What did I 
 tell you?" he whispered, exultantly, but no one 
 replied. They were listening too keenly, but a low 
 mumble from the judge was their only reward. 
 Mrs. Pullar herself must have moved, for after 
 that her voice, too, was only a mumble, then sud- 
 denly down it came clearly again: 
 
 "Isn't that how you all feel, Louise?" 
 
 "The question being," whispered Eksberger, 
 "who is Louise?" and this time nobody checked 
 him. They had all wondered that. 
 
 At last, slow and profound as that of a judge on 
 his bench, came the voice of the judge in the cellar 
 above : 
 
 16
 
 232 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "As to who discovered this place, ma'am, they 
 might be those as would want to dispute you." 
 
 "Good old judgie," whispered Eksberger. 
 
 "But, Judge, of course you know what I 
 mean." 
 
 "Yes," drawled the judge, slowly, "I know 
 what you mean." 
 
 There came a silence and, knowing the judge, 
 they could see him deliberate. 
 
 "They was a feller" his voice came at last 
 and Stiles chuckled aloud, for, as if he had been 
 on the spot, he could see Mrs. Pullar's impatient 
 tolerance "they was a feller come up to see me 
 one time with a prowject for doing away with the 
 locks on the Erie Canal. He was a nice feller, 
 too. His name was Spencer. Well," he broke 
 off, suddenly, "did you find him?" 
 
 The listeners below heard a crash on the debris 
 of the cellar above and then Pullar's voice, "No, 
 he's not there yet, but Mrs. Fields has come back, 
 and she says he'll be there in a minute." 
 
 "That's nice to know," whispered Eksberger, 
 but the use of his name so calmly up there had 
 given Stiles the strangest start of the whole after- 
 noon. It seemed such a ridiculous and yet such 
 an uncanny link between the sane world above 
 and that fantastic place in which they were stand- 
 ing below. It was like hearing people speak of you 
 after you were dead. Above them the voices were 
 sounding in mumbles again. Only from time to 
 time did a sentence come down with that strange
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 233 
 
 and almost magnified clearness. One came to 
 them finally in Pullar's voice, spoken with that 
 same incredible matter-of -f actness : 
 
 "Well, Judge, if you'll be good enough, I guess 
 we'd better go in and wait. You won't come 
 with us, dear?" 
 
 "Dear" evidently would not, although they 
 could not hear her say so, for the next thing they 
 heard was Pullar's voice: 
 
 "Why don't you and Louise take the car and 
 then send it back?" 
 
 There seemed to be reasons why not, for Pullar 
 gave in. "Well, be careful crossing the brook. 
 I'll be home for dinner." 
 
 There followed more crashing and then a long 
 silence. The group in the mine began to relax 
 and stir when there came a new voice, presumably 
 that of Louise: "Ooh, isn't it black? I'm going 
 to throw something in." 
 
 "Please, please," urged Mrs. Pullar's voice, and 
 her arguments evidently were sound for no 
 splash followed. Instead came Mrs. Pullar's half- 
 whining tones: "Bob is so unreasonable. He 
 ought to have done this two weeks ago. Now it 
 will cost us three times as much." 
 
 In the darkness Stiles started to move, but 
 Baumgarten checked him. To Stiles's amaze- 
 ment, he also had apparently been debating the 
 same ethical point. "Keep still," he whispered. 
 "We can't help it. If they don't want it heard, 
 they shouldn't say it."
 
 234 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 With some hesitation, Stiles fell back in his 
 place and, after a series of mumbles, Mrs. Pullar 
 could be heard again: 
 
 "Father was always in terror that some one 
 would try to start up the mine. They'd be fools 
 to do it, but just imagine what Eden would be 
 like all full of coal heaps and miners!" 
 
 Louise seemed to murmur a question, for Mrs. 
 Pullar replied: 
 
 "What? Oh no, the judge says he'll never do 
 that. He's the kind of man to let things run on 
 just as they are. It's not the mine so much we're 
 afraid of, but suppose that Mr. Eksberger really 
 did buy it." 
 
 There came a responsive murmur above and 
 Eksberger nudged Stiles. At least he nudged 
 somebody and it happened to be Stiles. Again 
 came the voice protesting: 
 
 "Well, I don't think it's nonsense at all, and 
 neither does Bob, and neither does Jack. The 
 judge doesn't seem to say much one way or the 
 other, but just imagine if once he should come 
 here and build " 
 
 Beside him, Stiles heard Eksberger chuckle so 
 loudly that he missed the rest of the sentence 
 above. The reply from the unknown Louise 
 came in the usual murmur and then Mrs. Pullar 
 cried out, indignantly: "What would it mean? 
 What would it mean if Mr. Eksberger once got a 
 foothold here? Why, don't you realize that 
 
 She had stopped for a moment, but, before she
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 235 
 
 could finish, Stiles had turned quickly and taken 
 a half-step toward the mouth of the shaft. He 
 threw back his head and shouted in deep, rolling 
 tones : 
 
 "Arma virumque cano!" 
 
 He waited a moment and then added in a slow, 
 mournful wail of utter despair: 
 
 "Lingua Toscana in bocca Romano," 
 
 Above them the group in the mine heard a 
 shriek and a crashing, another crashing and bump- 
 ing sounded right in the cavern, and then a light 
 flashed into the chamber. 
 
 "You scared the cattle," said Mrs. Fields. She 
 had come at the moment around the curve in the 
 gallery bearing not only two lanterns but indi- 
 vidual candles for the return trip. "Young Pullar 
 is up-stairs waiting to see you," she added. "His 
 wife and another lady is out looking down the 
 old cellar." 
 
 "I bet they're not there now," laughed Eks- 
 berger; then he turned to Stiles. "What did you 
 want to do that for? If you'd only kept quiet I 
 might have learned something about myself." 
 
 "You've said it. You might," answered Baum- 
 garten, gruffly. "Let's get out of here." 
 
 He took a lantern from Mrs. Fields and they fell 
 into line, but, with the rescue, Eksberger was in 
 high humor. 
 
 "Stuffy," he cried, from his place in the line as 
 they walked through the gallery, simple enough 
 in the lantern-light "Stuffy, you didn't get me.
 
 236 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 You don't know what's happened the last few 
 days. You don't know what those people are 
 scared of me for." 
 
 "I know a damn sight more than you think I 
 do," retorted Baumgarten. He had held the party 
 together largely by his own will the past hour and 
 his nerves were going. "Charlie," he added, "you 
 ought to hire a tutor so that you would get wise to 
 yourself." 
 
 Eksberger stopped and turned. "What do you 
 mean, get wise to myself?" 
 
 For reply, Baumgarten merely waved his hand. 
 "Hold up that candle. You're dripping the grease 
 all over your coat. 
 
 "Holy Moses!" he exclaimed with relief, a mo- 
 ment later, as, the last of the line, he burrowed his 
 way out of the tunnel, "I never thought that a 
 cellar would look sweet to me." 
 
 "Me, either," said Eksberger. "Let's get up. I 
 want to stand in the sunlight." 
 
 "You'll have to hurry if you want to do that," 
 remarked Mrs. Fields. "It's quarter to seven." 
 
 ' ' Quarter to seven ?" exclaimed Rose. ' 'And my 
 train went at six." She turned to Stiles quickly 
 and looked at him suspiciously. "Did you do that 
 on purpose?" 
 
 Stiles drew a long breath. "Hardly," he an- 
 swered. ' ' Not all of it, that is. ' ' 
 
 "Stiles," said Baumgarten, "if I thought that 
 you did any of it on purpose I'd throw you back 
 in that hole and seal up the entrance."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 237 
 
 "In the mean time," said Eksberger from the 
 foot of the stairs, "haven't you people been under- 
 ground long enough?" 
 
 "Don't wait for me," called Stiles, but he him- 
 self turned to his housekeeper. "Did you?" he 
 asked. "Did you tell Mr. Pullar where we were?" 
 
 Once back in a normal world, however, Mrs. 
 Fields seemed to have drawn back into her shell, 
 to give signs of her old taciturnity. 
 
 "I never was much of a hand to tell things," 
 she said, gruffly.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 WITH a curiosity which he had to admit was 
 not without its grain of gentle malice, Stiles 
 pushed on to the main floor of the house, but his 
 callers had gone and the manner of their going 
 could only be imagined. Baumgarten was in- 
 specting, with indifferent interest, the few dingy 
 pictures which adorned the walls of the study, 
 while Rose and Eksberger were standing outside 
 in the fading daylight. The sun, a gaudy and 
 dusty red, just showed a parting segment over 
 the dark, wooded mountainside which rose, a 
 sheer wall of black pines and rock faces, a mile to 
 the west. Eksberger tossed it a kiss. 
 
 "Good-by, old chap; you could shine all night 
 for all of me." 
 
 Rose was standing beside him with her arm 
 linked through his, but Stiles had learned that 
 the attitude with her was purely impersonal. 
 Indeed, as he came up himself, she held out the 
 other arm and completed the trio. Standing to- 
 gether, they watched the last rim of scarlet dis- 
 appear behind the dark mountain wall, which, 
 as the sun sank behind it, seemed to grow higher
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 239 
 
 and steeper, loomed suddenly drear and for- 
 midable. Stiles had watched that effect before 
 and thought that the Balkans must look like that. 
 Why Balkans he could not have told, except that 
 it seemed to suggest mountain fastnesses and 
 robber barons. 
 
 "What's the name of that mountain, Stiles?" 
 asked Eksberger, suddenly. 
 
 "Bald Mountain," replied his host, promptly. 
 
 "Why do they call it that?" asked Rose. 
 
 Stiles laughed. "I don't know that they do. 
 I just made that up. I never saw a region that 
 didn't have a Bald Mountain, so why not this 
 one?" 
 
 Such vagueness, however, did not appeal to an 
 active mind like the impresario's. "Seems to 
 me," he said, "you know mighty little about this 
 place of yours." 
 
 Stiles had to admit it, and the three lapsed into 
 another silence, while the dark shadow of the 
 mountain swept visibly down upon them. With 
 its coming the air grew perceptibly cooler. Little 
 fragments of mist began to form on the swamp- 
 land in the foreground and, as if obeying a leader's 
 baton, a glee club of frogs burst into a sleigh-bell 
 chorus. Scents, too, seemed suddenly awakened 
 by the coming of night a tart, cold dampness 
 from the swamp-land, slightly acid, and then a 
 faint suggestion of sweet grass. 
 
 It was a moment potent with a huge, sad beauty, 
 and it affected the three of them alike as they stood
 
 2 4 o CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 there staring toward the forbidding wall of moun- 
 tain, the manner of each unconsciously tuned to 
 the scene. The queer lights of the hour brought 
 out in Rose, more strongly, a fragile prettiness. 
 Her cheeks seemed slightly hollowed, her color 
 a little higher and, with a fine strand of hair 
 fallen over her face, she seemed more than usually 
 wistful. In that vast setting she was a pure 
 exotic, but, for that very reason, the artificial 
 daintiness of her face and dress made her, to 
 Stiles, a more strange and exciting note in the 
 picture. 
 
 For the sheer spell of the moment he feared 
 to break the silence and, besides that, he was in 
 dread that, at any minute, either Rose or Eksber- 
 ger would announce a decision to leave that night. 
 On the contrary, when Eksberger spoke, it was 
 quite to the opposite effect: 
 
 "Well, Stiles, I guess you've got us on your 
 hands for another night whether you want us or 
 not." 
 
 Stiles laughed. "I was afraid," he said, "that 
 you would try to think up some absurd way to 
 get back to town to-night. It would be very 
 lonely without you." 
 
 He spoke with such sincerity that even Eks- 
 berger responded: 
 
 "That's awfully white of you, old man," he 
 said, but, even at that, Stiles waited with some 
 anxiety for what Rose might say. 
 
 She said nothing, merely turned toward the
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 241 
 
 house with that look, it might have been called 
 sadness, it might have been called indifference, 
 that Stiles had come to recognize in her more and 
 more frequently. The more he saw of her the 
 more the girl seemed to live in a permanent mood 
 of reserve, perhaps, better, a mood of resignation, 
 and only at unusual moments to allow herself 
 to be forced out of it. It was as if she did not 
 find the world as a whole just to her liking, but 
 had learned from experience to be politic about 
 it. That was her attitude now as she turned 
 toward the house. If she had spoken she might 
 have said, "What else can we do?" That at least 
 was Stiles's analysis of her, and, to a man like 
 Stiles, his analysis of her was far more important 
 than what she might actually be. As a matter 
 of fact, when she did speak, it was not at all what 
 he had expected. 
 
 "How inviting that looks!" she exclaimed. 
 
 As they turned, a sudden warm bulb of light 
 had sprung up from the big study lamp and, as 
 they entered the room, a fire was beginning to 
 crackle on the hearth. Baumgarten rose from it, 
 puffing, his cuffs shot out from his coat sleeves, 
 a smudge of black on his cheek. 
 
 "I thought that would look good to you," he 
 said, with an air of proprietorship, and if there 
 had been an exotic poetry about the fragile Rose 
 in the face of the bleak mountain wall, there was, 
 equally, a homely prose about Baumgarten light- 
 ing a fire.
 
 242 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "But by the whim of fate," thought Stiles, as 
 he saw him, "there goes a family man." 
 
 "Where did you get the wood?" he asked, 
 aloud. 
 
 "There's about twenty cords of it stacked up 
 there in the shed," replied Baumgarten, brushing 
 the splinters and bits of bark from his coat. 
 "Do you mean to say that you have been in this 
 house for three weeks and never lighted a fire?" 
 
 "I never thought of it," answered the lord of 
 the manor, shamefaced. 
 
 "Good gosh, Stiles!" exclaimed Eksberger, 
 "what in the world have you been thinking of? 
 As near as I can make out you have been living 
 up here in a trance." 
 
 "That probably describes it," confessed Stiles. 
 
 Baumgarten could not take his proud eyes from 
 his fire. "What we ought to have now is a lot of 
 apples roasting in front of that and a jug of cider." 
 
 "Yes," mocked Eksberger, "and play guessing 
 games. From my point of view a Bronx cock- 
 tail would listen much better." 
 
 "That," said Stiles, "is one of the things of 
 which I have been thinking." 
 
 "Your sins are forgiven," answered Eksberger, 
 promptly. "Take me gently by the hand and 
 lead me thither. 
 
 "For the love of Mike, what do you call that?" 
 he asked a few moments later as Stiles came back 
 with a large glass fruit- jar and four full-sized 
 glasses.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 243 
 
 Stiles held the jar to the light and displayed its 
 misty orange contents. "That," he replied, "is 
 a proof of the Darwinian theory." 
 
 "I don't care what it's a proof of so long as it 
 has a kick," retorted Eksberger, as Stiles began 
 pouring the contents. ' ' Here, that 's enough for me. 
 That may look like cider, you know, but it isn't." 
 
 Rose, unlike her escort, had a habit of sticking 
 to the point. "What's Darwinian?" 
 
 Stiles held up the jar again. He, too, loved to 
 finish a theory. 
 
 "According to Darwin," he said, "all living 
 creatures adapt themselves to the limitations of 
 their surroundings. If they don't, they fail to 
 survive." 
 
 "In other words," interrupted Eksberger, "if 
 you hadn't learned to mix cocktails in a flower- 
 pot you wouldn't have survived. Is that it?" 
 
 Stiles laughed. "Darwin took volumes and 
 volumes to say just what you have said in one 
 sentence." 
 
 Eksberger turned quickly to Rose. "Now tell 
 me whether or not I'm a genius." 
 
 "You pay your press agent to do that," she 
 retorted. "Why should I do his work for him?" 
 
 "Crude, Rose, crude!" replied Eksberger, in 
 mock sorrow. He turned back to Stiles. "Now 
 that just shows you! Here I've tried to be a 
 father to this helpless girl shielded her, guarded 
 her, worked for her, and you see how she treats 
 me. What would Darwin call that?"
 
 244 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "He'd call it off, if he never got any more en- 
 couragement than you've ever got," suggested 
 Baumgarten. The tone of command which he 
 had acquired in the mine was still in his voice, 
 and Eksberger said no more on that subject. 
 With the others he stared at the rising flames of 
 the fire, but his buoyancy was unchecked. 
 
 "You know what we ought to do?" he began 
 at last. "We ought to get out those old papers 
 the judge brought back and see what we can 
 find." 
 
 Baumgarten looked at him suspiciously. ' ' What 
 old papers?" he asked. 
 
 For a moment Eksberger's eye danced merrily. 
 
 "No funny-business, now," warned Baumgar- 
 ten, and Eksberger saw that it was no use. 
 
 "I was going to try Stuffy with the old manu- 
 script," he said, and he told of his own downfall. 
 
 "You could have fooled me," admitted Baum- 
 garten. "I wouldn't have known one old paper 
 from another if you hadn't given yourself away." 
 
 "We won't fool you," promised Eksberger. 
 "These papers are real at least so far as we 
 know." 
 
 Rose, who had the keen ear of the party, raised 
 her head suddenly and they all heard a heavy 
 step on the piazza. A moment later a cheery voice 
 called, ' ' Good evening. ' ' 
 
 The lamp and the fire made all the world out- 
 side complete darkness, but, after a moment of 
 staring, Stiles could distinguish familiar outlines
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 245 
 
 beyond the screen door. "Come in, Judge," he 
 called. 
 
 The judge walked into the room. "That looks 
 hearty," he said, glancing down at the flames. 
 
 Baumgarten still held his glass in his hand and 
 Stiles looked at the judge, hesitating. He picked 
 up the fruit- jar tentatively. 
 
 "Judge, will you join us?" 
 
 The judge glanced at the jar and the glasses. 
 "Well," he said, slowly, "it's a curious thing. I 
 very seldom take anything to drink at all, but 
 when I do it's just at this time o' day." 
 
 Stiles laughed. ' ' I suppose, ' ' he suggested, ' ' that 
 to do the thing right, we really ought to have a 
 good mug of flip." 
 
 The judge shook his head. "Young man, flip 
 doesn't go with this season o' year. No," he went 
 on, in that almost professional tone into which he 
 slipped whenever reminiscence was started, ' ' there 
 'ain't be'n no flip in considerable time. You used 
 to see, now and then, what they called flip, but it 
 wa'n't flip. Flip, to be reel, needs pumpkin cider." 
 
 Eksberger surprised them all. "It sounds like 
 taverns and stage-coaches. Did you ever see a 
 show called 'She Stoops to Conquer'?" 
 
 Baumgarten winked at Stiles. "One of Zieg- 
 f eld's, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Go to hell!" retorted Eksberger in a rapid 
 whisper; but the judge, lost in his reverie, did not 
 even hear him. 
 
 "Ye-es, ye-es," he said, slowly, his eyes on the
 
 246 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 firelight, "they was plenty of it around the old 
 taverns. Captain Trumbull kept tavern here when 
 I was a boy, up beyond where the power plant is 
 now. They was a stage-coach driver named Rod- 
 ney in those days, a big man with a red face." 
 
 "From what you tell us, I imagine they all had 
 red faces," suggested Eksberger. 
 
 The judge chuckled, "Pretty much." 
 
 He did not seem to mind the interruptions, but 
 they halted his narrative. 
 
 "The stage-coaches in those days," he went on 
 at last, "only had a door on one side." 
 
 "Why was that?" asked Eksberger, promptly. 
 
 The judge tossed his head. "I suppose they was 
 some reason, but I don't know it. I presume it 
 wouldn't have done any good if they had had two 
 doors, for one side was always loaded down with 
 produce, kegs of oysters and such things. Any 
 rate, it give the drivers a chance to show oft. 
 When they come to a tavern on the wrong side of 
 the road and it always seemed as if all the taverns 
 was on the wrong side they used to crack their 
 whips and come around with a fine hoodie-do. 
 This Rodney he was a master at that. 
 
 "Captain Trumbull," the judge resumed, after 
 one of his customary pauses, "was really the last 
 of the old-time tavern-keepers. Soon after he died 
 the railroad come through as far as Felsted. They 
 was stages still, but they wa'n't the same, just run 
 from Felsted to little towns outside. The old 
 stages run in relays clear from Boston to Albany
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 247 
 
 and Captain Trumbull was known all over the 
 state. It was his brother who was John Cady's. 
 grandfather." 
 
 "Pullar's brother-in-law?" asked Stiles, in sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "Yes," answered the judge, "that must make 
 Pullar's wife his granddaughter, too, doesn't it?" 
 He paused and the little lines crept into the cor- 
 ners of his eyes. "Perhaps they didn't tell you 
 that." 
 
 Stiles shook his head and the judge went on 
 charitably : 
 
 "Well, no reason why they should or shouldn't. 
 It was nothing to be ashamed of. The tavern- 
 keeper was sometimes the most important man 
 in town. Any rate he was the busiest. He was 
 always called 'Captain' ex officio, as Deacon 
 Cressy used to say when he seized the reins of 
 government at a school-meeting. Besides, their 
 grandfather wa'n't here long. He went to New 
 York as a boy and made his money in the cotton 
 business. Their mother married a Cady his 
 father, I think, was Collector of the Port of New 
 York and when the Cadys come back they was. 
 another race, another race entirely, but old Cap- 
 tain Trumbull he was a fine man, too." 
 
 To the little group in front of the fire it might 
 have seemed that he was wandering, but Stiles, at 
 least, knew that he was merely collecting and 
 sorting his material. With the judge, every nar- 
 rative must start from a sound genealogical basis. 
 17
 
 2 4 8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Well, at any rate," he went on, at last, "this 
 man Rodney took the stage at Felsted and drove 
 it as far as Lebanon. They drove on schedule 
 those days, but Rodney he always made it a 
 point to whip up his horses two or three miles 
 back and get into Eden ahead o' time, so he could 
 sit and have a good mug of Captain TrumbulTs 
 flip." 
 
 The judge looked up and saw Mrs. Fields stand- 
 ing grimly at the door, as white-aproned, as un- 
 concerned, as if she had never heard of a mine. 
 "Sho!" he exclaimed. "Ain't you had your sup- 
 per yet?" 
 
 "Judge," begged Stiles, "won't you come out 
 and sit with us, perhaps have a little coffee or 
 something?" 
 
 The judge shook his head. "Thank you just 
 the same. I had a little matter that I wanted 
 to talk to you about. If it's all the same to you, 
 I'll sit here." 
 
 And there they found him, motionless, when 
 they came back, his hands grasping firmly the 
 arms of his chair, his head slightly bowed, and his 
 eyes fixed on the flames. What pictures he must 
 have seen in those coals! What memories must 
 have been aroused by the shadows of that once 
 splendid room in which, for half a generation, he 
 had probably not sat as a welcome guest! Or 
 did he see pictures? Stiles wondered. Some- 
 times it seemed to him that he was the only man 
 in the world who still reveled in that once favorite
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 249 
 
 pastime. Anyway, the judge himself was a 
 picture. 
 
 "Now for Rodney," exclaimed Eksberger, 
 briskly rubbing his hands. Then his dramatic 
 eye took in the scene, and he added: "Say, you 
 know what we ought to do? We ought to turn 
 out that lamp and sit just in the firelight." 
 
 To Eksberger questions were merely matters of 
 form. He reached out and turned down the light 
 before he knew whether the others wished it or 
 not. He was safe enough in this case. Stiles 
 pushed up a big armchair for Rose, and the 
 others grouped themselves in a little semicircle. 
 Baumgarten produced his red-banded cigars from 
 his inexhaustible pockets and the four men lit 
 them expectantly. Beside him, Stiles saw Rose's 
 fingers hesitating over a cigarette which she had 
 brought from the dinner-table. He thought he 
 might help her. 
 
 "Judge," he said, cautiously, "didn't women 
 use to smoke in the old days?" 
 
 "Yes," agreed the judge, "nigger women 
 especially." 
 
 A snort from Eksberger came from the other 
 side of the fire and the judge looked around. 
 "Bless you, ma'am," he said, "smoke if you 
 want to. I don't mind. I was thinking of pipes." 
 But Rose let the cigarette slip out of sight in the 
 folds of her skirt. 
 
 "Now for Rodney," repeated Eksberger. 
 
 "Sho! It wa'n't much," replied the judge.
 
 2 5 o CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "I was just telling you this Rodney drove the 
 stage from Felsted to Lebanon. You may never 
 have heerd of it, but in the winter of eighteen 
 thirty-six they was a terrible blizzard. Course I 
 don't remember much about it myself. I was 
 only seven years old then, but I heerd the story a 
 good many times. It began to snow on a Thurs- 
 day noon, and the stage was due at Trumbull's 
 tavern around six. The only passenger was a 
 little old man, a foreigner. He might have been 
 a Frenchman. I don't know. Anyway he was 
 dretful anxious to get to Eden. All the way up, 
 so Rodney told the story, he kept sticking his 
 head out the window and saying, 'You think we 
 can make it, coachman?' 
 
 "That didn't help any," explained the judge. 
 "A stage-coach driver and a coachman was two 
 different things entirely. A stage-coach driver 
 wa'n't accustomed to being my-good-man'd by 
 anybody, but still this foreigner kept on calling, 
 'You think we can make it, coachman?' After a 
 while Rodney made out he didn't hear him, just 
 kept driving on and on and the snow getting deeper 
 and deeper until the little old man was hanging 
 half out the window. 'You think we can make it, 
 coachman?' he says. 
 
 ' ' 'Bout that time Rodney was beginning to won- 
 der whether he could make it himself. Over be- 
 yond Keystone they's a stretch where the wind 
 comes howling down straight off Bald Mountain." 
 
 Eksberger broke in, mischievously, "Stiles told
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 251 
 
 us that this mountain here by the house was called 
 Bald Mountain." 
 
 "No," said the judge, "that one is called Sugar 
 Loaf. Bald Mountain is eight miles away. They's 
 a level stretch and then a gap between two hills 
 where, some winters, the snow piles up high as a 
 house. 
 
 "Well, the horses was making harder and harder 
 work of it all the time. Rodney had only that one 
 passenger, but he had a pile of freight. He used to 
 boast that, in all the sixteen years he'd be'n driving 
 that stage, if he'd set out to make a place he'd 
 always made it, but it begun to look to him now as 
 if his record was going to be broke. And all the 
 time the Frenchman was sticking his head out the 
 window and calling, 'You think we can make it, 
 coachman?' 
 
 "Finally Rodney got so mad he climbed right 
 down off the box, a thing a stage-driver wa'n't 
 supposed to do under any circumstances. 'Now 
 look here,' he says, 'if you say that to me again, 
 I'll throw these lines right over the horses' backs 
 and let 'em loose.' He was the best-hearted man 
 in the world, this Rodney was, but he could look 
 real fierce when he wanted. The Frenchman 
 seemed scared, but he fidgeted and fussed and 
 picked up a little bag he carried and put it on the 
 seat and then put it on the floor again, and then 
 put it on the seat again, and Rodney drove on. 
 Finally they wa'n't going more than a walk and a 
 mighty slow walk at that.
 
 252 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Well, sir, when they got well into this gap I'm 
 telling you about, the coach gave a lurch and 
 come to a stop and the Frenchman forgot himself. 
 'Do you think we'll make it, coachman?' he says. 
 
 "'That's enough!' says Rodney, and with that 
 he climbs down off the box and goes to the door. 
 'Mister,' he says, 'this is where you and me 
 spends the night.' 
 
 "'In the snow?' says the Frenchman, hugging 
 his little satchel as if it was full of gold watches. 
 
 '"You and me could do it all right,' says Rod- 
 ney, 'but the horses couldn't. No, they's a farm- 
 house up here where they'll take us in. Come on, 
 now,' he says, but the Frenchman never moved. 
 
 " 'Coachman,' he says, 'I'll give you five dollars 
 to get me to Eden,' but Rodney just shook his 
 head. 
 
 '"You 'ain't got money enough,' he says, 'to 
 make me do what I say I won't do.' 
 
 "'Ten dollars,' says the Frenchman. 
 
 "'No!' roars Rodney, stamping his feet, partly 
 because he was mad and partly because they was 
 cold. 
 
 "'Twenty,' says the Frenchman, and Rodney 
 hesitated. 
 
 "You understand," explained the judge, "that, 
 in those days, twenty dollars was twenty dollars. 
 'Twenty dollars,' says the Frenchman, taking out 
 a big double-eagle, and Rodney he fell. 
 
 "'All right,' he says. 'Set where you air.' 
 
 "So up he climbs on the box and speaks to his
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 253 
 
 horses. They tugged and heaved, but the coach 
 never moved, and down he gets again, puzzled. 
 
 '"Why don't you take off the baggage and leave 
 it?' suggests the Frenchman, but Rodney shakes 
 his head. 
 
 "'Do you think you could mind them horses?' 
 he asks. 
 
 "Bless you!" exclaimed the judge. "Them 
 horses couldn't have moved if they wanted to, all 
 blowed as they was and hanging their heads and 
 trying to get their tails up to the wind. 
 
 "So Rodney he leaves the Frenchman chatter- 
 ing and stamping, with his little bag in one hand 
 and the lines in the other, and goes back half a 
 mile to where a family of the name of Brewster 
 was living at that time. They had a son that 
 was the third man killed in the Civil War, but 
 this was the father. He kept the toll-gate and 
 sometimes worked on the roads for people that 
 had rather pay in money than do their share 
 themselves. Old Man Brewster had a pair of 
 pure Spanish jacks, the only ones I ever heerd 
 of in this part of the country, although they was 
 common enough in the south. They was pretty 
 little animals, slender and shiny like a deer, and 
 they could draw as much as most horses, although 
 they didn't look stout enough to pull a setting 
 hen off the nest. Old Man Brewster paid three 
 hundred dollars for them, they claim, which was 
 cheap at that. He was calc'lating to make his fort- 
 une populating the entire countryside with mules,
 
 254 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 but I guess they was something wrong, for the 
 male jack wa'n't as successful as most, and all 
 they ever got was one hinny." 
 
 "What's a ?" began Eksberger, but Baum- 
 garten silenced him with a gesture. 
 
 "Course," went on the judge, "in a storm like 
 that, the old man he didn't like the notion of let- 
 ting his precious jacks go out, but, working for 
 the turnpike company, like he did, he was afraid 
 not to. So back he comes with Rodney and 
 hitches his jacks ahead of the leaders. Beside 
 the big stage horses, so Rodney always said I've 
 heerd him tell the story a dozen times those 
 Spanish jacks looked like little pussy cats, or rab- 
 bits maybe, but they did the trick and moved 
 the old stage on for three or four miles further. 
 They was three of them now, Rodney and the 
 Frenchman and Old Man Brewster, Rodney yo- 
 hoing and cursing, and Old Man Brewster walking 
 beside the jacks and urging, and the Frenchman 
 hugging his little bag and shivering, and the old 
 stage swinging and bouncing until they thought 
 the straps would go smash. 
 
 "Then suddenly, when it was thoroughly dark, 
 bang! they went right into a drift and stayed 
 there. The Frenchman seemed to think he was 
 privileged to ask, now that he'd paid for it, 'Do 
 you think we can make it, coachman?' he says. 
 
 ' ' 'Well, by George Harry ! I don't know whether 
 we can or not,' says Rodney. 
 
 "'You never will in this world,' says Old Man
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 255 
 
 Brewster. Course all he wanted was to get home 
 and get his jacks under cover. 
 
 '"I'll give you five dollars more if you'll get 
 me to Eden to-night,' says the Frenchman, if he 
 was a Frenchman. 
 
 '"Well, if you want it that bad,' says Rodney, 
 'they may be a way to do it.' So he takes the 
 five dollars and walks on up the road. 
 
 "Down beyond where the railroad track crosses 
 the Felsted road now," explained the judge, 
 "they used to stand a little yellow house with a 
 red barn across the road and a line of big sugar- 
 maples. The maples is there yet, most of 'em, 
 but the house and barn was both tore down when 
 they cut the grade and straightened the road to 
 make the state highway. A man named Ebbets 
 was living there then. He was a pensioner from 
 the War of 1 8 1 2 . Secundus Ebbets, his name was. 
 Beside what the government allowed him he made 
 his living mostly by hunting and trapping. He 
 also did a little divining for wells with a witch- 
 hazel fork with a verse of Scripture wound around 
 it, but he wa'n't so successful at that. Folks said 
 that if wells had be'n filled with rum 'stead of 
 water he could have found them all without even 
 the witch-hazel rod. His wife was part Indian. 
 
 "This Ebbets he had a big cream-colored ox 
 that he used to drive like a horse with rope lines 
 and a wood bit made out of one of the quills that 
 he used to draw sap from the maple-trees with. 
 He'd bored out the hole big enough with a reamer
 
 2 S 6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 and run the rope through and knotted it at each 
 end. Hitched that way, the ox was better than 
 a team o' horses, and he could travel pretty good, 
 too. Oh, he was a big feller, that ox. I imagine 
 he'd weigh twenty hunderd, possibly more. 
 
 "Now this Ebbets was funny. If it had be'n 
 a mild summer night and a traveler had asked 
 him to come out and hold his horse for a moment 
 while he went off to talk with somebody about a 
 piece of land, he wouldn't of done it, but, being 
 snowy and dark and blowing and cold as the 
 sheets in the pope's spare chamber, he couldn't 
 of asked for anything better. He was just that 
 notional. So he takes the five dollars and out he 
 conies with that great white ox and clamps him 
 on ahead of the jacks. And on they goes. 
 
 "Well, sir, when they gets in sight of Trum- 
 bull's tavern, Rodney he lets out a hoot on his 
 horn most stage-drivers had just an ordinary 
 horn, but he had a key bugle and he could blow 
 two notes and Captain Trumbull and all the 
 fellers that was hanging around the barroom 
 and Mis' Trumbull and the help in the kitchen, 
 all come running out to see what was happening. 
 They hadn't a team or a sleigh or a living thing 
 gone by since five o'clock in the afternoon except 
 one man on horseback, and he'd had to turn and 
 come back, and they didn't expect to see Rodney 
 for days. I've heerd they laughed for two hours, 
 some of 'em, to see that procession first Ebbets 
 dancing along beside that great big white ox
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 257 
 
 and singing 'Lundy's Lane and the Twelve Pound 
 Hat,' and then Old Man Brewster fretting and 
 fussing over his little jacks, and then the four 
 big coach horses and Rodney blowing his two 
 notes steady so's they wouldn't be no mistake, 
 and finally the coach and the little Frenchman 
 with a handkerchief tied over his ears and sticking 
 his head out the window to see if they'd got 
 there yet." 
 
 The judge paused and looked into the fire and 
 gave vent to his silent chuckle as he always did 
 at the crucial point of a story. 
 
 "And so they got there, after all," suggested 
 Eksberger. 
 
 "Yes," said the judge as if he had been waiting 
 for just that little prompting. "Course they was 
 no more going on that night. Fact, it was two days 
 before they was even able to start, and then it 
 was only on runners. They put up the horses, and 
 the jacks, too, I suppose, and Ebbets's old ox, 
 and Rodney sails into the bar where they always 
 had a big fire burning with four-foot logs snaked 
 right into the room with a yoke of oxen. 
 
 "'Well, well!' says Captain Trumbull. 'We'd 
 give you up.' 
 
 " 'Give me up, eh?' says Rodney, as if it was all 
 his doing. 'Captain Trumbull,' he says, 'for six- 
 teen years, four months, and thirteen days I've 
 be'n driving stage from Felsted to Lebanon, and 
 in all that time have you ever known me to fail 
 to get to a town that I set out to get to?'
 
 258 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "No, the captain didn't know as he ever had. 
 The loafers around the bar they didn't know as 
 they ever had, either. 
 
 "'No, and you never will,' says Rodney, so 
 loud they could hear him all over the house. 'But 
 I'll tell you this, Captain Trumbull,' he says. 'If 
 I ever do miss a point on the line it '11 be some 
 point where they don't sell Captain Trumbull's 
 flip.' 
 
 "And with that he walks over to the bar and 
 takes out the double-eagle the Frenchman had 
 give him and slams it down so hard that it jumped 
 two feet in the air where he caught it again. 
 
 "They used to do that," the judge explained. 
 "Anything bigger than a shilling they'd generally 
 test it like that. They was lots of bad money going 
 around then. In some places they'd have a flat 
 stone on the counter just for that purpose, places 
 where they sold horses and cattle especially. I 
 tell you the loafers opened their eyes when they 
 see the gold piece. The stage-drivers got good pay, 
 but they was liberal spenders and probably Rod- 
 ney 'd never had that much at one time in 
 his life. 
 
 '"Boys, what '11 you have?' shouts Rodney. 
 'And if any one of you takes anything except flip 
 on a night like this he pays for it himself. ' Course 
 they all took flip. 
 
 '"Bout that time," continued the judge, "the 
 other door opened the door from the hall and 
 in come the little old Frenchman, bowing and
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 259 
 
 smiling and dressed like a prince, and Captain 
 Trumbull runs forward to meet him. He'd had 
 Alexander Hill Everett, the brother of Edward 
 Everett, stop at his house once and he'd never 
 forgot it. 
 
 '"Captain Trumbull,' says the Frenchman, 
 'seven years ago, on a night like this. I had the 
 honor to be your guest and I had this drink you 
 call flip. Do you still have that flip?' 
 
 "The captain smiled and looked at the boys 
 standing two deep in front of the fire just waiting 
 for the pokers to get hot again. 
 
 "'I think we've got a little left,' he says, 'and 
 if we 'ain't, I think I might send over to Lebanon 
 and get you some.' 
 
 '"Captain Trumbull,' says the Frenchman, 'I 
 hope you have. I've paid twenty-five dollars 
 to get that flip to-night, but if it's going to 
 cost me twenty-five more I'm willing to pay 
 that, too.' 
 
 "Of course," explained the judge, all the boys in 
 the bar was looking at him pretty curious, and, 
 when he says that, Rodney walks over to him as 
 if he was going to eat him. 
 
 ' 'Was that what you wanted?' he roars. 'Was 
 that why you was so set on getting here that I 
 nearly foundered my horses and nearly yanked 
 the linch-pins out of my coach? Was it just so 
 you could savor your supper with Captain Trum- 
 bull's flip?' 
 
 "The Frenchman he was a little scared then.
 
 260 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 He looked around at all those strangers, but he 
 had to admit it was so. 
 
 "'Well, then,' says Rodney. 'Why, bless your 
 soul, sir!' And, walking up to the bar, he takes up 
 the double-eagle where it was still lying there. 
 'Here,' he says, 'here's your twenty dollars. Any 
 man that would go further than I would to get a 
 mug of Captain Trumbull's flip is too good to give 
 any money to me!" 1 
 
 The judge's voice stopped. 
 
 "Fine!" exclaimed Baumgarten, but that was 
 all that was said for minutes after the judge had 
 finished his tale. They all sat looking into the fire 
 until at last Eksberger asked : 
 
 "Judge, what did you say that stuff was made 
 of?" 
 
 "I didn't say," answered the judge. "It 
 wouldn't do any good if I did. It's no use without 
 pumpkin cider." 
 
 They sat for a moment more in silence and then 
 Rose asked, timidly : 
 
 "But who was the Frenchman and what did 
 he have in that little bag?" 
 
 The judge tossed his head. 
 
 "That," he confessed, "I can't tell you, ma'am." 
 
 His cigar had gone out and he tried to light it 
 again. 
 
 "Here, let me give you a fresh one," said Baum- 
 garten, eagerly. He held the match and the 
 judge drew the first puffs. He took the cigar 
 from his lips and looked at it.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 261 
 
 "No," he said, "I've sometimes wondered my- 
 self who he was. Probably just somebody travel- 
 ing this way. In those days some mighty queer 
 characters used to come to this town." 
 
 Eksberger studied the flames thoughtfully. 
 
 "I suppose they did," he agreed.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ROSE was standing in the shadows of the 
 porch, leaning against one of the pillars, 
 when Stiles came back from the gate after speed- 
 ing the judge on his way. He hardly saw her 
 until he had reached the foot of the steps, and 
 even then she had not spoken, merely stood wait- 
 ing with a languid humor, as if to see how long 
 it would be before he should discover her presence. 
 
 "I suppose you hain't sold your place?" the 
 judge had asked, as Stiles had walked with him 
 to the gate. 
 
 "Not yet," Stiles had answered. 
 
 "That's what I came up to talk about," the 
 judge had continued, "but I guess it '11 wait. 
 Fact, I didn't know your friends was still here. 
 This ain't an hour to talk business." 
 
 No, it was not an hour to talk business. The 
 threat of coolness at sundown had not been ful- 
 filled and the dying down of the wind, with the 
 coming of darkness, had brought out another soft, 
 lazy June night. Rose's languid attitude, as she 
 leaned against the pillar, expressed it perfectly, 
 and Stiles was glad enough to stop beside her. 
 Through the window he could see Eksberger and
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 263 
 
 Baumgarten still sitting where he had left them, 
 engaged in violent conversation. Baumgarten 
 was listening, rolling a cigar around in his lips; 
 Eksberger was talking excitedly, as he usually 
 did, moving his whole body in jerks, driving his 
 clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. It 
 looked too energetic for Stiles, as .it evidently 
 had been for Rose. 
 
 "Would you like to walk around a while?" he 
 asked. 
 
 For answer the girl pushed gladly away from 
 the post and descended the steps at his side. 
 They passed under the spruce-trees and into the 
 road. Stiles turned by instinct toward that 
 stretch where he had talked that morning with 
 Pullar, but the girl stopped short. 
 
 "Let's not go that way," she said, with abrupt 
 decision, and Stiles remembered that she, too, had 
 had a talk of some moment on that stretch of 
 road. They turned instead and walked to the 
 bridge where the car had had its little adventure. 
 The bed of the brook was still dry and, seeing 
 no interest there, they sat on the rail facing back 
 toward the lights of the house. Stiles nodded with 
 his head. 
 
 "What are they so excited about back there in 
 the study?" 
 
 ' ' About a new show called ' Oh La ! Sir !' Stuffy 
 keeps saying that what you want is something 
 that gets right home to the people, and Charlie, 
 keeps saying that what you want is a wallop," 
 
 18
 
 264 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "How the language does grow!" mused Stiles. 
 "When I left the city three weeks ago they were 
 still calling it 'punch.'" 
 
 "It's all the same," replied Rose, " punch, 
 wallop, jolt." 
 
 "And what is punch? Do you know?" 
 
 "No," confessed Rose. "Neither does Charlie 
 Eksberger, but he says he knows it when he 
 sees it." 
 
 "Does he?" 
 
 "The way most people do. When a show is a 
 big success, he says it's because it has punch. 
 When it fails, he says it's because it didn't have 
 punch. What is punch, anyway?" 
 
 "My dear lady," pleaded Stiles, "if he doesn't 
 know and you don't know, how in the world should 
 I know?" 
 
 "I bet you do, all the same." 
 
 Stiles slipped from the rail of the bridge to his 
 feet. 
 
 "Miss Fuller," he said, "of all the compliments 
 which you could pay me, that is the one most 
 likely to make me dizzy." 
 
 Rose, however, saw nothing unreasonable 
 about it. 
 
 "You knew what love was," she said, "and I 
 never knew any one else who did." 
 
 "Love," replied Stiles, "is partly a matter of 
 biology. One can read up on biology. One can- 
 not read up on punch." 
 
 "But you've seen shows, haven't you?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 265 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And some had punch and some didn't?" 
 
 "True, quite true." 
 
 "Well, then, what is punch?" 
 
 "You've brought this on yourself," replied 
 Stiles. "Punch is profound truth expressed in a 
 piquant manner." 
 
 "Just say that again, will you?" 
 
 Stiles laughed and repeated the definition. 
 "What I mean is this: Baumgarten said it, only 
 he didn't say it in just that way. When you read 
 a good story or see a good play there conies a 
 thing at which you say, 'Why, I've done that thou- 
 sands of times !' If you have done it thousands of 
 times, every one else in the audience has done it 
 thousands of times. Adam did it. That makes it 
 profound truth." 
 
 "And just what do you mean by a piquant 
 manner?" demanded Rose. "Of course I know, 
 but I want to hear you say it." 
 
 "Miss Fuller, you go to my head," protested 
 Stiles. "Well, Eksberger has a piquant manner. 
 My own manner I should not call piquant. I 
 should call it ponderous." 
 
 "And what do you call my manner?" demanded 
 Rose. 
 
 "Your manner," replied Stiles, "I should call 
 an extremely wise one under all the circum- 
 stances." 
 
 "I told you you knew," answered Rose, com- 
 pletely satisfied. "Why don't you write plays?"
 
 266 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "To define a thing," replied Stiles, "and to do 
 it are not equally easy. I defined love last night, 
 standing in front of the fireplace " 
 
 "And made it this afternoon sitting on the old 
 cellar," retorted the girl, but she hurried on so 
 expertly that he had no time to follow the lead. 
 "No, seriously, why don't you write plays? There 
 is lots of money in it." 
 
 "Is that all you see in it?" asked Stiles with a 
 prudery which he knew, himself, to be rather 
 forced. 
 
 Rose knew it as well as he did. 
 
 "No, of course not," she replied, "but that's 
 one of the things. Don't you want to make 
 money?" 
 
 "My dear Miss Fuller," answered Stiles, "you 
 miss the whole point of my life up here in these 
 dells and dingles. I am never going to do anything 
 again ever." 
 
 "Rot!" 
 
 "No, I'm not. All my life I have had to do 
 things because there was money in them, or 
 rather because there wasn't enough money in 
 them to tempt other men to do them. Now I'm 
 through. Don't let the squalid state of my house 
 deceive you. I'm a very rich man." 
 
 Rose proved herself a very human young woman. 
 
 "Are you, really?" she asked, excitedly. 
 
 Stiles laughed. "I meant in comparison to 
 what I always have been. From your point of 
 view I am not rich. I am poor compared to the
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 267 
 
 glistening youths who adore you from the front 
 of the house and send you American Beauties and 
 beg you to dally in gilded caf6s." 
 
 "There is less dallying in gilded cafe's than peo- 
 ple think," replied Rose. Then, following some 
 logic peculiarly her own, she asked, "Did you ever 
 know an actress before?" 
 
 "Never," confessed Stiles. 
 
 "Well, what did you think one would be like?" 
 
 "I had only the stories to guide me," Stiles 
 explained. "From them I learned that there were 
 two kinds. One kept saying, 'Gee, Mayme, ain't 
 he swell?' and the other kept saying, 'Oh, I want 
 some worth-while man to lead me to better 
 things!' The latter married cowboys en masse" 
 
 Rose thought it over. "I've known plenty 
 of the first kind, but I never knew any of the 
 second." 
 
 "No?" asked Stiles, musingly, but the girl's 
 stream of thought was still digging its tortuous 
 channel. They started to walk on again and she 
 slipped her arm through his in the usual way, then 
 suddenly he found that their hands were clasped. 
 There was not the least bit of coquetry in it on 
 her part. In fact, so frank was the act that it 
 formed a stronger defense than if she had drawn 
 her hand away. The very openness of it disarmed 
 him. For him to have made any further advance 
 after that would have seemed rather silly. 
 
 "What did Stuffy Baumgarten tell you about 
 me?" she asked. "I saw you talking."
 
 268 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "How did you know that we were talking about 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, I can always tell," she answered, impa- 
 tiently. "Can't you tell when people are talking 
 about you?" 
 
 "Not always," replied Stiles. "I never see two 
 deaf-and-dumb people talking in a street-car with- 
 out thinking that they are making remarks on the 
 shape of my nose." 
 
 "Possibly they are," suggested Rose. 
 
 "Possibly," agreed Stiles. "Yes, we were talk- 
 ing about you." 
 
 From his side came a voice so like Baumgarten's 
 catarrhal drawl that he jumped. "'The trouble 
 with Rose is that she's a star, but she's just so 
 much of a star and she'll never be any more.' " 
 
 "Here!" exclaimed Stiles. "You wanted to 
 know what punch is. That's punch." 
 
 "A profound truth expressed in a piquant man- 
 ner?" 
 
 "Not what he said, but what you said." 
 
 "So that was what he said, was it?" the girl 
 persisted. 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 "He's said it before," replied Rose, indiffer- 
 ently. 
 
 "You don't seem to mind," Stiles suggested. 
 
 "What good would it do?" replied the girl, 
 wearily. "It's the truth." 
 
 They had come to a crossroad and stopped in- 
 stinctively.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 269 
 
 "I wonder where this leads to?" asked Stiles. 
 "Shall we try it?" 
 
 Matters like that never seemed to be, to Rose, 
 worth any words, and in silence they turned, hand 
 in hand, to walk down the side road. Far ahead, 
 a single light gleamed on a hillside. 
 
 "I have a suspicion," said Stiles, "that that is 
 the house of young Master Pullar, Esquire. I'm 
 not sure." 
 
 "Charlie could probably tell you," replied Rose, 
 curtly. 
 
 "He probably could." 
 
 They walked on listlessly, Rose, as usual, seem- 
 ing to think of things far away. 
 
 "Well, what am I going to do about it?" she 
 demanded at last. 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 "About getting so far and no farther?" 
 
 "Do you want to go farther?" asked Stiles. 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "You are sure?" 
 
 "Ye-es," replied the girl, hesitating as she un- 
 derstood that he meant sure to the point of ruth- 
 lessness. ' ' Yes/ ' she amended, firmly, ' ' I am sure. ' ' 
 
 "You must be," said Stiles. "That is the first 
 thing." 
 
 "What next?" demanded the girl. "It's like 
 punch," she went on without waiting for his an- 
 swer. "It's something you know when you see it, 
 but you can't tell what it is. That's what I sup- 
 pose I haven't got."
 
 270 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "I knew a writer once," replied Stiles. "He is a 
 very well-known writer now, but he was nobody 
 then, nobody at all. I suppose in my line I was 
 better known than he was. That was years ago. 
 I had been writing a little, but was giving it up. 
 He asked me why, one night, and I told him. At 
 the time it seemed rather noble of me to say it. I 
 told him, 'I simply haven't got the spark.' 'Do 
 you really believe that?' he asked. 'I do,' I re- 
 plied, and, crude, foolish little cub reporter that 
 he was at the time, he looked across the table and 
 said, 'If I could say that of myself and really 
 believe it, I would go and blow my brains out !' " 
 
 "Good for him!" exclaimed Rose. 
 
 "Then good for you!" responded Stiles. "You 
 feel the way he did." 
 
 "I suppose so," answered the girl, but with less 
 assurance when it was applied to her own case. 
 As she naturally would, she translated everything 
 into terms of her own profession. "I know I have 
 a decent voice not grand opera, of course, but 
 good enough for musical comedy. I know I can 
 dance. That's what makes me so mad. I know 
 some girls who are supposed to be wonderful dan- 
 cers who are just pure faking. They don't fool 
 people behind, of course, but they fool the public. 
 There are some steps that any one can do that look 
 fine from in front, but they're not the real thing. 
 What else did Stuffy tell you?" 
 
 This time it was Stiles's chance to imitate, but 
 he knew that he would be pathetic at it and wisely
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 271 
 
 did not try. "He said that you had a good voice 
 and could dance well and that the people in the 
 profession knew what you were worth, 'Then along 
 comes a little chit with a solid ivory dome who 
 can't dance and can't sing and draws down five 
 hundred a week and fame." 
 
 "Of course they're not all like that," supplied 
 Rose, charitably. "Some of them deserve it and 
 no one is gladder than I am to see them get it." 
 
 "Elsie Pair?" suggested Stiles. It was one name 
 that he did know. 
 
 "Elsie Fair is a genius!" responded Rose, em- 
 phatically. Then, in the insistent, impetuous way 
 that seemed to have become a habit with her when 
 talking to Stiles, she demanded, "What is genius?" 
 
 Stiles saw that it would be no use to disclaim 
 authority on any subject on earth. In the miseries 
 of his own sad case, he had spent some thought on 
 the subject of genius, but his deductions would 
 hardly be tactful now. He did not reply, but Rose 
 would not let him escape. 
 
 "Come on, now, out with it," she insisted. 
 
 "Well," he said, evasively, "Doctor Johnson 
 said that genius was broad mental powers applied 
 in a specialized direction. He ought to know. 
 He wrote a dictionary." 
 
 Rose, however, cared little for Doctor Johnson. 
 She had a more modern authority. "What do you 
 say that it is?" 
 
 Thus cornered, Stiles had either to lie or be 
 silent. He chose to be silent, but, with that almost
 
 272 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 marvelous intuition that the girl sometimes dis- 
 played, she broke in, in answer to her own ques- 
 tion: 
 
 "Brains?" 
 
 "I think you've said it," replied Stiles, quietly, 
 and he waited fearfully. 
 
 "My! What an awful predicament that leaves 
 me in!" suggested the girl, ruefully. "I suppose 
 that means that I haven't any brains." 
 
 "I suppose it does," replied Stiles, solemnly, but 
 the girl was more solemn than he was. 
 
 "Do you really think that?" she asked. 
 
 "Of course not," replied Stiles. "Do you think 
 that I would say it if I did?" Suddenly he saw the 
 way clear before him. "You forget what Doctor 
 Johnson said, ' ' he suggested . ' ' He said that genius 
 was mental powers applied in some special direc- 
 tion. Have you applied your brains to your 
 work?" 
 
 "I've been at it all my life," answered Rose. 
 
 "Mrs. Fields has been keeping house all her 
 life," argued Stiles. "She seems to have brains of 
 a sort. If she had applied them, who knows? By 
 this time she might have been head housekeeper 
 at the Biltmore." 
 
 In his lighter moments, Rose had no use for 
 Stiles at all. She was not even listening. 
 
 "But look, ' ' she said. ' ' Everybody calls Charlie 
 Eksberger a genius, and yet, to hear him talk, you 
 wouldn't think that he had any brains at all." 
 
 Stiles was about to point out that being called
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 273 
 
 a genius was not the same thing as being one, but 
 then it occurred to him that, after all, somebody 
 must decide who was a genius and who was not, 
 so why not the world in general? 
 
 "Is he really a big man?" he asked, quietly. 
 
 "Yes, he is," answered Rose, emphatically, 
 "one of the biggest. It's hard to believe, isn't it? 
 I know how he appears to you, and Heaven knows 
 how he appears to Queen Victoria and those peo- 
 ple. Don't you suppose that we see what he is 
 just as well as you do? Only we're used to him. 
 Even Stuffy says that he is a rotten business man, 
 that he puts on a show so lavishly that even if he 
 plays to capacity, he still loses money. And 
 Charlie answers that if he didn't put it on lavishly, 
 it wouldn't be a success. So there you are ! Stuffy 
 thinks that his partner is a crook, but the fact 
 remains that people had rather work for them than 
 for any one else, and the fact remains that they 
 have had one success after another. Why, if you 
 think that Charlie Eksberger is crude, now, you 
 ought to have seen him when I first knew him. 
 He used to eat with his knife. He honestly did. 
 He used to take a piece of bread and clean up 
 the gravy on his plate with it. I was actually 
 ashamed to go into a restaurant with him. He 
 used to wear neckties marvelous with still-life 
 and drawn through a big diamond ring." 
 
 "He doesn't wear them now," suggested Stiles. 
 
 "No, he doesn't," affirmed Rose. 
 
 "Well, isn't your answer there?"
 
 274 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Go on," urged Rose. "I know you've got 
 something to say." 
 
 Stiles had. The case of Eksberger had been up- 
 setting all his theories for the past two days. 
 
 "Eksberger," he began, "has one of the surest 
 signs of genius an insatiable curiosity." 
 
 "You're hedging now," retorted Rose. "You 
 said genius was brains." 
 
 "No, I'm not," replied Stiles. "Real curiosity 
 shows an irrepressible brain. How long has Eks- 
 berger been a producer?" 
 
 "Seven or eight years." 
 
 "And about the time that he began to go up in 
 the world he began to regard his fork with shy 
 wonder?" 
 
 "He ate with his knife for a long time after 
 that," replied Rose, with her usual passion for 
 exactness. 
 
 "To learn not to do that," explained Stiles, 
 ' ' takes some time. Other things history, and lit- 
 erature, and such, come more quickly. In two days 
 he has learned more about my place than I had 
 learned in three weeks or would have learned in 
 six more. He had only to see one old document 
 to want to know all about American history. He 
 has seen Queen Victoria and is fired with desire to 
 be a country gentleman. He asked about Bald 
 Mountain and learned all about the stage-coach 
 industry. I've been in terror all day for fear that 
 some one would mention logarithms." 
 
 ' ' Oh dear !" sighed Rose. ' ' I know it's all wrong,
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 275 
 
 but you make it sound right. And how does that 
 help me? I don't eat with my knife." 
 
 "That's probably the trouble," suggested Stiles. 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "That cub reporter that I told you about," re- 
 plied Stiles, "the one that became a famous writer, 
 came from a Western college with a name so funny 
 that he was ashamed to say it Starbright Uni- 
 versity, I think it was, or else that was what the 
 boys used to call it when they joked him about it. 
 He never had seen New York until he came to 
 work on the Sun. Before that he had worked on a 
 country paper where I presume the reporters had 
 to set type, where people 'severed their connection ' 
 whenever they got fired. He actually brought in 
 an item to the Sun one day to the effect that the 
 clerk of the Jefferson Market Police Court was 'on 
 the sick list.' Journalistically speaking, he ate 
 with his knife. His first year in New York he 
 wrote up the real-estate transfers and acted as if 
 he loved it. When he came to New York he saw 
 the huge city and said, 'My goodness! If I am 
 ever going to conquer this terrible fortress I must 
 set right to work and learn everything in it." 
 
 Stiles broke off with a laugh. "Good Heavens! 
 I am talking like the 'How to Succeed' articles in 
 the magazines." 
 
 ' ' But I like to read those better than the stories," 
 protested Rose. "Aren't they right?" 
 
 "Yes, damn them!" replied Stiles. 
 
 "But how about this boy? I like him."
 
 276 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Well, he succeeded." 
 
 "Oh," answered Rose. 
 
 They walked a moment in silence and then 
 turned. 
 
 "How did you come to go on the stage?" asked 
 Stiles at last. 
 
 "Born on it," replied Rose. "I played in 'The 
 Fatal Wedding' when I was six years old. My 
 mother was a character actress, my father was a 
 producer not the way Charlie is. He staged 
 musical shows for other people. They called them 
 just plain stage-managers then." 
 
 "This is personal," said Stiles, "but if you come 
 to a doctor you have got to give all the facts in 
 the case. You really never knew what struggle 
 was, then?" 
 
 "No, not really. Father was pretty well known. 
 He always had plenty to do, although they didn't 
 pay as much for his kind of work as they do now, 
 except just toward the last. He was just beginning 
 to make big money when he died. Mother died 
 when I was quite young. We never had a real 
 home, but I went to school some. I went to 
 England one season for 'The Fatal Wedding' and 
 they traveled a schoolmaster just for the children 
 in the company. The law made them. When I 
 was sixteen I was making good money myself. 
 Father saw to that." 
 
 "That's what I was getting at," said Stiles, 
 eagerly. Then he stopped short. 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Rose.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 277 
 
 "The perfect asininity of me playing the doc- 
 tor," he replied. 
 
 "I like it," replied Rose. "You're doing well." 
 
 "All right, then," resumed Stiles. "What I was 
 getting at was this: Did the stage ever really 
 have any romance, any mystery, for you?" 
 
 "That's hard to say," confessed the girl. "No 
 mystery surely. I can remember nights when I was 
 a child, riding to the theater in the bus and 
 seeing the people walking along the street and say- 
 ing to myself, 'Just think, those lucky people 
 don't have to go to the theater.' I used to get 
 awfully sleepy sometimes. But of course, on the 
 other hand, no one who has ever been on the stage 
 would ever do anything else." 
 
 "Not even keep house for a cowboy?" suggested 
 Stiles. 
 
 "It depends on the cowboy," replied the girl. 
 "My first real parts were in father's companies. 
 I'd rather have been in any one else's. He 
 used to make me work all day with the others 
 and then work hours early in the morning by 
 myself." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Stiles. "Now we've got it. 
 And to this day, when you rehearse a part, you 
 see your father standing the other side of the 
 footlights, and every step you take with your feet 
 and every gesture you make with your hand you 
 hesitate, half expecting to hear his voice coming 
 over to tell you it's all wrong." 
 
 The girl stopped dead in the road and pulled
 
 278 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 him facing her. "Are you a mind-reader?" sh& 
 demanded, "or what?" 
 
 "I'm the latter," laughed Stiles. "No, I'll tell 
 you how I knew. My father was an editor, editor 
 of a grand old weekly, so grand that if they found 
 that a personal note had crept into it, they used 
 to send out and stop the presses. The cover looked 
 like the cover of the Farmers' Almanac without 
 the crabs and fishes. To be an editor, a man had 
 to have known Edgar Allan Poe or Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne or Junius Brutus Booth. Any one 
 modern like James Russell Lowell or Joseph Jef- 
 ferson wouldn't do at all. Everybody knew them. 
 If a man had known all three they made him 
 editor-in-chief. Who ever read the magazine, no- 
 body knows, but it came out every week. Probably 
 nobody thought to stop it, for that wasn't its 
 chief purpose at all to come out. Its chief pur- 
 pose was to furnish a place where all the men in 
 New York City who had known any one of those 
 Poe, Hawthorne, or the elder Booth could get 
 together and gaze on men who had known two of 
 them or had known all three. 
 
 "Thus was my childhood. My father retired 
 when I was ten or twelve and we moved to Boston 
 you might have guessed it and there he lived it 
 over every night at the dinner-table. So, instead 
 of going to Starbright University and becoming 
 famous, I went to Harvard and became the son of 
 Basil Folkes Stiles. I was still the son of Basil 
 Folkes Stiles when I came to New York to work
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 279 
 
 on a newspaper. Old gentlemen used to come and 
 stand behind my desk and whisper that I was." 
 
 "In other words " began Rose. 
 
 "In other words," interrupted Stiles, "for the 
 first five years I was the most intolerable little 
 prig you ever knew. Then all the men who had 
 ever known Basil Folkes Stiles or had ever heard 
 of him, died, and I gradually woke up." 
 
 "What did you do then?" asked Rose. 
 
 "I wrote one or two stories in the style of 
 Hawthorne's, found that they weren't as good as 
 Hawthorne's, and quit." 
 
 "What did you do then?" asked Rose. Like 
 the boy in the fable, she always was eager to know 
 what became of the squirrel. 
 
 "Then I sat in clubs and grew bitter about the 
 decadence of art all art books, painting, music. 
 There were others doing it, too. If I remember 
 correctly, we even asked each other, 'What is the 
 Matter With the American Theatre?' 'theatre' 
 with an r-e." 
 
 "Well, what was the matter with it?" asked 
 Rose. 
 
 "We differed about that," confessed Stiles. 
 "Anyway it pulled through." 
 
 "Next?" persisted Rose. 
 
 "Oh, by the time I got over that phase I was 
 able to earn a comfortable living reviewing books 
 by the cub reporter from Starbright University." 
 
 "Are they good books?" asked Rose. 
 
 "Fearful," replied Stiles. 
 
 J.7
 
 2 8o CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Then I came up here in the backwoods and 
 saw New York City for the first time in thirty- 
 eight years." 
 
 "You don't look as old as that." 
 
 "Well, lam." 
 
 The girl pondered it. It seemed to have some- 
 thing to do with her plans. 
 
 ' ' But you still haven't told me what I am to do, ' ' 
 she insisted. 
 
 "Baumgarten says that you ought to marry." 
 
 "Well, I could do that, too, but I mean about 
 my work." 
 
 Stiles thought it over at some length. 
 
 "If you see what I mean " he began. "You 
 say that you seem to get just so far and no farther. 
 Is it possible that you are still playing 'The Fatal 
 Wedding'?" 
 
 Rose was silent so long that he could not decide 
 whether she understood him or not. "It may 
 be," she said at last, "but how am I to change?" 
 
 They had reached the main road again and 
 Stiles stood still in his earnestness. The girl 
 stopped, too, watching him curiously. 
 
 "If I had known you fifteen years ago," he said, 
 "and Eksberger and Baumgarten, I might have 
 written real stories." 
 
 "And if I had known you," asked Rose, mis- 
 chievously, "I might have been able to act?" 
 
 "No," began Stiles, deprecatingly, and then, in 
 his real sincerity, he stopped himself. "Hang
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 281 
 
 it! Why shouldn't I say it? Yes, you might; 
 although I wasn't thinking of myself. I was think- 
 ing of the judge and Queen Victoria and Mrs. 
 Fields, and of Rodney the coachman, and of Solo- 
 mon Crater, late deceased, and of all the queer 
 persons who make us realize what a tremendous 
 amount of living has been done first and last. 
 
 "Here's what I mean," he went on, fiercely. 
 "For fifteen years I tried to write with my father's 
 pen, write like the ghost of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 For fifteen years you have tried to act for your 
 father the other side of the footlights act like the 
 ghost of 'The Fatal Wedding.' It is too late now 
 for me to write for Eksberger and Baumgarten 
 and, besides, to hell with them! but it is not too 
 late for you to begin acting as if you saw the old 
 judge the other side of the footlights ready to 
 squint his eyes and chuckle when you really said 
 something, as if you saw Queen Victoria ready to 
 patronize you and make you mad with her affec- 
 tations!" 
 
 "Cheers and tumult. But why to hell with 
 Eksberger?" came a sudden voice from the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Rose clutched Stiles's arm and then she relaxed. 
 ' ' Charlie, you scared me ! Where in the world have 
 you been?" 
 
 With a laugh, Eksberger walked out of the dark- 
 ness, coming from the direction of the town, Baum- 
 garten a pace behind him. 
 
 "Where have you been? That's what I want to
 
 282 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 know," he retorted. "And why, Stiles, this coarse 
 and vulgar language at my expense?" 
 
 "Because you're successful," replied Stiles. "I 
 have just been telling Miss Fuller my own sad 
 fate as a writer." 
 
 "Ever write plays?" asked Eksberger, suddenly 
 interested. 
 
 ' ' One, ' ' Stiles admitted. 
 
 "You never even told me that," interjected 
 Rose. 
 
 "It's not a thing one confesses," replied Stiles. 
 
 "You know, I thought you were a writer. I 
 mean a real writer," said Eksberger. "You talk 
 like one. You can spot 'em every time." 
 
 He did not seem in the least upset by what he 
 had overheard. 
 
 "You mustn't let that bother you," he went on, 
 kindly enough. "A play's the hardest thing in the 
 world to write. A book or poetry or things like 
 that are nothing to it. What you got to have is 
 technique." 
 
 "And punch?" suggested Rose. 
 
 "That's what we call it," replied Eksberger, 
 "but perhaps Stiles wouldn't know just what that 
 means. 
 
 "Stiles," he went on, eagerly for, as all un- 
 successful men are interested in success so are 
 all successful men interested in failure "Stiles, 
 let me see some of your work some time. Lindsey 
 Ray was a fellow just like you when he wrote 'The 
 Woman Sins,' and you know what that made. An
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 283 
 
 author comes to me with a play and I tell him, 
 'Here, that thing's no good!' But possibly I see 
 some one little thing in it, something he never saw 
 at all, and we rip it up and write it over and, the 
 first thing you know, we've got a play. What you 
 ought to have, Stiles, is an idea." 
 
 "Well, maybe he's got one. You never can tell," 
 suggested Baumgarten. "Suppose we continue 
 this discussion somewhere else except in the middle 
 of the road." 
 
 Rose, however, was looking from one to the 
 other. "Where have you people been?" she de- 
 manded. 
 
 "I'll give you three guesses," said Eksberger. 
 
 "To the movies?" 
 
 "Correct! Number Seven wins the oil-stove!" 
 
 "I didn't know there were any movies in town," 
 said Stiles. 
 
 "I don't believe you even know there's a post- 
 office," retorted Eksberger. "What's the matter, 
 Rose?" 
 
 "I was thinking," replied Rose, convulsed, 
 " you two see a show every night of your 
 lives in New York, and when you come up here 
 in the country all you can think of to do is to 
 go and see some two-hundred-and-fiftieth-run 
 movies." 
 
 "They weren't so bad," replied Eksberger. 
 "Your friends the Pullars were there, Stiles, and 
 quite a lot of people in evening clothes. Mostly, of 
 course, they were yaps."
 
 284 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Baumgarten chuckled. "Ask him what else 
 happened." 
 
 "You keep still, Stuffy," commanded Eksberger. 
 "Let's go on." 
 
 Rose, however, did not move. "What did hap- 
 pen, Stuffy?" she asked. 
 
 "Ask him," repeated Baumgarten. 
 
 "Come on, Charlie," persisted Rose. "What 
 happened?" 
 
 "Nothing," insisted Eksberger. "What you 
 waiting for?" 
 
 "Charlie," said Rose, with dawning suspicion, 
 ' ' did you make a speech ?" 
 
 Baumgarten burst into loud guffaws. 
 
 "Well," Eksberger admitted, "I did tell 'em a 
 few things. Course they knew I was there, any- 
 way." 
 
 "Yes they did," said Baumgarten, sarcastically, 
 "after you had gone up to the box-office and told 
 them who you were, and even then they weren't 
 quite sure." 
 
 "They stamped and whistled when I got up," 
 retorted Eksberger. 
 
 "They'd have done that if any one's chair had 
 broken down," replied Baumgarten. 
 
 ' ' What did you say, Charlie ? ' ' asked Rose. ' ' Did 
 you tell them that the motion picture was still in 
 its infancy?" 
 
 "No," answered Eksberger, quite seriously. "I 
 pointed out to them that people in thousands of 
 little towns just like this, all over the United
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 285 
 
 States, were watching pictures to-night. I showed 
 them how drama had once been the art of the rich 
 man, but that now the motion picture was bring- 
 ing drama right home to the people." 
 
 "How did Queen Victoria like that?" asked 
 Stiles. 
 
 "Who's Queen Victoria?" asked Eksberger. 
 
 "Mrs. Pullar." 
 
 "Well, I wasn't talking to those people then," 
 explained Eksberger. "I was talking to the yaps, 
 but later I said that I already had made several 
 friends in town and I knew that they felt the same 
 way that I did about it. Then I kidded them a 
 little and said that I had half a mind to buy a 
 place here myself and the more I think of it the 
 more I have, Stiles and that if I did come here 
 for a month or two in the summer we all might be 
 able to get together and put on some stuff here, 
 from time to time, that would put the place right 
 on the map. I never thought of it until that mo- 
 ment, but I happened to think of the annual 
 masquerade dance that the movie colonies give at 
 different places out in California, how they become 
 part of the life of those little towns, and I said that 
 there was no reason why we couldn't stage some- 
 thing of the same sort right here. All it needed 
 was a little pep and some one who knew the ropes 
 to start things going." 
 
 "Did the Pullars cheer?" asked Rose. 
 
 "Well, they'd left by that time," said Eksberger, 
 "but some of their friends were still there and, be-
 
 286 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 lieve me or not, just as you want to, but they 
 listened to every word I said earnestly, too." 
 
 "Come on, come on," said Baumgarten, impa- 
 tiently, and the whole group moved toward the 
 house. 
 
 Eksberger was apparently reviewing in his mind 
 his triumph of the evening, for he said nothing for 
 several hundred yards. 
 
 "Of course I never thought of that idea, Stiles," 
 he began again at last as if he had not been inter- 
 rupted. "It just came to me on the spur of the 
 moment, but people who never see good pictures 
 get a wrong idea of them entirely. I generally do 
 what I say I'll do, and, you know, I have half a 
 mind to see Pullar in the morning and see whether 
 it wouldn't be possible to get up a subscription-list 
 I'd start it myself for fifty or a hundred and 
 really give these people something to make them 
 sit up and take notice." 
 
 "That's very generous," suggested Stiles, "but 
 wouldn't they take more interest in it if you let 
 Pullar and his friends start it themselves?" 
 
 "If they ever thought of it," replied Eksberger, 
 "but they never have and they never will. They've 
 lived here for centuries and they've never thought 
 of it yet. It takes an outsider to come into a place 
 like this and start things moving. That's another 
 thing I told them." 
 
 Alone in the group, Baumgarten seemed to have 
 no wish to hear about the speech of the evening. 
 He had walked ahead so swiftly that he was out
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 287 
 
 of sight in the darkness and Eksberger called to 
 him: 
 
 "Stuffy, you know this isn't a foot-race." 
 
 No answer came from the darkness and Eks- 
 berger called again, "Stuffy!" 
 
 Still no answer came for a moment, and then 
 came Baumgarten's voice in mild excitement: 
 
 "Look here, Stiles, is this your ocean?"
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 " AA Y gosh! It's somebody's ocean all right, 
 ATI all right!" agreed Eksberger as, a pace in 
 advance of the others, he reached Baumgarten's 
 side. "Wait a moment. I'll light a match." 
 
 "So you've got one now, have you?" asked 
 Baumgarten. 
 
 "First thing I looked for when I got up-stairs," 
 admitted Eksberger. 
 
 He lit the match, and it did the duty that even 
 the tiniest flame will do on a windless night. As 
 far ahead as its faint glow would reach it showed 
 water smooth water like a lake in the ditches 
 and fields, muddy water, in snakelike tricklets 
 with edges of dirty bubbles, curling and searching 
 its way toward their feet in every wheel-track 
 and hoof -print. They had to move back a step 
 to avoid it. 
 
 Eksberger, with a fine show of prodigality, lit 
 another match as soon as the first had expired. 
 "Water, water everywhere,'" he quoted. 
 "And not a '" continued Stiles, but Baum- 
 garten interrupted him. 
 
 "Yes, we know all about that," he said, gruffly.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 289 
 
 Acting as guardian to these irresponsible children 
 in the face of natural phenomena was rapidly 
 making him a nervous wreck. "The question is, 
 what are we going to do about it?" 
 
 "Ask Stiles," suggested Eksberger. "It's his 
 flood." 
 
 Baumgarten, however, paid no attention. 
 Briefly, with the rights of the pioneer, he related 
 the facts of his discovery. Striding along the 
 road, ahead of the others, he had walked into 
 what he had thought was a puddle, but, jumping 
 to clear it, had merely jumped into deeper water 
 up to his ankles, in fact. At that he had stopped 
 and called for directions. 
 
 "Of course it comes from the mine," said Stiles. 
 "They must have turned on the water at the 
 pond. They shut it off to allow us to salvage 
 the car. The judge said that the mine was al- 
 ready full of water." 
 
 "He didn't have to tell us that," interrupted 
 Eksberger. "We heard it ourselves and saw it 
 go in." 
 
 "And then, when they let in still more water," 
 continued Stiles, regardless, "it must have been 
 more than the poor mine could stand. It has 
 spewed it out, belched it forth, as our lady novelists 
 say when they wish to write with brute masculine 
 vigor." 
 
 Eksberger turned in mock reproof. "Stiles, 
 your language is getting to be something awful." 
 
 Stiles laughed, for, ever since his impassioned
 
 290 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 lecture to Rose, it was true that his mind had 
 been running in a sort of exalted and vicious 
 rhythm. 
 
 "Anyway," he said, in gruffer tones to prove 
 his sanity, "the house is safe. You can see the 
 lights." ' 
 
 "Oh, those poor cows!" exclaimed Rose, at the 
 thought. "Do you think they're drowned?" 
 
 "Not unless water can run uphill," replied 
 Baumgarten. "That water is coming out of the 
 mine, not going into it. If the water had reached 
 to where they are, it would be fifty feet over our 
 heads where we stand a hundred, for that 
 matter." 
 
 Rose's attitude expressed her usual distrust of 
 science, but she said no more. Eksberger, the 
 inquisitive, started to walk slowly forward, going 
 as far as he could on the dry spots between 
 the wheel-tracks. Even when he came to the 
 edge of the temporary lake itself he splashed it 
 daringly with his foot. He saw a hummock of 
 sand surrounded entirely by water and leaped 
 over to it, but when he stood poised for further 
 advance, it was too much for Rose. 
 
 "Now, Charlie," she begged, "don't try to 
 swim it." 
 
 In Baumgarten all sense of humor was dead. 
 
 "Come back here, Charlie," he ordered, curtly, 
 and strangely Eksberger did it. They all, in fact, 
 had to beat a hasty retreat, for, as if the water 
 had just discovered their presence, the little
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 291 
 
 streamlets suddenly began to run toward them as 
 if with deliberate venom. The party was chased 
 back a full dozen feet, at which the streamlets, 
 amused at having shown their authority, began 
 to content themselves with describing jig-saw pat- 
 terns among the hoof-prints. 
 
 From the new point of vantage Eksberger sur- 
 veyed the oncoming flood. 
 
 "I wonder what we ought to do," he asked, 
 musingly. "Do you suppose we ought to stick 
 our finger in the dyke or ought we to run and 
 give the alarm to the sleeping city?" 
 
 "We ought to do something," said Baumgarten, 
 gruffly. "You seem to think this thing is a joke." 
 
 "Well, isn't it, in a way?" retorted Eksberger. 
 "As long as Fieldsie is safe and sound I think it's 
 awfully funny." 
 
 "Funny as a crutch," answered Baumgarten, 
 bitterly. "I suppose you'd like to see somebody 
 get drowned in it. It may be all right here where 
 it's level, but suppose somebody in a car was 
 coming fast down that hill on the other side. 
 That would be a fine joke, wouldn't it?" 
 
 "The deuce! I never thought of that," replied 
 Eksberger, suddenly sobered. 
 
 "Neither did I," confessed Stiles. 
 
 "Well, we've got to get up there and get up 
 there quick," commanded Baumgarten. "Are 
 there any other roads, Stiles?" 
 
 "None that I know of." 
 
 "Well, that doesn't prove that there aren't
 
 292 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 any," suggested Eksberger, but Baumgarten 
 checked him. 
 
 "Come on, stop your talking. We've got to let 
 somebody know about this." 
 
 He turned and led the way to the crossroads 
 at a pace which made the others almost break 
 into a run. There he stopped and announced his 
 plan of campaign. 
 
 "There are two things to do," he said. "Go 
 to the village or else go down to that house where 
 that light is. To be safe, we'll do both." 
 
 "Wait a minute," said Eksberger. "Here comes 
 a car." 
 
 In the distance, from the direction of the town, 
 a pin-point of light was rapidly enlarging into a 
 pair of headlights. Eksberger rushed into the 
 middle of the road and began waving his arms. 
 
 "I bet it's Pullar," said Stiles, and Pullar it 
 was. With a creaking of brakes, he came to a 
 stop and looked out, astonished. Eksberger did 
 the talking. Pullar heard him through and pon- 
 dered a moment. 
 
 "The quickest thing," he suggested, at last, 
 "is to go on to my house and telephone the judge. 
 He's the man to talk to. Jump in." 
 
 He seemed excited, but excited in a capable, 
 resourceful way. Just to see him take charge of 
 the case took a load from the shoulders of the 
 others. In physical moments like that Pullar 
 was at his best. "Jump in," he repeated. 
 
 Pullar's car was a runabout, just such a run-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 293 
 
 about as a man like Pullar would drive, tiny in 
 seating capacity, but in length and power the size 
 of a locomotive. It had no windshield and must 
 have been gray. Rose sat in the seat while the 
 others, as Eksberger said, proceeded to drape 
 themselves on the mudguards. Pullar stood on 
 the throttle and the wind began whishing past. 
 
 "Are there any other roads to get up there?" 
 called Baumgarten from where he half sat on 
 the floor. 
 
 Bending over his wheel, his eyes squinted at 
 the road, Pullar did not answer, and Rose leaned 
 down to Baumgarten. 
 
 "He didn't hear you," she said, and Baumgar- 
 ten was, in his way, enough of a Pullar not to 
 repeat the question. In much less than a minute 
 Pullar drew up in the gravel driveway before his 
 own house. 
 
 "Come in," he said, "and we'll see what's 
 what." 
 
 His house, as seen from the foot of the steps, 
 did not seem a large one, but a soft red light in a 
 window promised a certain pretentiousness, while 
 the hallway they entered, with polished floors 
 and a tiger-skin rug, was rather amazing. 
 
 As if they had come for a casual call, their 
 host showed them into the little reception-room 
 to which the red-shaded lamp invited. It was 
 not an unusual room, as reception-rooms go. For 
 the modern taste there might have been just a 
 trifle too much of tapestry on the wall, a trifle
 
 294 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 too much of brass in the great lamp stand, a 
 trifle too much of crowding among the mahogany 
 chairs and tables, but a deep, soft rug gave way 
 under foot and, after two days of the old Crater 
 house, it conveyed an astonishing sense of richness. 
 
 Pullar, calm as he was, did not let hospitality 
 delay him. ' ' If you will wait here ?" he suggested, 
 with a smile and half a bow, and was gone. At 
 the end of the hall they heard him call up the opera- 
 tor in his usual quiet tones, then a door shut and 
 his voice was cut off. 
 
 Eksberger looked around at the room with ex- 
 cited eyes. 
 
 "Some shack!" he exclaimed, but no one gave 
 any response, least of all Rose. Even in view of 
 the emergency, she could not seem to get over 
 a feeling of being an intruder in that house. 
 
 "Why don't you sit down, Rose?" asked Baum- 
 garten, gently. "You're all wrought up." 
 
 "I'm all right," said the girl, quietly, but, as 
 a concession to his kindly intent, she did sit stiffly 
 on the edge of a chair. 
 
 Eksberger, all unconscious of anything except 
 immediate impressions, was still surveying the 
 room. 
 
 "You'd never think in a house like this that you 
 were 'way off in the country, would you?" he 
 asked. "This just shows what you can do, 
 Stiles, if you know how to do.it. When I have a 
 house in the country, I'm going to have one just 
 like this."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 295 
 
 Pullar came back in time to hear his last words 
 and waited for him to finish. 
 
 "It's all right," he said, with a smile. "The 
 judge did it on purpose." 
 
 "On purpose?" exclaimed Baumgarten. 
 
 Pullar nodded. "He says that the water is 
 only about eighteen inches deep in the road." 
 
 "Eighteen inches?" demanded Eksberger, as 
 if it were a personal affront to his private flood. 
 "Has he seen it?" 
 
 "No," explained Pullar, still with a smile, "but 
 he says that it happened before in the reign of 
 Martin Van Buren or somebody. The water 
 can't run anywhere except across the meadows 
 and on down into Cranberry River. He says it 
 will all be gone by morning." 
 
 "But how do you mean he did it on purpose?" 
 insisted Eksberger. 
 
 "He had to have the gate at the pond opened 
 sooner or later," explained Pullar. "The water- 
 rights on the river belong to the power company. 
 If it didn't run some time we wouldn't have any 
 electric lights. Besides, he said that that was the 
 quickest way to get the water out of the mine. 
 If he hadn't done that, it would have been 
 leaking out and making the roads mushy all 
 summer." 
 
 "But isn't it dangerous?" asked Baumgarten. 
 
 "Oh!" recalled Pullar. "He asked me to 
 apologize to you for cutting you off. He said he 
 
 left you all safe at home. He's stationed a man 
 20
 
 296 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 at each end to stop traffic. The man at this end 
 must have fallen asleep at his post." 
 
 "I hope the one at the other end hasn't," sug- 
 gested Baumgarten. He could still not get over 
 his sense of responsibility. "In the mean time," 
 he added, "how are we ever going to get home?" 
 
 "That's simple," said Pullar. "I'll run you 
 down to Lebanon and then back over the moun- 
 tain. It's only seventeen miles." 
 
 "At the rate we came," replied Eksberger, 
 "that will take us just seventeen minutes." 
 
 Pullar laughed. "There's not all that hurry, 
 this time. I'll take the big car. If you'll wait 
 just a minute my wife will be down." 
 
 On the heels of her husband's words, Mrs. Pul- 
 lar came into the room. She was dressed in a 
 trailing silk that seemed to be half negligee and 
 half tea-gown and, with her own background, 
 one had to confess that she made not at all an 
 unqueenly figure. The moment was one which 
 Stiles had hoped to avoid, but Mrs. Pullar, al- 
 though a rigorous lady, was, after all, a lady. 
 With every gesture of kindness she swept up 
 to Rose and took her hand. Her husband 
 gave, briefly, the story. She listened with open 
 eyes. 
 
 "But weren't you scared?" she asked, turning 
 again to Rose. 
 
 Rose admitted that she had been, and things 
 went more smoothly. 
 
 Eksberger only for a moment had allowed the
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 297 
 
 picture of his hostess to take his eyes from the 
 room. 
 
 "Mrs. Pullar," he said, at the first opportunity, 
 "you've got a beautiful place." 
 
 Mrs. Pullar smiled. "Would you like to see 
 it?" she asked. 
 
 "Isn't it pretty late?" suggested Stiles. 
 
 "You entertained us until two o'clock," she 
 replied. 
 
 She turned and led the way into the hall, then 
 into the little breakfast-room. It was finished in 
 quaint Dutch tiles, while regiments of copper and 
 pewter mustered themselves on the sideboard. 
 They caught Eksberger's eye at once. 
 
 "I say!" he exclaimed; "you know how to 
 live." 
 
 His hostess nodded an acknowledgment which 
 was not without humor and led the way to the 
 back of the house. 
 
 "And this," she explained, "is where Bobby 
 lives when he's too cross to be seen." 
 
 The room was a little den with big leather 
 chairs, and tobacco-jars and old, faded photo- 
 graphs on the walls. Stiles looked at them with 
 a pang of reminiscence pictures of hockey teams 
 and crews, in all of which he could pick out Pul- 
 lar's own face, looking hardly more boyish than 
 it looked now. 
 
 "What year were you?" he asked, quietly. 
 
 "'Ninety -nine," replied Pullar. "Were you a 
 New Haven man, too?"
 
 298 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Cambridge," said Stiles. 
 
 They spoke with that air of diffidence, that 
 curious manner of shame with which university 
 men do allude to such subjects, but Eksberger 
 overheard them and looked strangely from one 
 to the other. 
 
 "In eighteen ninety-nine/* he began, slowly, 
 "I was " But his tone drifted off. The sen- 
 tence did not seem to be as important as he had 
 thought at first that it was going to be. His eye 
 caught sight of a picture of hounds, and he wel- 
 comed the diversion. "Say, Pullar," he ex- 
 claimed, "perhaps you can tell us. What do 
 they hunt with beagles?" 
 
 "Rabbits," said Pullar, surprised. "Why?" 
 
 4 ' Nothing, ' ' replied Eksberger. ' ' I just wanted 
 to know." 
 
 The party followed its hostess back into the 
 hall. 
 
 "This," she announced, with a certain air, "is 
 a room of which we really are proud." 
 
 What she actually did was to open a door and 
 switch on some lights, but she seemed to have 
 raised a great curtain, for the room which was 
 opened before them was positively regal. It must 
 have been sixty feet long and thirty feet high. 
 A grand piano in the far corner suggested its 
 character, while a winding staircase gave the 
 idea that it was not so much a room as a whole 
 wing of the house. On all four sides, the walls 
 were paneled, while, at the height of the second
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 299 
 
 story, a balcony ran about it above that more 
 panels. It glowed with soft, indirect lighting. 
 
 The whole group stared at it with wide-open 
 eyes. On each of the walls was a single painting. 
 
 Stiles looked amazed at his hostess. 
 
 ' ' Proud ? " he exclaimed. ' ' I should think you'd 
 be positively pompous." 
 
 "We don't use it much," she replied, with the 
 same air of deprecation with which her husband 
 had referred to his college pictures, but still an 
 amused glint of pride shone in her eye. Stiles 
 could well forgive it. His own eye was caught 
 by one of the paintings. He looked again at his 
 hostess and smiled. She returned it and Stiles 
 shook his head. 
 
 "No," he said, slowly, "I don't believe it." 
 
 He half expected Eksberger to act in his usual 
 role, but Eksberger was looking up at the height 
 of the walls and was dumb. Stiles turned to 
 Rose and nodded toward the painting. 
 
 "You read about those," he said, "but you 
 mustn't believe it, because there is no such 
 animal. That is a genuine Claude Lorraine." 
 
 "It belonged to my father," explained Mrs. 
 Pullar. 
 
 It was a picture of which it needed no knowl- 
 edge of painting to see the splendor. Pullar 
 turned on its own hooded light and a golden 
 flush brought out its rich, tropic splendor. A full 
 three minutes, in silence, the little group stood 
 before it, drinking in the pure majesty of its spaces
 
 300 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 and columns. Mrs. Pullar broke the silence at 
 last. 
 
 "I suppose it is very rococo now to love Claude 
 Lorraine. People talk color." 
 
 Stiles shook his head. "I don't." 
 
 At last Eksberger spoke, but he did not speak 
 as he usually spoke. He was blinking his eyes 
 with excited interest. "How do you mean, talk 
 color?" 
 
 Mrs. Pullar hesitated, then turned to Stiles. 
 "How would you describe it?" 
 
 "Well," explained Stiles, "the idea seems to 
 be that if you paint a black horse on one half of 
 your canvas, and a white horse on the other, the 
 eye will see a calico pony standing in the middle. 
 It may be. It is very beautiful sometimes 
 morning lights, and apple blossoms and blue mists 
 but it does seem as if the artist should do the 
 work, not we. Personally I prefer pictures." 
 
 Eksberger looked at the Claude Lorraine and 
 drew a long breath. 
 
 "Well, if that is a picture," he said, at last, 
 "so do I!" 
 
 They turned back into the hall and Pullar 
 went out for his car. There was little said on the 
 long drive home, and little said as they found 
 their way into the house. Baumgarten was 
 shown his room, and Stiles went about his busi- 
 ness of closing up for the night. Just as he had 
 done on the evening before, he leaned down to 
 turn out the big study lamp, then again he looked
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 301 
 
 up and saw Rose at his side. It would be rather 
 ridiculous, however, to say that he had not known 
 she was there. He paused a moment, leaving 
 the room half lighted. 
 
 "You'd better find your way to the stairs," he 
 suggested, "before I put this out." But the 
 girl did not move; she looked up at him mischiev- 
 ously, and he suddenly found that his own hands 
 were trembling. He looked at her with eyes as 
 bright as her own. 
 
 "I mentioned a little matter this afternoon " 
 he suggested. 
 
 A step sounded, coming down the stairway 
 and, guiltily, they sprang apart. Eksberger came 
 into the room. His voice was rather husky, and 
 he was hanging his head. 
 
 "By the way, Stiles," he said, "I'd rather 
 you didn't say anything to those people about my 
 scheme for the movies. It might not be the 
 thing after all."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 HIS promise to Eksberger Stiles kept in the 
 strict sense of the word, but the matter was 
 mentioned. Pullar mentioned it first. Stiles 
 found him at ten o'clock on the following morn- 
 ing, seated in his little box of an office on the 
 village street amid a fine show of business. It 
 being Saturday, he explained that he had a few 
 things to get off before the noon mail and, duti- 
 fully, Stiles sat waiting and watched him. 
 
 There was something amusing in seeing Pullar 
 there at his desk, his tweed knickerbockers, his 
 heavy hands and his wind-blown cavalry-officer's 
 face appearing all wrong among the litter of car- 
 bon copies and ink-wells and scattered papers. 
 He looked like an over-serious child playing at 
 business which to a large extent was what he 
 actually was; or, better, he looked to Stiles like 
 one of those pictures in animal books showing 
 Big Master Dog, dressed up in a collar and tie, 
 at work in his shop. 
 
 Pullar signed his last check and looked up. 
 
 "Well, how is the flood?" 
 
 "It has all disappeared," replied Stiles. "The 
 judge was quite right."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 303 
 
 "The judge always is," answered Pullar, quiet- 
 ly. "In fifteen years I have learned that much." 
 
 He paused thoughtfully, almost wistfully, and 
 looked out of the window as if the judge would 
 furnish food for an endless talk. Stiles wondered 
 whether Pullar realized that, year by year, almost 
 week by week, he himself was becoming a Judge; 
 but he had little hope that he was going to find 
 out, for a man like Pullar is the most disappointing 
 thing in creation for intimacy. 
 
 Pullar must have had dreams, endless dreams, 
 as he looked out that window. Stiles himself 
 could build up processions of pictures just as he 
 watched him historic, Homeric boat races on 
 the Thames at New London, self -suppressed, well- 
 bred, triumphant university days at New Haven, 
 country-house visits with skating and hockey and 
 undergraduate hero-worship, the seemingly brill- 
 iant marriage to wealth and then this! What 
 hopes, disappointments, humors, ironies, did Pul- 
 lar feel now at the thought of himself with all of 
 his background and all of his education being 
 found thus cooped up in this grotesque box of a 
 country office, fishing and motors his only ex- 
 citements, petty transfers of land his sole occu- 
 pation? There must have been longings, some 
 wish for confession stifled under that firm, hand- 
 some face, but Stiles knew that the creed of such 
 men was never to show it. 
 
 He was right. Pullar said no more of the 
 judge.
 
 3 o 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Any damage," he asked, "from the flood?" 
 
 Stiles smiled at the question. "The grass has 
 a shampooed effect lying flat with the white 
 sides showing and, when I came down this morn- 
 ing, the roads were as smooth as a table, not a 
 wheel-track in them. There may be a fence or 
 two gone." 
 
 "Not the bridge?" 
 
 "Not the bridge." 
 
 It was all pure sparring to serve until Stiles 
 should choose to state the real purpose of his 
 visit. He chose right away. 
 
 "Pullar," he said, "I'm ready to sell." 
 
 Pullar showed no emotion one way or the other 
 and Stiles went on. "I imagined that you might 
 feel, perhaps, a little hesitation in coming to see 
 me again." 
 
 "I did," confessed Pullar. "I thought I had 
 bothered you enough. Of course I will have to 
 see my people." 
 
 He said it in a way that roused in Stiles a 
 little resentment. 
 
 "Of course you don't have to take it, you know, 
 if you don't want it." 
 
 Pullar raised his hand. "Don't worry. We'll 
 take it all right. That was not what I meant. 
 You see, it's not my money." 
 
 "I see," said Stiles, and he did see all that 
 Pullar meant to have him. Perhaps that was 
 why Pullar himself came out of his shell just a 
 little. He looked at Stiles and smiled faintly.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 305 
 
 "Your friend made quite a speech last night." 
 
 "So I heard. Was he?" 
 
 "He was vigorous," supplied Pullar, "enthusias- 
 tic." 
 
 Stiles smiled, himself. 
 
 "The word 'pep,' they tell me, is used to de- 
 scribe the manner." 
 
 He felt at the moment a sudden huge impulse 
 to smash straight through that reserve, to exclaim, 
 "Now look here, Pullar, what's the use of our 
 being snobs and asses? Which one of us could 
 have done a tenth of what that fellow has done?" 
 But, among the others of life, Stiles had met 
 several Pullars. In his faint, pedantic way he 
 knew that he was a bit of a Pullar himself. To 
 the extent of being a Harvard man he certainly 
 was, but, facing Pullar, he always felt a little pro- 
 Eksberger, just as, facing Eksberger, he always felt 
 more than a little pro-Pullar. Instead of follow- 
 ing his impulse he rose to his feet. "Well, when- 
 ever you wish to talk about it?" 
 
 Pullar looked at his watch. "I don't think 
 it will take long. Would it be possible for you 
 to come to the judge's house to-night?" 
 
 Stiles looked his surprise. "Then the judge is 
 one of you?" 
 
 "The judge," replied Pullar, "is one of nobody. 
 In this particular matter, his humor is to act with 
 us. That is, it seems to be somewhat to my 
 surprise, I will admit." 
 
 Stiles walked toward the door, and then it
 
 3 o6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 suddenly occurred to his host that he had for- 
 gotten a duty. "I say, Stiles, we'll be awfully 
 sorry to lose you." 
 
 But that was too much. Stiles laughed and 
 Pullar laughed with him. 
 
 From the porch of the little office Stiles saw 
 Eksberger wandering up the village street, looking 
 from side to side and wondering what part of it 
 he would buy. The impresario had walked with 
 him to town that morning to see what remained 
 of the car. There survived, it seemed, more than 
 he had dared to hope. 
 
 "Five or six hundred dollars," he announced, 
 as he reached Stiles's side, "will put it right. 
 It's a shame, but I'm lucky to get off with that 
 much." 
 
 They walked on, lazily, to the post-office, 
 where Stiles found nothing more valuable than 
 three glowing circulars praising gilt-edge indus- 
 trial bonds. One day, apparently, after he had 
 come into his inheritance, every broker in the 
 country had found it out. He received adver- 
 tisements from incredible places for brokers to 
 be Wagon Box, Arizona, and Lockport, New 
 York. He threw the circulars into the street and 
 fell into step beside his companion. 
 
 "Eksberger," he said, suddenly, "which had 
 you rather be Pullar or yourself?" 
 
 Like most men, Eksberger had an entirely dif- 
 ferent manner when talking to only one person. 
 
 "That's a silly question," he said, but quietly
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 307 
 
 enough. ' ' Nobody in the world would want to be 
 any one else except perhaps a man who was going 
 to be hung, and I don't believe he would until 
 he'd got square with one or two people concerned. 
 
 "I know what you mean," he went on, a mo- 
 ment later, " the paintings and all that. Of 
 course I'd like to have those, and who's saying 
 that I won't have them some day? Of course I'd 
 like to do lots of things that I can't do now, but 
 I'll tell you this, Stiles perhaps you know it and 
 perhaps you don't those people waste an awful 
 lot of time thinking that the rest of us would like 
 to be them." 
 
 For the moment Stiles had to confess that he 
 was disappointed. Had he given Eksberger, the 
 night before, credit for a humility which he had 
 not felt, or had that humility been so superficial, 
 so purely a matter of trivial pride, that one night 
 had destroyed it? 
 
 It took him a minute to guess what actually 
 had happened. The humility in the presence of 
 Pullar's great hall had been genuine enough, but, 
 humbled as he had been, Eksberger could never 
 be humbled enough to feel really inferior. Pul- 
 lar's unexpected magnificence had opened his 
 eyes, but it could never induce him to worship 
 Pullar. It had merely widened his plans. To be 
 a Pullar had simply become one more memoran- 
 dum that he had jotted down in his mind and 
 added to his one real and ever-growing ambition 
 of being Eksberger.
 
 3 o8 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 Every one of his friends to whom he had talked 
 of this man had given Stiles a different idea of 
 him, yet every one of them, like Stiles himself, 
 had not been able to deny some sort of admiration 
 for him. Whether Eksberger really did have that 
 thing called brains, Stiles still did not know, 
 probably never would know, possibly always 
 would have his doubts, but, as Rose had said, 
 there stood his success visible, incontestable. 
 
 For Eksberger, however, the subject of Pullar- 
 ites had merely begun. 
 
 "You see those kind of people in my business, 
 just the same as you do everywhere, and when 
 they get tired of everything else what do they 
 do? Where do they come? To the theater, just 
 as I do, just as you do yourself." 
 
 With a grin Stiles saw that, lacking evidences 
 of great wealth, or, perhaps, having a newspaper 
 past, he himself was not considered a Pullar. 
 He did not quarrel with a status which enabled 
 him to receive more of Eksberger's views on the 
 class. 
 
 "There are even one or two people of that sort 
 right in the show business, arty people and all 
 that," Eksberger went on. "That is, in a way 
 there are, for most of them get sick of it soon 
 enough. But what can they do? What could I 
 do if I went to some big bank or some big factory 
 and asked to begin by being president ? Yet that's 
 what they want to do when they try to get into 
 the show business they want to teach us in six
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 309 
 
 months what we've been learning a lifetime and 
 haven't learned yet." 
 
 "Nevertheless, it's been done," insisted Stiles, 
 ' ' even in the banking business. It's certainly been 
 done in war. They may think they've learned 
 something about it from study, from books." 
 
 "Books, yes !" Exploded Eksberger, with sudden 
 and unexpected force. "But what kind of books? 
 I don't mind books. Give me the right kind of 
 a book and I'll sit up 'til morning to read it, but, 
 the minute those people try to run shows, what 
 do they want to put on? Some Polish thing that 
 nobody ever heard of even in Poland ! They don't 
 want to see that bunk themselves. When they 
 give a big dinner-party where do they go? To the 
 Winter Garden. But they seem to think that 
 everybody else ought to want to see their long- 
 haired drama. Let them have it if they want it, 
 but not on my money. If that's what they 
 want, let them come across. If those people 
 would guarantee me a house for two weeks just 
 two weeks, mind you! I'd dramatize the whole 
 damn 'Golden Treasury of English Verse' and get 
 Fred Stone to play it." 
 
 "Where," demanded Stiles, laughing, "did you 
 ever hear of 'The Golden Treasury of English 
 Verse'?" 
 
 "It's in your own sitting-room," retorted Eks- 
 berger. "I read it this morning before you got 
 up the Turk in his tent and all. 
 
 "Stiles," he went on, "you've got brains
 
 3 io CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 enough if you'd only use them. Why, just since 
 I have been up here, I have seen enough that was 
 never written in books to make a dozen good 
 plays." 
 
 "Do you want me to write one of them?" 
 asked Stiles. 
 
 "Well, I don't know," Eksberger had to con- 
 fess. "You'd probably call it 'Soul's Slumber' 
 and make it tell all about some man who spent 
 his time fretting because he wasn't somebody else." 
 
 "Anyway," asked Stiles, "have you made up 
 your mind whether or not you will stay over 
 Sunday? You'd better. I'm going to town on 
 Monday myself." 
 
 "I suppose we might as well," replied Eksber- 
 ger. "I telephoned to the office from the garage. 
 They'd been searching all over the country won- 
 dering where I was everybody was asking but 
 nothing seems to have happened. What does 
 Rose say about it?" 
 
 "She said last night," replied Stiles, "that 
 seven o'clock this morning was going to see her 
 seated on the station platform, ticket in hand, 
 waiting for the nine-o'clock train; but she's still 
 here; at least she was when we left." 
 
 "That's Rose all over," said Eksberger, in a 
 lower tone. "She's a good girl, but you can 
 never tell from one minute to another what she 
 will do. She says herself she doesn't know what 
 she wants. Hello! Fieldsie has got her cows 
 out again."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 311 
 
 They had reached the bridge near the house 
 where the stream was now running on as calmly 
 as if nothing had ever happened. Except for the 
 matted grass and the patches of thick, caked mud 
 in the road, the brook had kept its own secret. 
 Just how it had broken out of the mine, how it 
 had filled its new channel, and how it had taken 
 up again with the old, there was nothing to show 
 any more than there had been sixty or seventy 
 years before, when Bugby had sworn and old 
 Major Crater had chuckled. 
 
 With his three guests, Stiles had already made 
 a trip of exploration that morning, but, except 
 for the scattered puddles, there had been little to 
 see as result of the mine's eruption a few rotted 
 fragments of beams like those they had found 
 in the upper passage, a few bits of dark-blue cloth 
 so water-soaked and so featureless that they 
 might have been woven three years before and 
 might have been woven a hundred. Now, how- 
 ever, two of Mrs. Fields's cows were eating the 
 soaked green grass of the meadow with a relish 
 heightened by their two long weeks of confine- 
 ment. The third, the mother of the little black 
 calf, was under an old gnarled apple-tree putting 
 her son in shape for this new phase of life. "Slick, 
 slick," she seemed to be saying, as, with waves 
 of her head, she ran her tongue from one end of 
 his little black body to the other, "this rough 
 old coat slick, slick was good enough for the 
 slick, slick mine; but now that you're out slick, 
 
 21
 
 3 i2 CRATER'S GOLD^ 
 
 slick where folkses will see you, you've got 
 slick, slick to clean up." 
 
 "I can't see that they're blind," remarked 
 Stiles. 
 
 "Blind?" replied Eksberger, "I should say not. 
 Look at the old girl go to it." 
 
 When they reached the house Rose was walk- 
 ing under the trees with Baumgarten. Eksberger 
 joined them, but Stiles went on into the house, 
 where Mrs. Fields met him mysteriously in the 
 hall. She had something big and lumpy under 
 her apron, and, with a nod of her head, she beck- 
 oned him to follow her into the kitchen. There, 
 looking to right and to left, she drew out a 
 brass box, green with tarnish and mold. Stiles 
 took it and 'looked at it curiously. In the scroll- 
 work of the hammered cover he could see faint 
 letters. He pointed them out to Mrs. Fields, and 
 she scrubbed them a bit with her apron. 
 
 "I found that down in the meadow this morn- 
 ing," she said. "It must have been washed from 
 the mine." 
 
 The work of her apron had brought out the 
 letters with some distinctness, and Stiles pointed 
 to them again. 
 
 "Can you read those?" he asked. 
 
 Without the affectation of spectacles' Mrs. 
 Fields shook her head, and Stiles went out to the 
 group on the lawn. He held out his treasure. 
 "Mrs. Fields found this. It was washed from 
 the mine."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 313 
 
 He handed the box to Rose, who turned it 
 round and round slowly. 
 
 "Why, there are letters on it!" she cried. 
 
 Eksberger looked at it eagerly and Stiles smiled. 
 
 "'R-E,'" read Rose. "What is it Latin?" 
 
 "It's Spanish," said Stiles, and he read the 
 letters hammered into the scroll-work of the box: 
 "'R-E-C-U-E-R-D-O-S, Recuerdos.' That means 
 'keepsakes.'" 
 
 They stood looking on that solitary relic in 
 silence. At last Rose asked in a rather faint 
 voice : 
 
 "But how did it get there? Who did it belong 
 to?" 
 
 "A lady, I imagine," said Stiles. "It might 
 have been Mrs. Fields's great-great-grandmother. 
 It might have been mine." 
 
 They looked again at the little brass box, then 
 Eksberger asked, "Aren't you going to open it?" 
 
 Stiles did so. 
 
 "Nothing," he said. 
 
 Baumgarten stood a pace away from the others. 
 "That part of the story," he suggested, "I didn't 
 hear. What did you think you would find?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Stiles.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 DAUMGARTEN was fidgety after dinner that 
 -D night. 
 
 "Say, what do you think?" he asked, at last. 
 "Shall we have another fire?" 
 
 ' ' Righto !' ' said Eksberger. "Let's have Field- 
 sie in and get her to tell us the story of her life." 
 
 Stiles looked at his watch. "By the way, 
 Baumgarten," he said, "Mrs. Fields says that a 
 messenger came this afternoon to have you call 
 up New York. I'm afraid there's no telephone 
 nearer than town. Will you walk down with me ?" 
 
 Baumgarten looked at him a moment. "I'll 
 come," he said, shortly. 
 
 As they fell into step in the road, Stiles re- 
 marked, "Of course there wasn't any message." 
 
 "I understood that," replied Baumgarten, 
 gruffly. "Going to sell your place, are you?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Stiles, rather astonished. He 
 thought a moment and then added, "I presume 
 you don't want to buy it now?" 
 
 "It was take it or leave it, Stiles," replied the 
 other man, quietly. "I never go back on my 
 word." 
 
 There might have been a note of real resent-
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 315 
 
 ment in his tone. Stiles understood that he would 
 never know what had been written on that slip 
 of paper that he had refused to look at, but the 
 resentment, if it really existed, extended only to 
 that one transaction. Otherwise Baumgarten was 
 friendly enough. 
 
 "Given up your idea of living here yourself ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I'm old," answered Stiles, "too old to learn. 
 If I were Pullar it would be all right, but I haven't 
 the figure for tweeds. I thought I could do it. 
 I thought I was sick of New York " 
 
 "If it gets in your blood it never gets out," 
 interrupted Baumgarten, quickly. "Take Rose, 
 now. She's always been talking about a house in 
 the country." 
 
 "She told me she had," answered Stiles, quietly. 
 He had finally learned that frankness was the 
 only policy with this man. His companion did 
 not misunderstand the brief sentence and walked 
 along moodily. 
 
 "Of course," said Stiles, "if I could have New 
 York come to me now and then as it has this 
 week " 
 
 The older man broke in, roughly, "Stiles, New 
 York will never come to you again as it has this 
 week." 
 
 Stiles made no reply and they walked in a si- 
 lence again almost hostile. 
 
 "About this meeting?" suggested Baumgarten, 
 quickly.
 
 3 i6 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "When a man goes to fight a duel," said Stiles, 
 "he takes along a friend who knows something 
 about pistols. When he goes to talk business, he 
 takes a friend who knows something about 
 business." 
 
 "I ought to know something about it," replied 
 Baumgarten. He added: "You heard your an- 
 swer down in the mine, didn't you? Ask 'em for 
 forty thousand, let 'em beat you down to twenty- 
 five, then stick like a bur." 
 
 As if he were planning a sale in his own New 
 York office, Baumgarten began once more to talk 
 smoothly and confidently: 
 
 "Nine- tenths of the land in this town is owned 
 by members of a corporation known as the Eden 
 Realty Company." 
 
 "I knew that," said Stiles, "but how did you 
 know it?" 
 
 Baumgarten snorted. "I don't do things blind. 
 I found that out the day I came. It is a volun- 
 tary association, incorporated under the laws of 
 the state of Massachusetts, and empowered to do 
 about everything in the world except commit 
 murder. Actually it's an estate-owners' protec- 
 tive league designed to keep out the roughnecks. 
 The minute I found that out I knew there'd be 
 nothing doing with Pullar for me. That's why I 
 came directly to you. It made me mad in a way." 
 
 "You don't call yourself a roughneck, do you?" 
 asked Stiles. 
 
 "I'm no lily-of-the-valley," replied Baumgarten.
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 317 
 
 At the judge's house Pullar and his brother- 
 in-law were waiting stiffly in the old parlor, and the 
 four bowed silently with the ridiculous formality 
 of men who may have seen one another all day 
 but meet at night to transact business. The judge 
 came in behind the others, a suspicious twinkle 
 in his eye. He was going to enjoy this scene. 
 
 Stiles saw no reason why time should be lost. 
 
 "Without beating about the bush," he began, 
 "I understand that you gentlemen and others are 
 prepared to purchase my property. Am I cor- 
 rect?" 
 
 There was a silence. Pullar looked at old 
 Colonel Cady and the latter cleared his throat. 
 "You are correct." 
 
 "Well, then," continued Stiles, "I have drawn 
 up a deed." 
 
 He took a paper from his pocket and handed 
 it to Pullar. Pullar opened his eyes as he read it. 
 
 "By any chance are you a lawyer, Stiles?" 
 
 "No," replied Stiles, "but I speak the lan- 
 guage." 
 
 "Perhaps you had better read it," suggested 
 the judge, and Pullar began: 
 
 "Know all men by these presents that I, Andrew Stiles 
 of the city and county of New York in the state of New York, 
 for divers good causes and considerations thereunto mov- 
 ing" 
 
 Pullar looked up. "I guess I can skip this," 
 he suggested. The others nodded and he went on :
 
 3 i8 CRATERS GOLD 
 
 " especially for the sum of one dollar and other con- 
 siderations received " 
 
 "Just a minute," interrupted Colonel Cady. 
 "We can hardly proceed until we know what the 
 other considerations are." 
 
 "May I suggest," replied Stiles, "that before 
 we touch on that point you read the conditions 
 attached." 
 
 Pullar turned over the sheets, mumbling hur- 
 riedly over the formal phraseology. ' ' Is this what 
 you mean?" he asked, " 'Said members of the said 
 Eden Realty Company do agree and covenant'?" 
 
 Stiles nodded and Pullar read aloud: 
 
 "Said members of the said Eden Realty Company do 
 agree and covenant, collectively and individually, and do 
 hereby bind themselves by acceptance of this quit-claim 
 deed to the following reservations: 
 
 "i. No mining or other enterprise for gain or profit with 
 the exception of agriculture, husbandry, horticulture, or 
 herding, shall ever be practised in or on the said property 
 . . . and on violation of this clause ... all title in the said 
 property shall revert to the grantor or his heirs or assigns. 
 
 "2. A cottage erected on any part of said property at the 
 expense of the said Andrew Stiles may be maintained for the 
 benefit of one Mary Jane Fields, widow of " 
 
 "Asahel Fields," supplied the judge, promptly, 
 and Pullar wrote it into the deed: 
 
 " and by her occupied during her lifetime or pleasure. 
 
 "3. Access to and the right to take from the said property 
 
 any books, furniture, documents, monuments, relics, or any 
 
 other articles of historical or artistic interest whatsoever
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 319 
 
 shall be given at any time to Judge Abner A. Tyler of the 
 said town of Eden in recognition of his faithful stewardship 
 of said property and other property of the present and 
 previous title-holders." 
 
 Pullar looked up from the sheets. "My word! 
 Stiles," he exclaimed. "Is this a quit-claim or 
 your last will and testament?" 
 
 "Both," replied Stiles, "so far as Eden is 
 concerned." 
 
 Pullar continued his reading: 
 
 "4. A plot to be designated by said Andrew Stiles and not 
 to exceed one acre, comprising the sites of both the old 
 and new Crater mansions so-called, shall be held in perpetual 
 trusteeship by said Abner A. Tyler and such successors as 
 may be hereafter appointed. All houses, barns, stables, 
 granaries, and other buildings whatsoever now standing on 
 the said plot shall be razed at the earliest practicable moment 
 and the ground so graded as to remove all traces of such 
 buildings, the expense of this action to be borne by the said 
 Andrew Stiles. Thereafter no buildings or edifices of any 
 kind shall be erected on such plot with the exception of a 
 memorial to be designed and designated by the said grantor, 
 Andrew Stiles." 
 
 Pullar looked up. "That seems to be all." 
 
 "That is all," replied Stiles. 
 
 Colonel Cady was stroking his mustache. "You 
 have made a good many conditions, Mr. Stiles." 
 
 "Those are the only conditions on which I will 
 sell." 
 
 "Hum," said the colonel. A long pause fol- 
 lowed and then he suggested: "Now as to the 
 other considerations. I take it for granted that
 
 320 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 you do not mean to sell your property for one 
 dollar." 
 
 Stiles smiled, but for a moment he did not reply. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, at last. "It has well, I 
 may say that it has come to my ears that you would 
 be willing to pay twenty-five thousand dollars." 
 
 Pullar and Cady looked blank. Baumgarten 
 and the judge smiled. 
 
 "The property, you understand," said Colonel 
 Cady, slowly, "has no such intrinsic value at all. 
 There are merely certain abnormal circumstances 
 which have given it what I may call a fictitious 
 value." He looked toward his brother-in-law and 
 made the slightest motion of his head. Pullar 
 spoke: 
 
 "Is that your price er Mr. Stiles?" 
 
 "Are the conditions otherwise acceptable?" in- 
 sisted Stiles. 
 
 The brothers-in-law looked at each other. 
 
 "I think so," said Pullar. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said Stiles, quickly. "The 
 conditions, as Mr. Cady says, are abnormal. I 
 am not a philanthropist; neither am I a black- 
 mailer. Three weeks ago the price of that prop- 
 erty was seven thousand dollars. Seven thousand 
 dollars is the price to-day." 
 
 "You're a fool, Stiles, an absolute fool," re- 
 marked Baumgarten as, half an hour later, they 
 walked up the dark village street. 
 
 "That," said Stiles, "is one of the things I now 
 can afford to be. It is one of my new luxuries."
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 321 
 
 "It's a strange luxury," muttered Baumgarten, 
 "but I don't see what you wanted me for." 
 
 Stiles laughed. "I thought you'd enjoy it." 
 
 "I did," Baumgarten replied. "It was regular 
 stage stuff. And I'll have to grant," he added, 
 a moment later, "that if you wanted to be such 
 an ass you did it in style. I'll bet you've even 
 got a picture of the memorial." 
 
 "I have," said Stiles, simply. "I've enjoyed 
 that, too. The place where the houses stood will 
 be leveled and turfed and a small stone put up." 
 
 "With your name on it?" 
 
 "With nobody's name on it," answered Stiles, 
 stiffly. He did not intend to say more, but he 
 was, at the moment, in rather theatric mood, and 
 he drew from his pocket an envelop. "This is 
 what it will be." 
 
 Baumgarten took it and stopped to read in the 
 faint light of one of the street-lamps. On the 
 envelop was a rather neat sketch of a simple 
 stone and on it the plain inscription: 
 
 Here Lived 
 
 And Died 
 
 An American Family 
 
 The instant that he had given the envelop 
 Stiles regretted it. If Baumgarten should laugh 
 he believed that he would strike him, but Baum-
 
 322 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 garten did not laugh. He handed it back and 
 walked on without a word. 
 
 "Stiles," he said, a moment later, "I told you 
 that you had something worth more than that 
 copper-mine." 
 
 Stiles did not ask what it was, and he did not 
 have to, for Baumgarten went on: 
 
 "Class, Stiles, class!" 
 
 After that almost anything could be said be- 
 tween the two men, and Baumgarten knew it. 
 
 "Stiles," he said, slowly, "you know why I 
 ask. Are you going to marry Rose Fuller?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Stiles, quietly.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 JUDGE TYLER walked up the platform of the 
 Eden station to find Rose and Stiles looking 
 up the track for the nine-o'clock train, but the 
 presence of Stiles, in clothes which had lain in 
 his trunk for three weeks, did not seem to surprise 
 him. He seemed more concerned to explain, 
 almost shamefaced, his own presence. 
 
 "I mistrusted you'd all be leaving this morn- 
 ing. So you're going, too?" 
 
 "Yes," said Stiles. "To stay now would be 
 anticlimax." 
 
 The word seemed to do for the judge as well as 
 another, for he was looking back over the hills 
 with dreams of his own. "I thought so. I 
 thought so. Your grandfather, old Major Crater, 
 was just such a one. He'd be here for months, 
 content as a mud-turtle, then puff! he was off." 
 
 Eksberger, with Baumgarten's help, had been 
 trying to draw out from the reticent station- 
 agent the number of weeks which would probably 
 elapse before a freight-car could be secured to 
 take his motor back to the city, but at sight of 
 the judge he came up and held out his hand.
 
 3 2 4 CRATER'S GOLD 
 
 "Judge, how are you?" 
 
 The judge looked him up and down as he al- 
 ways did. 
 
 "In the words of the Felsted Courier," he said, 
 "I see you're leaving our midst." 
 
 "Yes," laughed Eksberger, "but, Judge, let 
 me whisper you something. Just as soon as I 
 get things right, I'm going to come back here and 
 buy me a nice little farm." 
 
 "Yes," replied the judge, slowly, "yes, I've 
 heard men say that." 
 
 Baumgarten joined them with twinkling eyes. 
 
 "Judge," he said, heartily, "do you ever get 
 down to the big city?" 
 
 The judge looked over the hills. "No," he 
 said, slowly. "No, I don't go away any more." 
 
 He did not convince his hearer any more than 
 Stiles had done the first day. 
 
 "Nonsense, Judge!" exclaimed Baumgarten. 
 "The trouble is that, unless you know the inside, 
 you never see New York as it ought to be seen." 
 He reached into his pocket and drew out a card. 
 "There's my telephone number. Now some fine 
 day you make up your mind, just get on a train 
 and come down. We'll show you the time of 
 your life a bang-up dinner, a show, and then 
 Eksberger here will take you behind the scenes." 
 
 The judge seemed unmoved and Baumgarten 
 thought the inducement misunderstood. He 
 repeated: "Ever been behind the scenes in a 
 theater, Judge?"
 
 CRATER'S GOLD 325 
 
 The old man looked over the hills and at last 
 he smiled faintly. 
 
 "Behind the scenes in a theater?" he asked. 
 "Just one. It was in Rome, Italy." He mused 
 a moment over the recollection. "They was a 
 feller " 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000127945 4