Sally Dows

“For yourself, my dear Gabriel, you must be satisfied with the fact that Messrs. Peter Gunn & Sons will take back your wildcat stock at the price you paid for it. It is the price they pay for their share in this little transaction, as I had the honor of pointing out to Mr. Gunn on our way to the station this morning.”

“Then you think that young Mr. Gunn knew that Flint was his relation, and that he had stolen father’s money,” said Kitty, “and that Mr. Gunn only wanted to”—She stopped, with flashing eyes.

“I think he would have liked to have made an arrangement, my dear, that would keep the secret and the property in the family,” said Uncle Sylvester. “But I don’t think he suspected the existence of the second treasure here.”

“And then, sir,” said Cousin Jane, “it appears that all these wretched, unsatisfactory scraps of stories you were telling us were nothing after all but”—

“My way of telling THIS one,” said Uncle Sylvester.

As the others were eagerly gathering around the unearthed treasure, Marie approached him timidly, all her audacity gone, tears in her eyes, and his ring held hesitatingly between her fingers. “How can I thank you—and how CAN you ever forgive me?”

“Well,” said Uncle Sylvester, gazing at her critically, “you might keep the ring to think over it.”

1

The “patrol” or local police who formerly had the surveillance of slaves.

2

It was a frontier superstition that the ball extracted from a gunshot wound, if swallowed by the wounded man, prevented inflammation or any supervening complications.