The old man’s face was twitching with eagerness as he asked the question.
“Yes, about five years ago he sent us a nice little check at Christmas. Said he had a good job with a wealthy Englishman who spent his time going around the world discovering queer plants and writing books about them. He was in South America then. We’ve heard from him several times since. This last letter followed me around from pillar to post, always just missing me and having to have the address scratched out and written over till you could hardly make head or tail of what was on it.
“He asked me to write to the address he gave me, but whether it was in ‘Afric’s sunny fountain or India’s coral strand,’ I can’t tell now. It was some heathenish ‘land in error’s chain,’ as the missionary hymn says. I was so worried over losing the letter on account of the address, for he did seem so bent on hearing from us, and he’s a nice boy. I’d hate to loose track of him. So I’m mighty thankful you found the pouch.”
She stopped, expecting them to hand it over. Mr. Milford made the necessary explanation. He told of Captain Kidd finding it and bringing it home, of the two children burying it in play and the storm sweeping away every trace of the markers. While he told the story several automobiles passed them and the occupants leaned out to look at the strange group beside the road. It was not every day one could see an old lady seated in a rocking chair in one end of an unattached wagon with a wild-cat in the other. These passing tourists would have thought it stranger still, could they have known how fate had been tangling the life threads of these people who were in such earnest conversation, or how it had wound them together into a queer skein of happenings.
“And the only reason this compass was saved,” concluded Mr. Milford, “was because it had the initials ‘D. D.’ scratched on it, which stands for this little boy’s name when he plays pirate--Dare-devil Dick.”
The motherly eyes smiled on Richard “If you want to know the real name those letters stand for,” she said, “it’s Dave Daniels. That’s the name of the boy who gave it to me.”
Richard looked alarmed, and even Mr. Milford turned with a questioning glance towards Uncle Darcy, about to say something, when the old man leaned past him and spoke quickly, almost defiantly, as a child might have done.
“That’s all right. I don’t care what he told you his name was. He had a good reason for changing it. And I’m going to tell you this much no matter what I promised. _I_ scratched those initials on there my own self, over forty years ago. And the boy who gave it to you _is_ named Daniel, but it’s his first name, same as mine. Dan’l Darcy. And the boy’s mine, and I’ve been hunting him for ten long years, and I’ve faith to believe that the good Lord isn’t going to disappoint me now that I’m this near the end of my hunt. He had a good reason for going away from home the way he did. He’d a good reason for changing his name as he did, but the time has come now when it’s all right for him to come back and,” shaking his finger solemnly and impressively at the woman, “_I want you to get that word back to him without fail_.”
“But this is only circumstantial evidence, Uncle Dan’l,” said Mr. Milford, soothingly. “You haven’t any real proof that this Dave is your Danny.”
“Proof, proof,” was the excited answer. “I tell you, man, I’ve all the proof I need. All I ask for is the address in that letter. I’ll find my boy quick enough.”