“Am I dreaming?” she wondered aloud.
“Am I?” he answered by asking. “Or do I see a tall, strong old man, with a shock of white hair and a laugh on his lips, raising a flag on yonder pole?”
He removed the lid and she the contents of that crock of “fortune forevermore.”
And thus was fulfilled one of the wild Westerner’s wishes—that he should not know until he had found the object of his search. Thus, through deeds and not words, he learned the nature of Granddad Lauderdale’s buried hoard.
No helping of “a thousand on a plate,” as doughboy might have expected, did Jane serve from the pot. No stream of gold fell through her fingers, to puddle between them on the stone-flagged floor. No packets of bank-notes crinkled in her grasp. No king’s-ransom jewels blinked in the night-light after their long interment. Yet was the girl’s prediction proved true that he scarcely could believe at first the nature of their find. Stupidly he stared. Only slowly could his mind, face its surprise and its enormity.
CHAPTER XXVII—“FORTUNE FOREVERMORE”
At ten o’clock next morning a taxicab carrying three fares drew out of the Fifth Avenue “pass” and stopped before the Sturgis house. A woman and one of the men alighted. The second remained seated, his waiting rôle evidently prearranged, as the pair did not so much as nod back at him. Ascending the stone flight, they rang the front bell, as strangers might. In due time the door swung open.
“Miss Jane—thank Heaven you’re alive and back again!” Jasper’s exclamation was fervent beyond all rules of butlership. “Mr. Pape, good morning, sir. Your arrival is timely, too. They have been telephoning in all directions to locate you. Such excitement, Miss Jane, as we’ve been suffering!”
“They, Jasper?” The girl faced about in the vestibule.
“The madame, Mrs. Sturgis, and Judge Allen. He has had a fall and broken his shoulder, we fear. Mr. Harford, also, was in some sort of accident. An automobile struck him, I believe.”