Together they peered in eagerly. Lang had had visions of bales of yellow-backed notes, but there was nothing of the sort in sight. There were a few envelopes like old letters, a thick package of engraved documents resembling bonds, a couple of smaller packages, and several lumps of metallic-looking rock.
Lang snatched out the larger bundle. The papers were not even bonds. They were stock certificates—hundred-dollar shares in the Yuma Southwestern Oil Company, a name which he had never heard, but which had a most worthless sound. The ten thousand dollars’ worth of scrip was probably worth less than as many cents.
Carroll glanced briefly at the certificates, smiled, and went on examining the other parcels. One was a package of small water-color drawings, apparently by Rockett’s own hand, depicting a series of rocky and forbidding coast scenes. Another packet contained photographs of much the same sort of landscapes; the third had negatives, in labeled groups, and the odd envelopes held more sketches, photographs, and a couple of rough sketch maps.
Lang was bitterly disappointed. There was no value in the whole box. He had approached burglary for no reward. Carroll looked up with a smile at his disgust.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he remarked. “I never expected to find much plunder planted here, anyway. Let’s see that stock again. Gad! that old man always was lucky. He must have had a private tip. Bought it outright, too.”
“It isn’t worth anything, is it?”
“It’s worth what it’ll bring. It was selling at around twenty-five a few months ago, when Rockett must have picked it up. The last I heard, it was about sixty. It’s a manipulated stock, fixed to sky-rocket and then break, I guess.”
“This block of stock may be worth six thousand dollars, then?” said Lang, with more interest.
“Can’t say. It mayn’t be worth anything. We must see a broker about it right away.”
He crammed the sketches and photographs into his pockets, and tipped up the box. Nothing was left but the bits of rock, dark stones bearing greenish crystalline veins and nodules. Carroll looked at them with a good deal of interest, and pocketed them with the rest.