Chap.

  1. [A Cowardly Attack]
  2. [The Old Miser]
  3. [The Great Prize is offered]
  4. [I enter for the Race]
  5. [Treachery!]
  6. [Rats in a Trap]
  7. [Ghosts]
  8. [Neck and Neck for the First Lap]
  9. [More Treachery]
  10. [A Serious Check]
  11. [Stalking a Man]
  12. [Scotching a Snake]
  13. [An Unexpected Tragedy]
  14. [A Glimpse of the Winning-Post]
  15. [Eureka!]
  16. ["All that glitters is not Gold!"]
  17. [Lost!]
  18. [How we buried ourselves alive for the Love of Science]
  19. [A Night with a Lion]
  20. [Our Trusty Nigger to the Rescue]
  21. [The Bad Elephant]
  22. [I am mourned for Dead]
  23. [A Rude Awakening]
  24. [Strong sprints and gains a Lap]
  25. [Lapped, but still in the Race]
  26. [How we prospected for Coal]
  27. [Eldorado or—Hogland]
  28. [What the Elder did with Strong]
  29. [Much Digging]
  30. [I take a Strong Lead in the Race]
  31. [The Elder makes a good Bargain, and Michail a poor one]
  32. [We receive a Terrible Shock]
  33. [How Strong escaped from Prison]
  34. [Exit Strong]
  35. [More Checks]
  36. [We find an Old Friend]
  37. [Mr. Strong makes an Effective Reappearance]
  38. [Arrested]
  39. [Digging again]
  40. [Jack proves Himself a Genius]
  41. [The Excitement becomes intense]
  42. [All over but—]
  43. [—the Shouting]

CLUTTERBUCK'S TREASURE

CHAPTER I

A COWARDLY ATTACK

When my father died and left me unexpectedly penniless, all those kind friends whom I consulted upon my obvious failure to find anything to do were quite agreed as to this fact: that when a young man is desirous of finding employment in this world, and of making his way and keeping his head up among his fellows, his failure to do so, if he does fail, must certainly be his own fault. He lacks, they said, either energy or perseverance or pluck, or all three; in a word, he wants "grit."

Therefore the reader will kindly understand this about me as a standpoint: that since I failed miserably to find employment befitting a young person of my position, at a time when it was necessary to find employment or go to the wall, I must—by all the rules of the probabilities—not only have gone to the wall, but also be deficient in all those qualities which are most dear to the British intelligence, namely—pluck, perseverance, and so forth.

And yet I did not go to the wall. On the contrary, I am, though still a young man, in an exceedingly comfortable position; while as for the British virtues which I am supposed to lack, I do not think—though I will not boast—that the reader will hesitate to acquit me of the charge of wanting every quality that goes to make an average Englishman, when he shall have read the curious tale I have to unfold.

My father's death, followed by the unexpected revelation of his insolvency, was a terrible blow to me. I had been educated without regard to expense. At Winchester I had plenty of pocket-money, and was, for this reason—and because I was a good athlete and but a moderate scholar—a popular character. At New College, Oxford, during the one year I spent there, I was in a set whose ideas centred rather upon the pleasures of life than upon its duties and responsibilities.

I still had plenty of money, and undoubtedly the last thing in the world that would have been likely to trouble my head at this time was any reflection as to where the funds came from. My father, as I believed, was a rich man, a member of the Stock Exchange, and having the disposal, as I had always understood, of practically unlimited supplies of money.