"It will be worth two hundred and fifty dollars for anyone to find it and return it to me," shouted Mr. Macey. That scattered the searchers more widely still. Presently a woman friend drove home with Mrs. Macey, while her husband remained to push the search. He kept at it until two o'clock in the morning, half a hundred men and boys remaining in the search.
Then Mr. Macey gave it up. The gaudy, foolish trifle was worth about five thousand dollars. As the night wore on Mr. Macey began to have a pessimistic notion that perhaps some one had found the scarf but had been too "thrifty" to turn in such a precious article for so small a reward.
"I guess it may as well be given up," sighed Mr. Macey, after two in the morning. "I'm going home, anyway."
The readers of "The Blade" that crisp October morning knew of
Mrs. Macey's loss.
There was much talk about the matter around the town. People who walked downtown early that morning peered into gutters and down through sidewalk gratings. Then, at about seven o'clock a sensation started, and swiftly grew.
One man, glancing skyward, had his attention attracted to something fluttering at the top of the spire of the Methodist church, more than half a block away from the opera house. It was fabric of some sort, and one end fluttered in the breeze, though most of the black material appeared to be wrapped around the tip of the weather vane in which the spire staff terminated.
"That's the jeweled scarf, I'll bet a month's pay!" gasped the discoverer. Then, mindful of the reward, he dashed to the nearest telephone office, asking "central" to ring insistently until an answer came over the Macey wire.
"Hullo, is that you, Mr. Macey?" called the discoverer, a teamster.
"Then come straight up to the Methodist church. I'll be there.
I've discovered the jeweled scarf."
"How—-how many jewels are left on it?" demanded Mr. Macey.
"Come right up! I'll tell you all about it when you get here."