Thus the two, alternating their keen watch, saw Steve reach the spot Sophronia had pointed out but the moment before, as the secret burial place of the treasure, and when he had reached it he immediately began to dig with one hand in the ground to unearth the glass jar.
He was some little time in doing this, hampered as he was with one arm in a sling, but at last the job was happily accomplished, and holding the jar between his knees, as Sophronia remembered also to have done, he unscrewed the lid with his free hand, and was soon deeply engaged in counting over the bills.
"Hello! Steve! what in the devil air you doin'?"
So intent was Judson in his pleasant and unusual occupation, and so interested the two spectators behind the cedar bushes, that the presence of a fourth party was quite unknown and unsuspected by all until a voice broke abruptly and startlingly on the quiet of the spot.
Steve gave a nervous start, as if he had received an electric shock, and almost dropped the roll of bills that was spread out on his knee, while the quick move he made overturned the jar at his feet, and sent it rolling down the declivity, until it broke with a sharp crash on the rocks in the dry bed of the stream below.
Even the two girls came near betraying their presence by a cry of surprise at the unexpected intrusion. Close upon the words of the new-comer, and before Steve could gather up his money and hide it, the bushes on the opposite side of the ravine, right above Steve, were parted, and a man caught hold of a wild grape-vine hanging from a tree, jutting out over a ledge, and lightly swung himself down to within a few feet of where Steve sat. It was Jade Beddow.
"I went to your house huntin' you, an' your wife said you was down in this direction somewheres. How's your arm gettin'?" the speaker suddenly caught sight of the bank bills on Steve's knee, and broke into a low whistle of astonishment.
"Well,—great—Je—ru—sa—lem! where'd you git all that money?" he asked in frank surprise.
"I—I—I've been savin' it up for a rainy day," stammered Steve, nervously clutching the bills in his one hand, and crushing them into his broad palm, as if to hide them from Jade's keen eyes.
"How much 've you got there?" questioned his companion curiously.