"Well, Maud, did you learn anything yesterday?" while an anxious look crept into his face.
"Yes, I learned this!" she replied, while holding out her hand, in which, resting on a piece of muslin, was a human tooth, and that long, reticulated tissue, which he saw at a glance was the rattles of the enormous reptile he had encountered while digging for the treasure.
He looked at them in a startled, wondering way for a moment; then, as if comprehending it all, he said:—
"Ah, yes—the rattles! But the tooth—that is the hardest part of all."
Maud and Rob could not restrain a smile at the ghastly pun; but the former replied:—
"I found them where you had been digging, near the old cottonwood-tree. We know about the rattlesnake and that gray-robed figure, which was the same one that startled us by the camp-fire, I really believe. But that human tooth?—I shall certainly go raving mad if you keep anything further from me."
Clifford glanced from her pale face to that of Rob, which wore a look of startled perplexity.
"I find it impossible to keep anything from your sharp eyes. So it is myself, after all, who has to confess!" he said, seating himself on the divan.
Then, while the rain lashed the windows and the chill wind wailed through the tree-tops without, he told that story of midnight horror. When he finished, Maud was pale and tearful, and Rob's hazel eyes were round with mute astonishment.
"But Maud, did you learn the reason of Mr. Ess—that is Mora's folks—well—why they came up yesterday?" Clifford managed at length to say in a confused manner, that revealed a great deal of uneasiness on his part, which was not at all lost on the sharp-eyed couple beside him.