Then, drying her tears, Maud told of the strange revelations which the visit of the Estills had disclosed; and when she repeated the singular conversation which Robbie had overheard in the barn, Clifford cried out excitedly:—
"Ah! that was the mysterious kinsman who Mora said was buried on the hill-top at Estill Ranch. He was one of the robbers who perpetrated the outrage at the corral years ago. A bandit and murderer! 'Tis no wonder that nothing but nettles ever grow on that grave. It was through him, Maud, that they obtained the locket, with its picture of Bruce and Ivarene. But it can not be that Mr. Estill derived his great wealth from the same source! If so, he never would have betrayed himself by showing the pictures of the people that were murdered by his own kinsman. What, then, became of the great treasure?" he sadly asked. But no one seemed able to answer his question; for the whole affair had now assumed a tone of mystery such as it had never worn before.
Chapter XV.
"Why should they have given 'her' the name which was on the locket? and who was the mysterious female that never had learned of the tragical circumstance?" said Maud, with a puzzled face.
"I am unable to answer your question, Maud," Clifford replied; but there was something in his manner that led the sharp-eyed couple before him to suspect he had detected some clue which had eluded them in their investigations of the mystery.
"Cliff, what the deuce was that old skull doing in the cask?" said Rob, innocently; but, seeing the look of amusement on his brother's face, he added: "Or I mean to ask, how came it there?"
"To answer your first question I shall have to remind you that a dead man's skull has a very limited field of action, confined principally to the pastime of rolling over and rattling its teeth when touched; but how or why it was there, seems only known to the ill-natured ophidian which kept it such close company," Clifford replied, with his usual strain of jocular sarcasm.
"Oh dear!" said Maud, drearily, while drumming on the misty window-pane. "It is very exasperating to be shut up in a house on such a day, where every closet is full of skeletons, and not dare to peep into one of them," she added.
"But Cliff has been peeping, and with wonderful luck, too," Rob observed, dryly.