“What do you intend to do, as to the treasure?” she asked, slowly.
“Give it up!” he replied. “What else is there to do?”
“And what about this stranger?”
“He must give it up!” laughed Croyden. “He has no recourse. In the words of the game, popular hereabout, he is playing a bobtail!”
“But he doesn’t know it’s a bobtail. He is convinced you found the treasure,” she objected.
“Let him make whatever trouble he can, it won’t bother me, in the least.”
“He is not acting alone,” she persisted. “He has confederates—they may attack Clarendon, in an effort to capture the treasure.”
“My dear child! this is the twentieth century, not the seventeenth!” he laughed. “We don’t ‘stand-by to repel boarders,’ these days.”
“Pirate’s gold breeds pirate’s ways!” she answered. 208
He stared at her, in surprise.