CHAPTER XVIII
DUX FACTI FEMINA
ROY was aroused to sudden consternation, when a lull in his ecstatic emotion let him once again think of mundane things, for it flashed on him that the explosive to which the fuse had been attached still remained in Saxe’s chamber. In a word he explained the matter, and the two hastened to the cottage, where after a quick embrace they separated, May going to her room, to change into dry clothing, and Roy running to his friend. He entered Saxe’s chamber cautiously, yet moving rapidly, lighted the lamp, and looked about him. At once, his eyes fell on the bomb, which rested on a bureau, near the head of the bed. From it extended the remnant of fuse, which ran out through the open window. Roy drew this in, took up the bomb carefully, for he was not sure how sensitive it might be, and made his way out of the room, without awakening the sleeper. Within a minute, the instrument of crime was reposing innocuously on the bed of the lake, whither Roy had tossed it from the cliff. On his return to the house, he aroused his friend, and told of the latest attempt on the part of the engineer. Saxe was profoundly impressed by the narrowness of his escape from death, or mutilation. Nevertheless, his feeling was less by far than it must have been, but for his midnight discovery concerning the miser’s cipher. Without pausing to dress, he hurriedly related the fact to Roy, who was equally impressed. To make the matter wholly clear, Saxe would have exhibited the music to Roy, showing the place occupied by the hold, but the manuscript had mysteriously disappeared. The two hunted through the room thoroughly, although Saxe was sure that the sheet had been left on the bureau when he returned from Billy Walker’s room. There was no trace of it anywhere, and presently they abandoned the search, to stare at each other in bewilderment. It was Roy who first reached a solution of the puzzle:
“It was Masters took it—of course!” he declared, savagely. “He’s been snooping around, heard us talk of it probably, and, when he got here tonight, he simply swiped it.”
“But it’ll do him no good.” Saxe protested.
“But he thinks it will,” Roy retorted. “Anyhow, he’s made off with it. Perhaps he thought it would tie us up—and so it will. We must have it back.” His jaw shot forward, and his eyes grew hard.
Saxe, however, smiled, and shook his head in denial.
“Not a bit of it,” he asserted. “I can reproduce that music in ten minutes, every mark on it. I know where the hold was, exactly. For that matter, I don’t need the music. The chart will do just as well, for I know the place on it, too. But I’ll do the music over for Bill and the rest of you. I’ll do it as soon as I’m dressed, before I come down to breakfast.” And as he said, so was it. When he appeared at the breakfast-table, he carried with him an exact duplicate of the old miser’s manuscript.
There was much lively interest on the part of all, when the adventure of the night was made known, and May on her appearance was hailed as a heroine of melodrama. To the astonishment of all save Roy perhaps, the girl was more radiant than they had ever seen her hitherto, and the color in her cheeks and the brilliance of her charming eyes, now undisfigured by the businesslike lenses of the secretary, rendered her beauty so striking that the men regarded her with new admiration, while Margaret West, from the instinct of a woman whose own heart is full of tenderness, regarded her friend with a gentle suspicion that there remained something of the adventure yet untold.
Roy was eager to devote the day to a search for the capture of Masters, but the others were opposed to this. It was finally decided that the quest for the hiding-place of the treasure must be carried on without a moment of delay, since the matter of the short time now remaining, only a week, could not be ignored. As to the evil devices of the engineer, it would be sufficient to take precautions against them by keeping watch through the coming night and afterward until the end of the hunt for the gold. So, as soon as breakfast was done, the four friends set out in the launch with Jake for a survey of the territory indicated by the hold.
This, as was clearly apparent from examination of the manuscript, was on the lake shore at a point opposite one of the low peaks. It was easily distinguished by its nearness to the second of the highest summits, as it was at the first point of rise after a long descent. The course brought them again to the north end of the lake, to a place close to the extreme end. There was a cove here, which ran inland for a half-mile. Within the curve of the shore, a few small islands were scattered, and outside the miniature bay a larger island stretched, one of the chief on the lake.