“Did you ever see this before?”
Gwen turned pale and her steady little hands, that could usually carry a brimming cup of coffee safely to its destination without once slopping over, shook so that she spilled the water from the pitcher.
“Oh, Miss Helen! Where did you find it?”
“Never mind now where we found it! You open it and see if you can identify it,” said Helen kindly. She realized that Gwen was to have excitement enough in opening this wallet of her father’s, lost as it had been for five years, without having to picture, as she would surely do, his death, the fall from the cliff and this pocketbook slipping from his coat and lodging in the tree.
The wallet was evidently an expensive one: alligator skin lined with Russian leather. The silver clasp was rusty and Gwen’s trembling hands could hardly force the sliding catch, but Helen motioned for Dr. Wright not to assist her. She felt, somehow, that the girl would rather do it all herself. They were silent while the little English girl fumbled the lock and finally sprung it. The wallet was stuffed full of papers and letters. In one compartment was some silver, several gold pieces and some English coins. The papers were yellow with age, but so stout was the alligator skin that the many rains that must have fallen during the five years the wallet had been wedged in that scrub oak’s branches, had not wet them nor defaced them.
“Be very careful, Gwen, there may be all kinds of precious documents in there,” exclaimed Helen, as some of the papers floated to the floor of the tent and some fluttered to her own cot.
Gwen had sunk to the floor in a little heap and was sobbing.
“I can remember so well how my father used to open up this pocketbook and pore over these letters. I was never allowed to touch it. He kept his money in it and receipts and things.”
“Look, here is a receipt for one thousand dollars in cash payment for land!” exclaimed Helen, as a yellow slip of paper fell on her coverlet. The paper was written in a bold black hand so that any one might read it: