"Harvey Barth could not have known anything about Joel Wormbury," added Leopold; "and he wrote his diary, it appears on the very day the Waldo was lost."
"There can be no doubt that Wallbridge and Joel Wormbury were one and the same person," said Mr. Hamilton. "The name which Harvey Barth found on the paper, the initials, on his valise, the name on the shirt, and written forty times in the Bible, fully establish the fact in my mind."
"And in mine, too," said Leopold. "Stumpy, the gold is yours, and I will give it to you whenever you are ready to take it."
"This is a go!" exclaimed Stumpy, with a broad grin on his brown face. "We need the money bad enough; and my mother will jump up six feet when she hears the news. Somebody else won't feel good about it, I'll bet."
Stumpy did not explain to whom the last remark related; but he experienced the most lively satisfaction when he thought of the pleasure it would afford him to see his mother tender the seven hundred dollars in payment of the mortgage note. It occurred to him then that the business ought not to be postponed a single day, for Squire Moses had announced his intention of foreclosing the mortgage at once.
"How much money is there in the bag?" asked the merchant.
"Twelve hundred dollars in gold," replied Leopold; "and the diary says Joel Wormbury saved it in two years from his earnings in Cuba."
"Joel was an industrious and prudent man," added the landlord.
"It is very fortunate that the hidden treasure fell into honest hands," continued Mr. Hamilton, turning to Leopold; whereupon all the company clapped their hands, and the skipper of the Rosabel blushed like a school-girl.