"Here's your money, when you give my mother the papers," replied Stumpy. "That's easy enough to understand—isn't it?"
"Where did you get the money, Stumpy?" demanded the squire.
"That don't make any difference," added Stumpy, shaking his head.
"I don't think it does," interposed Mr. Hamilton. "The young man's position appears to be quite correct."
Squire Moses looked at the merchant, and immediately concluded that this rich New Yorker had advanced the money. He bit his lips till they bled, but finally went off with Ethan and the lawyer, to procure the necessary papers to discharge the mortgage.
"I don't understand it any better than Squire Moses," said Mrs. Wormbury, when the hard creditor had gone.
"You will pay off the note, mother, with money earned by father's own hands," replied Stumpy, gently.
"What do you mean, my son?" asked the widow, trembling with emotion.
Stumpy explained what he meant. Mrs. Wormbury listened, and wept when she realized that her husband had perished in the waves, not on the Georges, but within sight of his own home. The story was hardly finished before Squire Moses returned alone, with the note and release. Mr. Hamilton carefully examined the latter document, and declared that it was correct.
"So it seems Joel was the passenger in the Waldo, who buried this money," said the squire, as he put the bills in his pocket; for the discovery made in the parlor of the Sea Cliff House was now following the story of the hidden treasure up the main street.