One thing puzzled him. Every article in the room, save two, belonged to yesterday—a purple coat hanging in a corner and a boy’s cap beside it—were distinctly of to-day and American made.
“They can’t belong to the young girl,” he told himself. “Nor to her grandmother.”
The bent and aged woman who must be the young Spanish girl’s grandmother was at that moment offering him his second cup of coffee.
His thoughts were cut short by the answer to his problem. A tall, fair-haired American boy, apparently in his early teens, parted the heavy homespun curtains at the back of the room and started towards the table.
Seeing Pant, he halted in surprise.
“Pardon me,” said Pant, springing to his feet. “Perhaps I intrude. I had supposed that this house belonged to these good Spanish people. Apparently it is your home instead.”
“No.” The strange boy’s smile was frank, disarming. “You were right the first time. Like you, I am an intruder. But you are from America,” he added quickly. “How perfectly grand! Won’t you please stay for a second cup, and to talk to me a little of our homeland?”
Pant stayed. They ended by talking little of the homeland. In their strange surroundings they found a fascinating subject of conversation.
“Yes,” said the boy at last, who gave his name as Kirk Munson, “they are truly the last of the Dons. Once a rich and noble family.
“And do you know”—his lips moved close, he spoke almost in a whisper, “there is a tale, perhaps only a legend, a story of a beaten silver box filled with priceless pearls taken from the Pacific when that great ocean was young. The silver box, so the story goes, was hidden away by the first Don of this family to keep it from the buccaneers, hidden and lost from sight of human eyes, perhaps forever.