“Won’t it, though?” Tillie bobbed up and down in her excitement.
“Those young men we just caught,” Florence said after a time, “were the last of the band.”
“What band?”
“A band of gamblers and thieves the law has been after for a long time. Through information provided by our gypsy friend, the others were taken to-day. They will not be bothering the kindly people of your settlement for some time to come. There is enough chalked up against them to last half a lifetime.”
“I suppose,” replied Tillie thoughtfully, “that I should feel sorry for them. But I just can’t. They went too far.”
“About two miles too far,” agreed Florence, recalling their heart-breaking swim in the cold night waters of Lake Huron.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE TREASURE CHEST
That night, just as the clock was striking twelve, an interesting company gathered in Petite Jeanne’s parlor. The lady cop was there. So, too, was Sun-Tan Tillie. Minus her faded bathing suit, looking quite stunning in a new dress of dark green, her big eyes shining with interest, Tillie sat in a corner. Close beside her was the “poor little rich girl,” who once had pledged her parents’ rubies, and lost. She knew Tillie and, without having the least notion what it was all about, had come at her request. Petite Jeanne and Florence completed the company.
A tale was to be told. Secrets, they hoped, were to be revealed. With her taste for the dramatic, Petite Jeanne had insisted that the affair be carried off in the grand manner.
Electric lights were off. Shades were down. Four flickering candles furnished faint illumination for the room. On the very center of the rug rested the mysterious oriental trunk which had caused many a palpitation of the heart. It gave off a pungent odor of the forest.