So it fell out that within a week's time the gold was looked upon as so much lumber, and the cask which held it was kicked into a dark corner, neglected and despised. Some of the coins were even trodden under foot, and others lay among the chips at the door.
On the evening of the second Sunday after the discovery of the gold, they sat together outside the door of the house, and tried to think of some likely thing the cask might have held more useless than the guineas and double-eagles; and, hard as they tried, they could name nothing more worthless. The result was that they turned away to their beds, feeling poor and dissatisfied, and down on their luck.
Now it happened, as the three soldiers lay asleep in their bunks that night, and while Tumbler slept too, with his nose and his hairy paws in the light, cool ashes of the fireplace (for the nights were warm now), there came up a brisk wind which blew across the mountain from the southwest. This rising wind went whistling on its way, tossing the tree-tops, up on the hill above the birches, whirling the dry leaves across the plateau, scattering them on the field below the ledge, and even dropping some stragglers away down into the Cove far below.
At first this wind only shook the tuft of grass that overhung the lost envelop, and then, as it grew stronger, whirled it from its snug hiding-place, and tumbled it over and over among the dry chestnut-burs and the old, gray, dead limbs.
If the envelop came to a rest, this wind was never content to leave its plaything alone for long. When it landed the little paper against a stump and held it fluttering there until that particular gust was out of breath, the envelop fell to the ground of its own weight, only to be picked up again and tossed on, little by little, always in the same direction, until at last it lay exposed on the brow of the hill to a braver and stronger blast, which lifted it high into the air and sent it sailing over the roof of the house.
This envelop, with the names of the three soldiers and their hiding-place written out in a fair, round hand, might have sailed along on the southwest wind until it fell at the door of the post-office in the Cove but for the queer way it had of navigating the air. It would turn over and over on its way, or shoot up, or dart to one side, or take some unexpected course; and so just as it was sailing smoothly above the house, its sharp edge turned in the wind, and with a backward dive it struck hard on the rock below Philip's leach. Just a breath of wind turned it over and over on the stone, until it fell noiselessly into the pool of lye.
Now, Lieutenant Coleman chanced to come out first in the morning; and when he saw the lost envelop floating on the dark-brown pool alongside a hen's egg, which had been placed there to test the strength of the liquid, he was glad it had blown no farther. The paper had turned very yellow in the strong potash, and so he fished it out with a twig, and carried it across to the branch by the Slow-John, and dipped it into the water. When he picked it out it was still slimy to the touch, and the letters had faded a little. He brushed a word with his finger, and the letters dissolved under his eyes.
He gave a great cry of joy; for in that instant he saw the possibility of converting into blank paper, for keeping their records, the five hundred and ninety-four pages of the Revised Army Regulations of 1863.