Page 362 - The snake's pass

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350 THE snake's pass. ! —
tlie gold; but we never stirred the chest or took away
those skeleton hands from the handles which they
grasped.
It took ns all, carrying a good load each, to "bring
the money to Joyce's cottage. We locked it in a great
oak chest, and warned Miss Joyce not to say a word
about it. I told Miss Joyce that if Andy came for me
he was to be sent on to us, explaining that we were going
back to the top of the new ravine.
We followed it up further, till we reached a point
much higher up on the hill, and at last came to the
cleft in the rock whence the stream issued. The floor
here was rocky, and it being so, we did not hesitate to
descend, and even to enter the chine. As we did so,
Dick turned to me :
" Well it seems to me that the mountain
! is giving
up its secrets to-day. We have found the Frenchmen's
treasure, and now we may expect, I suppose, to find
the lost crown By George though, strange
! ! it is
they said the Snake became the Shifting Bog, and that
it went out, by the Shleenanaher —as we saw the bog
!
did."
When we got well into the chine, we began to look
about us curiously. There was something odd—some-
thing which we did not expect. Dick was the most
prying, and certainly the most excited of us all. He
touched some of the rock, and then almost shouted :
" Hurrah day discoveries. — Hurrah !
! this a of
"
hurrah !