Soon after supper Albert Benton went to the village, and this left Grant and Tom free to transfer their gold-dust to a trunk in Mr. Crambo’s chamber¹. When the change had been made, Grant said in a satisfied tone: “Now, Benton can open the chest and welcome.”

“I’d like to be present when he is doing it,” said Tom Cooper.

Albert Benton was anxious to obtain a key that would open the chest. He scraped acquaintance with a clerk at the village hotel, and casually² remarked: “I’m in a bad fix. I’ve got a trunk at home that I can’t open.”

“Why not?” asked the clerk.

“I haven’t a key that will fit it. You don’t happen to have any keys, do you?”

“I’ve got half a dozen,” said the clerk, taking a handful from his pocket. “They are keys that I picked up about the hotel.”

263“Will you lend them to me?”

“Certainly. If you find one that suits, you can have it.”

Benton took them, well pleased. From the size it seemed to him probable that one of them would fit the chest.

“Thank you,” he said. “I will return them to you to-morrow.”

“Oh, don’t be in any hurry. They are of no use to me.”

He left the hotel, and it chanced soon afterward³ that Grant and Tom entered it. Tom was in search of a cigar, for he was a confirmed smoker⁴.

“I just had a call from one of your fellow boarders,” remarked the clerk, who knew both Tom and Grant.

“Benton?”

“Oh, is that his name? I only knew that he boarded at Paul Crambo’s. Seems a sociable⁵ sort of fellow.”

“Quite so,” answered Tom dryly.

“He is talking of buying a restaurant in the village—the one kept by Hardy⁶.”

“I heard him mention it.”

264“He says he was in that business in Sacramento.”

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