Some one had taken away gold from that mound--how much or how little, it did not matter.

Some one besides himself had had access to the treasure! His suspicions fell upon Ralph, chiefly because his most earnest desire at that moment was that Ralph might be the offender.

If he could have believed that he would have been happy.

It must have been that the boy was not willing to go away and leave all that gold, feeling that perhaps he and his sister might never possess any of it, and that just before leaving he had made a hurried visit to the mound.

But the more the captain thought of this, the less probable it became.