Tommy looked.  Standing out half obstructing the path was a huge boulder which certainly bore a fanciful resemblance to a “begging” terrier.

“Well,” said Tommy, refusing to share Julius’s emotion, “it’s what we expected to see, isn’t it?”

Julius looked at him sadly and shook his head.

“British phlegm!  Sure we expected it—­but it kind of rattles me, all the same, to see it sitting there just where we expected to find it!”

Tommy, whose calm was, perhaps, more assumed than natural, moved his feet impatiently.

“Push on.  What about the hole?”

They scanned the cliff-side narrowly.  Tommy heard himself saying idiotically: 

“The gorse won’t be there after all these years.”

And Julius replied solemnly: 

“I guess you’re right.”

Tommy suddenly pointed with a shaking hand.

“What about that crevice there?”

Julius replied in an awestricken voice: 

“That’s it—­for sure.”

They looked at each other.

“When I was in France,” said Tommy reminiscently, “whenever my batman failed to call me, he always said that he had come over queer.  I never believed it.  But whether he felt it or not, there is such a sensation.  I’ve got it now!  Badly!”

He looked at the rock with a kind of agonized passion.

“Damn it!” he cried.  “It’s impossible!  Five years!  Think of it!  Bird’s-nesting boys, picnic parties, thousands of people passing!  It can’t be there!  It’s a hundred to one against its being there!  It’s against all reason!”

Indeed, he felt it to be impossible—­more, perhaps, because he could not believe in his own success where so many others had failed.  The thing was too easy, therefore it could not be.  The hole would be empty.

Julius looked at him with a widening smile.

“I guess you’re rattled now all right,” he drawled with some enjoyment.  “Well, here goes!” He thrust his hand into the crevice, and made a slight grimace.  “It’s a tight fit.  Jane’s hand must be a few sizes smaller than mine.  I don’t feel anything—­no—­say, what’s this?  Gee whiz!” And with a flourish he waved aloft a small discoloured packet.  “It’s the goods all right.  Sewn up in oilskin.  Hold it while I get my penknife.”

The unbelievable had happened.  Tommy held the precious packet tenderly between his hands.  They had succeeded!

“It’s queer,” he murmured idly, “you’d think the stitches would have rotted.  They look just as good as new.”

They cut them carefully and ripped away the oilskin.  Inside was a small folded sheet of paper.  With trembling fingers they unfolded it.  The sheet was blank!  They stared at each other, puzzled.

“A dummy?” hazarded Julius.  “Was Danvers just a decoy?”

Tommy shook his head.  That solution did not satisfy him.  Suddenly his face cleared.