Sleep came quickly to the lad’s eyes, but it was only light, for with the first blush of dawn he awoke and prepared to commence his work.

His tools he had hidden away beneath the heap of leaves which had formed his bed, and he did not disturb them for the time being, but walked forth and examined the dell for himself before making any excavation.

First his attention was given to the patch of greensward around the well; but this was so smooth and even that it seemed as if it had not been disturbed for ages.  Such soft emerald turf, as Cuthbert well knew, was the growth of centuries, and there was no sort of trace or seam to indicate the handiwork of man.

Round and round the open space he paced, his eyes fixed upon the ground beneath his feet, his quick glance shifting from spot to spot, as he strove for some indication, however faint, of the existence of some hidden hoard.

“Yet it is certain to be well hid.  It were strange if I did light upon it in the first hour,” he said to himself at length, covering his disappointment with a smile.  “I will break my fast with the good fare given me by my fair cousin Kate, and will taste the waters of the magic well.  I trow I shall take no harm from them.  Long Robin will scarce have poisoned the spring from which he himself must ofttimes drink.”

Whilst he partook of his simple meal, he looked about him with keen and eager glances, wondering where he should next search, and striving to see traces of footsteps in the sandy sides of the dell, or breaks in the tangled growth of underwood that would indicate some track used by Robin.  Cuthbert shrewdly suspected that he would not be able to resist the temptation of going frequently to the spot where the buried treasure lay, to see if the ground remained undisturbed, and he thought that the surest way of discovering this spot was to seek for traces likely to be left by him; or, failing these, to watch patiently from some obscure spot till the gipsy came again to the dell, when it was probable he might betray the secret by his own movements.

“If I dig and delve before the clue is mine, I may chance to put him on his guard, and find nothing.  No; I will be patient—­I will be very cautious.  Success comes to him that can wait.  Long Robin is a foe not to be despised or trifled with; I can tell that from his own words and Joanna’s.  He would take a hundred lives to save his golden secret.  He is cautious and cunning and wary.  I must try to be the same.”

All that long summer’s day Cuthbert prowled up and down the dell, searching for some trace, however slight, which should give him the clue, and searching in vain.  The only path where the undergrowth was in any way trodden was the one by which he and Robin alike approached the well, the old, half-obliterated track that once had been so freely used.  All around the sides of the dell, fern and bramble, hazel and undergrowth of all kinds, grew in wild confusion.  Search as he would, Cuthbert could find nothing like a path of any kind.  Did Robin indeed trust to that tangled undergrowth to keep his secret hid?  And if so, what chance was there of its being found unless the whole dell was dug up?