On the morning of Father McQueen’s arrival in Chance Along, the skipper dispatched Nick Leary to Witless Bay to learn whether or no Jack Quinn had reached that place.  Leary returned on the evening of the following day with the expected information that nothing had been seen of the missing man in Witless Bay.  In his pocket he brought a recent issue of St. John’s newspaper, for which he had paid two shillings and two drams of rum.  This he brought as an offering to the skipper—­for the skipper could read print almost as well as a merchant and had a thirst for information of the outside world.

The first item of news which the skipper managed to spell out was the notice of a reward of five hundred pounds awaiting the person who should recover Lady Harwood’s necklace of twelve diamonds and fourteen rubies and deliver it to Mr. Peter Wren, solicitor, Water Street, St. John’s.  The notice went on to say that this necklace, together with other smaller and less valuable articles of jewelry, had been taken by force from the shipwrecked company of the bark Durham Castle, which had gone ashore and to pieces in a desolate place called Frenchman’s Cove, on the east coast.  It also gave the date of the wreck and stated that if the necklace should be returned undamaged, no questions would be asked.  The skipper saw in a moment that the reward was offered for the stones which he had found in the deserted berth and which Quinn had robbed him of.  Five hundred pounds?  He shook his head over that.  He had read somewhere, at some time, about the value of diamonds, and he felt sure that the necklace was worth many times the money offered for its recovery.  So the loss of it was known to the world?  He had a great idea of the circulation of the St. John’s Herald.  He had retired to a secluded spot above the harbor to read the paper, and now he glanced furtively over his shoulder.  No limb of the law was in sight.  He gazed abroad over the sodden, gloomy barrens and reflected bitterly that the treasure lay there in some pit or hollow, in a dead man’s pocket, perhaps within shouting-distance of where he stood.  He swore that he would recover it yet—­but not for the reward offered by Mr. Peter Wren in behalf of Lady Harwood.  He re-read the notice slowly, following letter and word with muttering lips and tracing finger.  Then, at a sudden thought of Father McQueen, he tore away that portion of the outer sheet which contained the notice.

The skipper returned to his house and found the missionary seated beside the stove chatting with Mother Nolan.

“Here bes a paper, yer reverence, Nick Leary fetched over from Witless Bay,” he said.  “It bes tored, sir; but maybe ye’ll find some good readin’ left in it.”

The good father was charmed.  He had not seen a newspaper for six weeks.  He dragged a pair of spectacles from a pocket of his rusty cassock, set them upon his nose and hooked them over his ears, and read aloud every word save those which the skipper had torn away.