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