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was on the day following Christmas that Dick brought out the brass-lined money casket which he had picked up in the cave on Needle Point Island, in Lake Huron, as related in a previous volume of this series.

As old readers know, this cave was stumbled upon by accident. It had once been the hiding place of a band of smugglers who plied their unlawful calling between the United States and Canada, and the cave was found filled with numerous articles of more or less value. The Rovers had gone back for these things, but had found some money gone, also a curiously shaped dagger and a map, which had been in the cave on a rude table. They were pretty well satisfied in their minds that Dan Baxter had taken these things, but had never been able to prove it.

The brass-lined money casket was an odd-looking affair, which Dick found thrust in a big box of fancy articles of various descriptions. The box was about a foot long, six inches wide, and