Explore "Matt" by Robert W. Buchanan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The young man of the caravan was now thoroughly convinced that one of two things must be true, either that William Jones had been instructed to keep a watch upon him, or that he, William Jones, had a secret of some sort which he was anxious not to have revealed. After both suppositions had been duly weighed, the second was accepted as the most likely; and it forthwith received the young man's consideration.
If there was a secret, he argued, it was in some way connected, firstly, with William Jones's worldly prosperity; secondly, with the reports current of treasure hidden in times past among the sand-hills or the dangerous caverns of the sea. Was it possible, after all, that those reports were true, and that in some mysterious manner Jones had become acquainted with the hiding-place? It seemed very improbable for many reasons, one of the chief being the man's extreme poverty, which appeared to touch the very edge of sheer starvation.