Her Father's Gold

"Beware of the water devil." That was what the editor said to the star reporter as he sent him off to Florida to investigate the mysterious water denizen that was causing a panic among the residents on the shores of Crystal Lake. The reporter laughed; he was not a bit worried about the water devil, for his assignment was taking him to the spot where his sweetheart lived and where he suspected a great treasure in gold bullion that had been stolen from her father was buried. Four crooks had stolen the gold from the mine of his sweetheart's father in Mexico and had carried it by boat to Florida, where one of them had double-crossed his pals, marooned them on an island in a lake, buried the gold and went north, expecting to join his wife and disappear with her, returning to Florida later for the gold, but the other crooks got away sooner than he expected, followed him North and besieged him in his own house. Cut off from all help, he wrote a note to his wife. He also drew a map telling where he had hidden the treasure, painted it over with blue watercolor and hung it on his wall just before the avengers broke in. In the fight that followed he was blinded and mortally wounded and was taken to the hospital. The wife of one of the crooks followed him there, knowing that he was blind, and pretending to be his wife, tried to get the secret of the treasure, but failed. Later he died after saying to his wife, who came at last: "The blue picture; the blue picture." Being out of money and unable to solve the mystery of the blue picture, the wife wrote to the mine owner, offering to divide the gold if he could help her locate it. The owner was away, and before his daughter could answer the letter the crooks managed to do away with the writer of it and carried off the blue picture, which they suspected contained the clue. It is at the scene of the killing that the reporter meets the mine owner's daughter and falls in love with her. It is there, too, that the reporter finds a fragment of the blue picture and suspects its importance, chiefly from the efforts of the wife of the sole surviving crook to steal it from him. He lets her steal it at last, and then follows her and finds the blue picture in the shack in Florida where she lives with her husband. This shack is on the banks of the lake where the water devil moves and has his being. Hesitating to carry off the picture, the reporter photographs it, only to find out later that blue (the picture is blue) is non-actinic an