"But I"m mighty glad to know my films are all right," Will burst forth with, and this remark showed that this important fact took precedence of all others in his mind.
Frank stepped over to the opening where the plank had been removed, and glanced down as he rubbed his chin reflectively.
"Look here, fellows," he said to the others, "all of you saw the hole under this board that time we found the coin, the half of an old envelope with Mr. Dennison"s name on it in faded writing, and that baby shoe; isn"t it so?"
"Of course we did, Frank," a.s.sented Jerry; "and I want to make my solemn affidavit to the fact that there wasn"t any gold cup lying there then."
"Will, you are just as positive about that as Jerry, of course?"
continued Frank.
"Well, I should say I was!" came the prompt reply.
"And you too, Bluff?" Frank went on, evidently intending that there should not be a single dissenting voice in the group.
Bluff immediately lifted his hand, with the fingers stiffened as though he fancied himself on the witness stand.
"Give you my word for it, Frank; nothing doing," he a.s.serted in his customary vigorous manner, that was usually very convincing.
"Gilbert came up to the scratch smiling, didn"t he?" remarked Jerry; "and I take it he"s going to turn out a pretty decent sort of a fellow."
"Queer, isn"t it," Will was saying, "how chickens do come home to roost? When we stopped a little while on our way here, and pulled Gilbert up by the use of that wild grape-vine, none of us ever dreamed he"d be in a position to return the favor, and yet see what happened.
What"s that old proverb about the bread thrown to the fishes, or something like that?"
"You must mean "bread cast upon the waters will come back again ere many days,"" explained Frank, smilingly.
"All right, no matter how it runs, it worked, you see," continued Will. "We got Gilbert out, and now he has returned the favor."
"Huh! strikes me he kept us from getting in," interrupted Bluff; "because the old gentleman seemed bent on ordering Mr. Jeems to arrest us, and throw us in the village lockup."
"Luck still seems to hang out with us," ventured Jerry; "and you know they say it"s a heap better to be born lucky than rich. Money may fly away, but so long as luck stands back of you it"s easy to get everything you want."
"But all the same that mystery of the golden cup bothers me," said Frank.
"Yes, that"s a fact," added Jerry. "How in the wide world could it ever have come into this cabin, when we know it wasn"t here a few days ago?"
"Mr. Dennison admits it was safe in his house until about the day before yesterday," continued Frank; and then he cast a sly look out of the tail of his eye in the direction of Jerry.
Truth to tell, Frank was just a trifle uneasy concerning that member of the little party. There was a shadow of a reason why he should feel that way, too. He could only too easily remember how impulsive Jerry had hinted that he felt a great temptation to try to find out what the secret of the hermit"s house was. At the time he expressed this longing Frank had taken him severely to task; and Jerry had promised faithfully to forego all effort to pry into matters that were none of his concern.
Jerry as a rule could be depended on. When he gave his word about anything it was as good as his bond, and Jerry was proud to declare that.
Frank could not bring himself to believe there could be anything in this sudden thought. Even if Jerry had crept out in the night-time while his chums were fast asleep, how could the boy possibly have made his way along the trail to the hermit"s place, have entered the house and carried off the valuable cup, to hide it under the cabin floor?
No wonder Frank decided that such an explanation of the mystery was impossible. Even if they never learned the truth he could not bring himself to suspect any of his chums of doing such a monstrous thing.
To the surprise and also the consternation of Frank, he found that Jerry had noticed his manner, and he immediately accused the other.
"I can guess easily enough what you"re thinking, Frank," a.s.serted Jerry, with offended dignity marked in his manner; "but "tisn"t so, I tell you. I never set eyes on that old cup before he s.n.a.t.c.hed it up out of that hole."
"No need of your saying that, Jerry," declared Frank, "because I believe you are as innocent as I can be myself. I only happened to remember that you talked of wanting to sneak up there and spy around a bit, though you owned it would be mean. And I also chance to know that you"ve been around every hour since you came back from the village."
"I"m blessed if I can make head or tail out of the game," admitted Jerry. "I never was a good hand at guessing answers to riddles; and say, let me tell you this thing is the toughest nut to crack that ever came our way, eh, Frank?"
"It"s going to bother us a heap, that"s right, Jerry."
"But somehow I"ve got my little hunch, Frank, that in the end you"ll hit on the answer. It may take a lot of time and figuring, but I sure believe you can do it."
"It may be Gilbert can help us out," suggested Will, just then.
"But how would he know anything about the job," objected Bluff, "when he just got back from that golf tournament?"
Frank bent down and looked closely into the hole.
"All we know for certain is that somebody put that gold trophy cup in here," he observed reflectively.
"Yes, and if the old plank could talk it"d be easy for us to get at the truth. But then of course that isn"t possible," Jerry remarked, with a sigh.
"Help me to put the plank back in place again," said Frank, and after this had been done he commenced to work at it as if to see whether one person could manage to raise the heavy board.
"It can be done, you see," was what Frank said, as, managing to get his fingers underneath, he raised the plank a little.
"Now what"s the line you"re figuring on, Frank?" demanded Jerry; "because it"s as plain to me as the nose on my face that you"ve struck a strong clue."
"Yes, tell us what it is, won"t you, Frank?" urged Will.
"Well, listen," the other began to say, slowly, as with upraised finger he marked off each point in his theory. "Look back a little, Will, to when we got home here after our high jinks up in the woods.
Don"t you remember what we discovered the first thing?"
Will thereupon uttered an exclamation, while his face lighted up with eagerness.
"That"s so, Frank!" he exclaimed; "we knew somebody had been in here after we started out the afternoon before. The door wasn"t shut close, and a chair lay on its side on the floor. Besides that, a number of little things showed they had been disturbed. Yes, somebody had been in the cabin!"
Jerry gave a shrill cry in which delight could be traced.
"It was that person, then, who hid the pesky old cup under the loose plank; that goes without saying, Frank!" he announced, as though his mind was made up to that fact and could not be easily changed.
"Well, even if we agree on that," said Bluff, "how"re we going to learn who the intruder was? To tell you the truth, it gets me why a sneak thief would steal just that gold loving cup of Gilbert"s, and then come all the way down here to hide it under the floor."
"Frank, you"re keeping something back; I can see it in your face!"
cried Will. "Tell us, do you think old Aaron put that cup here himself?"
"Whew! that would be the limit, I should say!" gasped Jerry.
All of them waited to hear what Frank would have to say. The leader of the Outdoor Chums did not reply hastily, for Frank did not wish to commit himself in so grave a matter without due consideration. Still, he must have had his mind made up fairly well, for presently he started to answer.
"Let"s see, fellows, how the case stands," he told them. "We know that long ago Aaron Dennison once lived in this cabin. We also know that he probably kept what little money he owned in those days down under that loose plank. The finding of that old mouldy half dollar points toward that. So you see he knew about the cavity under the board."
"So far as that goes, Frank," observed Bluff, "you could see by the way he had the constable raise the plank that he knew. But I was watching his face at the time, and let me tell you he looked as astonished to see the cup lying there as any one of us did, and that means a lot."