John Ellison s.n.a.t.c.hed at these and quickly unfolded them. But they read disappointment for him. They were nothing more than a lot of receipted bills, for supplies brought to the miller. Then they counted the coin.
There was a dollar and eighty odd cents in cash.
Tim Reardon was elated enough, and evidently thought the discovery justified any amount of laborious searching; but the faces of John Ellison and Henry Burns were eloquent of disappointment.
"Too bad, John," remarked Henry Burns, putting his hand on the other"s shoulder. "I thought we"d struck it at last. Want to hunt any more?"
John Ellison shook his head. "I"ve got enough," he said. "I give it up.
We"ve looked everywhere I can think of."
"And who gets the money?" inquired Tim, eagerly.
"I don"t know," replied John Ellison, "and I don"t care much. But I don"t know as we"ve got any right to it--though these bills aren"t Witham"s, and I suppose the money isn"t. The mill is his now, and I guess we haven"t any right to come in here and take this."
"Well," suggested Henry Burns, "why not ask Witham about it?"
"Ask Witham!" exclaimed John Ellison. "I won"t. I don"t want ever to speak to him again. You can, though, if you want to."
"All right," said Henry Burns. "I"ll ask him. And I"ll get the money for you."
"I don"t want it," exclaimed John Ellison, whose disappointment was evident in his tone of bitterness. "Give it to Tim--if you get it."
"All right," said Henry Burns.
Tim"s eyes twinkled.
It was evening of the following day, and Colonel Witham sat on the porch of the Half Way House, smoking his pipe. It had been a puzzling day for him, and he was thinking it over. Going through the mill, along in the afternoon, he had come upon an extraordinary looking object in the garret--an old wash-boiler, inverted, with a resined cord running from the bottom of it up to a beam. And near by lay a sort of bow, strung with horse-hair.
What on earth could that be, and how had it come there? Colonel Witham, at first, had thought it might be some sort of an infernal machine, put there to destroy the mill. But he had investigated, cautiously, and demonstrated its harmlessness. And about the floor were a few half burned matches. Somebody had been in the mill. A faint perception began to dawn upon him, as the day pa.s.sed, that it might have been the boys; but he couldn"t wholly figure it out, and it bothered him not a little.
He thought of notifying the police--but he didn"t want them hunting about the mill--or anybody else. The best thing, he decided, was to keep quiet, and watch out sharper than ever.
He was not in a friendly mood, therefore, when, gazing down the road, he espied Henry Burns approaching on a bicycle, followed closely by Jack Harvey and Tim Reardon. Moreover, his suspicions were aroused. He was somewhat surprised, however, when the boys dismounted at a little distance, leaned their wheels against some bushes and approached the porch.
Greater still was the colonel"s surprise--indeed, he was fairly taken aback--when Henry Burns, having bade him good-evening, broached his subject abruptly, without any preliminaries.
"Colonel Witham," said Henry Burns, coolly, "we were up in the mill last night."
The colonel"s eyes stuck out, and he glared at Henry Burns with mingled astonishment and wrath.
"Eh, what"s that?" he exclaimed, "you were in my mill! Why, you young rascals, don"t you know I could have you all arrested as burglars?"
"No," replied Henry Burns, "we didn"t go to take anything of yours. We were after some papers that belonged to John Ellison"s father. We weren"t going to keep them either, if we found them; just turn them over to Lawyer Estes."
"Well, then, it was trespa.s.s," cried Colonel Witham, wrathfully. "Who told you there were papers in the mill. Lawyer Estes didn"t--he knows better."
"No," replied Henry Burns, "but you told the fortune-teller so."
"I didn"t say that," bellowed Colonel Witham, rising from his chair. But it was plain the suggestion of the fortune-teller worried him. "What did you do in there?" he added. "If you did any harm, you"ll suffer for it."
"We didn"t," said Henry Burns. "We only played on a horse-fiddle once or twice. You know there are rats in the mill, colonel. I guess they scampered when they heard that."
Colonel Witham had been about to burst forth with an angry exclamation; but the thought of his own ignominious flight made him pause. Rats, indeed! He knew there wasn"t a rat in the whole mill that had been half so terrified as he.
"Now see here," he said, shaking his fist for emphasis, "I know you didn"t do any harm in the mill. It was one of your crazy pranks. But don"t you ever go in there again, or I"ll make trouble for you."
"We"re not going to," said Henry Burns.
"There isn"t anything in there, anyway," urged Colonel Witham. "I"ve heard that talk, around Benton, and it"s all nonsense. You couldn"t find anything in there, if you hunted a hundred years."
"But we did find something," said Henry Burns, in a matter-of-fact way.
Colonel Witham"s jaw dropped, and he looked at Henry Burns almost helplessly. He couldn"t speak for a moment. Then he asked, huskily, "What was it you found? None of your pranks now; what did you find?"
"A small box, with some coins in it," replied Henry Burns; and he described the hiding place. "There was a dollar and eighty-six cents."
Colonel Witham looked relieved. "Give them to me," he cried. "You"ve got no right to the stuff."
"Wasn"t it Ellison"s?" inquired Henry Burns.
"Never you mind whose it was," cried Colonel Witham. "It was in my mill.
Give it to me, or I"ll have the law on you."
"There were some papers, too," continued Henry Burns.
Colonel Witham staggered again. The hand that held his pipe shook. Then his eyes twinkled craftily.
"Well, you"re right smart boys," he said. "Keep the money, if you want it, or give it to John Ellison. Yes, it was Jim Ellison"s--the money was. But the papers are mine. Have you got them? Give me the papers, and keep the money. I don"t claim the money."
"Yes, I"ve got the papers," replied Henry Burns. "Here they are. There"s all there were."
He handed the package to Colonel Witham, who took it with trembling hand. Then Henry Burns and his friends made a hurried departure. By the time the colonel had made an examination of the papers, and had turned, white with anger, to vent his rage upon them, they were spinning down the road.
"Tim," said Henry Burns, as they rode along, "you get the money."
It was a day or two later, on a sultry afternoon, and Bess Thornton stood in the doorway of the old house where she and Granny Thornton lived, looking forth at the sky. A pa.s.sing shower was sprinkling the doorsteps with a few big drops, and the girl drew back with a look of disappointment on her face.
"It always rains when you don"t want it to," she said. "Wish there was somebody to play with. It"s pokey here, with gran" gone to Witham"s. I don"t know what to do."
Something suggested itself to her mind, however, for presently she opened the door leading to the attic and went up the stairs. It was dark and silent in the attic, but she threw open a window at either end, unfastened the blinds, and the daylight entered. It disclosed a clutter of old household stuff: some strings of pop-corn and dried apples and herbs hanging from the rafters, and a lot of faded garments, suspended from nails.
She tried on an old-fashioned poke-bonnet, looked at herself in a bit of cracked mirror that leaned against a wash-stand, and laughed at the odd picture she made. Then, by turns, she arrayed herself in some of the antiquated garments. She rummaged here and there, until she came to the old bureau.
"Gran" always keeps that locked," she said. "I guess n.o.body"d want to steal anything from this old place, though. She needn"t be so particular. I wonder where she keeps the key."
There was no great difficulty in finding that, either, once she had set about it; for soon her hand rested on the key, as she felt along the tops of the beams, and came to the one where Granny Thornton had laid it.
"I"m going to have a look," said the girl softly to herself. "Gran"s always telling me to keep out of here." Then, as the thought struck her, she exclaimed, "I"ll bet here"s where she put the coin."