The Rival Campers Ashore: or, The Mystery of the Mill

It was not surprising that Henry Burns had been interested by what he saw in the old room of the inn, and by what he at length came to hear. At first glance, there was Colonel Witham, fat and red-faced, strangely aroused, evidently labouring under some excitement, addressing himself vigorously to the old woman who sat close by. His heavy fist came down, now and then, with a thump on the arm of the chair in which he sat; and each time this happened poor old Granny Thornton jumped nervously as though she had been struck a blow. Her thin, peaked face was drawn and anxious; her eyes were fixed and staring; and she shook as though her feeble old frame would collapse.

Henry Burns, surprised at this queer pantomine, gazed for a moment, unable to hear what was being said. Then, the voice of Colonel Witham, raised to a high pitch, could be clearly distinguished. What he said surprised Henry Burns still more.

"I tell you I'll have her," cried Colonel Witham; "you've got to give her to me. What are you afraid of? I won't starve her. Where'll she go when you die, if you don't? Let her go to the poorhouse, will you?"

And he added, heartlessly, "You can't live much longer; don't you know that?"

Old Granny Thornton, half lifting herself from her chair, shook her head and made a reply to Colonel Witham, which Henry Burns could not hear. But what she said was perhaps indicated by Colonel Witham's reply.

"Yes, I do like her," he said. "She's a flyaway and up to tricks, but I'll take that out of her. I'll bring her up better than you could. I need her to help take care of the place."

Again the woman appeared to remonstrate. She pointed a bony finger at Colonel Witham and spoke excitedly. Colonel Witham's face flushed with anger.

"I tell you you've got to give her to me," he cried. "I'll swear you put her in my charge. I'll take her. It's that, or I'll pack you both off to the poorhouse. I'll make out the papers for you to sign. You'll do it; you've got to."

Old Granny Thornton sprang from her chair with a vigour excited by her agitation. She clutched an arm of the chair with one hand, while she raised the other impressively, like a witness swearing to an oath in court. And now, her voice keyed high with excitement, these words fell upon the ears of Henry Burns:

"You'll never get her, Dan Witham. You can't have her. She's been here too long already. She's going back, now. I can't give her away, because – because she's not mine to give. She's not mine, I tell you. She's not mine!"

Then, her strength exhausted by the utterance, she sank back once more into her seat.

Colonel Witham, his face blank with amazement, sought now to rouse her once more. He arose and grasped her by an arm. He shook her.

"Whose is she, then, if she's not yours?" he asked. "Whom does she belong to?"

What answer Granny Thornton made – if any – to this inquiry, was lost to Henry Burns; for, at this moment, George Warren, stealing to the window, tripped over a running vine and fell with a crash, amid a row of milk pans that Henry Burns had carefully avoided.

Henry Burns got one fleeting glimpse of the two by the fire springing up in alarm, as he and George Warren fled from the spot. A moment more, the others had joined them in flight, whooping and yelling to bring Colonel Witham to the door.

Looking back, as they ran, they saw presently a square patch of light against the dark background of the house, where Colonel Witham had thrown wide the front door; and, in the light that streamed forth from within, the figure of the colonel stood disclosed in full relief. He was gesticulating wildly, with angry gaze directed toward the grinning face of the pumpkin.

Colonel Witham strode down from the piazza and walked rapidly to the foot of the flag-staff. He seized the one end of the halyards that dangled within reach, and jerked hard upon it, endeavouring to shake the pumpkin from its lofty position. But it was of no avail. Every tug upon the rope served only to tighten the knot. The colonel glared helplessly for a moment, and then returned into the inn.

Again he emerged, bearing something in his hand, which he raised and aimed directly at the gleaming face. A report rang out. The echoes of the sound of Colonel Witham's shotgun startled the crows in all the nests around. But the pumpkin stayed. The shot had only buried itself within its soft shell. The colonel would not give up so easily, however. Again and again he fired, hoping to shatter the pumpkin, or to sever the rope that held it.

Presently a shot extinguished the light within; and it was no longer an easy mark to see. Breathing vengeance upon all the boys for miles around, Colonel Witham finally gave it up, and retired, vanquished, to the inn, to await another day. The pumpkin was still aloft.

"Say, Henry," asked George Warren, as they started off up the hill again, "what did you see in there, anyway? What did you want me to keep away for?"

Henry Burns, sober-faced and puzzled, gave a groan of disappointment. "Oh, if you'd only kept away for a moment," he exclaimed. "I can't tell you now; wait till by and by."

"Jack," he added, addressing his friend, "I'm going down to Benton. Tell John I couldn't come back. I've got something to do." And, to the surprise of his companions, Henry Burns left them abruptly, and went down the road at a rapid pace.

He had something to think over, and he wanted to be alone. What he had heard puzzled and astounded him. There was a mystery in the old inn, of which he had caught a fleeting hint. What could it all mean? He turned it over in his mind a hundred different ways as he walked along; as to what he had best do; whom he should tell of his strange discovery – what was the mystery of Bess Thornton's existence?

Certainly the air was full of mystery and strange surprises, this Hallowe'en night; and the old Ellison house up on the hill was not free from it. An odd thing happened, also, there. For, passing by the old cabinet where Benny Ellison hoarded his treasures, something impelled Mrs. Ellison to pause for a moment, open the doors and look within.

She smiled as she glanced over the shelves, with the odds and ends of boyish valuables arranged there; a book of stamps; some queer old coloured prints of Indian wars; birds' nests; fishing tackle; a collection of birds' eggs and coins. There were some two score of these last, set up endwise in small wooden racks. She glanced them over – and one, bright and shiny, attracted her attention. She took it up and held it to the light. Then she uttered a cry and sank down on the floor.

Strangely enough, when John and Benny Ellison rushed in, at the sound of her voice, she was sitting there, sobbing over the thing; and they thought her taken suddenly ill. But she started up, at the sight of Benny Ellison, and asked, in a broken voice, how he had come by it. And when he had told her, she seemed amazed and strangely troubled.

"Then someone must have dropped it there recently," she exclaimed. "How could that be? It must be the same. I never saw another like it. Oh, what can it mean?"

Strangest of all to Benny Ellison, she would not return the coin to his collection; but held it fast, and only promised that she would recompense him for it. He went to bed, sullen and surly over the loss of his treasure. Mrs. Ellison held the coin in her hand, gazing upon it as though it had some curious power of fascination, as she went to her room and shut the door.

CHAPTER XVIII

GRANNY THORNTON'S SECRET

The second day following these happenings, Tim Reardon sat on a bank of the stream, a short distance above the Ellison dam, fishing. There was no off-season in the matter of fishing, for Little Tim. Nobody else thought of trying for the pickerel now. But Tim Reardon fished the stream from early spring until the ice came; and, in the winter, he chopped through the ice, and fished that way, in the deep holes that he knew.

He was no longer barefoot, for the days were chilly. A stout pair of shoes protected his feet, which he kicked together as he dangled a long pole out from the shore. He was fishing in deep water now, with a lead sinker attached to his line; and, beside him, was a milk-can filled with water and containing live shiners for bait. These he had caught in the brook.

The fish weren't biting, but Little Tim was a patient fisherman. He was so absorbed, in fact, in the thought that every next minute to come he must surely get the longed-for bite, that he failed to note the approach of a man from the road. And when, all at once, a big hand closed upon his coat collar, he was so surprised and gave such a jump that he would have lost his balance and gone into the stream, if the hand had not held him fast. Squirming about, in the firm grasp of the person who held him, Tim turned and faced Colonel Witham.

"Well, I reckon I've got yer," was Colonel Witham's comment. "No use in your trying to wriggle away."

The fact was quite evident, and Tim's face clouded.

"I haven't done anything to hurt," he said. "Lemme go."

"Who said you had," replied Colonel Witham, grimly. "I didn't say you had – and I didn't say you hadn't. I wouldn't take chances on saying that you hadn't done a whole lot of things you oughtn't to. You've got to come along with me, though. I'm not going to hurt yer. You needn't be scared."

He changed his grip on the boy, from the latter's collar to one wrist, which he held firmly.

"Pick up your stuff," he said, "and come along with me. No use jumping that way. I've got you, all right."

Little Tim, thinking over his sins, reached down and picked up the can of bait.

"I haven't done anything to hurt," he repeated.

"Hm!" exclaimed the colonel. "Reckon you've done a lot of things to hurt, if people only knew it. Here, I'll take that can. You carry your pole. Now come along."

"What for?" asked Tim, obeying the colonel's command to "come along" with him.

"I'll show you what I want," replied Colonel Witham. "You know well enough, I guess, without any of my telling. Oh, I know you'll say you don't; but I don't care anything about that. Just come along."

They proceeded out to the road, whence they turned and went in the direction of the inn. Tim thought of the pumpkin, and his heart sank. He was going to "catch it" for that, he thought.

They came up to the flag-staff presently, and Tim repressed a chuckle with difficulty; for there, as on the night they had sent it aloft, hung the big pumpkin, grinning down on them both.

"There," said Colonel Witham, "you didn't have any hand in that – oh, no! You wouldn't do it, of course. You never did nothing to hurt. I know you. But see here, youngster" – and he gave a twist to Tim's wrist – "you've got to get it down, do you understand?"

Tim gave a sigh of relief. It wasn't a "whaling," after all.

"Now," continued Colonel Witham, eying him sharply, "perhaps you had a hand in that, and perhaps you didn't. I don't know and I don't care. What I want is, to get it down. You needn't say you didn't do it, because I wouldn't believe any of you boys, anyway. But I'm going to do the right thing." The colonel hesitated a moment. "I'm going to be handsome about it. You get that down and I'll give you a quarter – twenty-five cents, do you hear?"

Little Tim nodded.