AT HIRAM DUFF'S COTTAGE
"What can that be?"
"Must be somebody in trouble!"
"Maybe it is old Duff!"
"Let us go and see!"
With these hasty exclamations both boys leaped from the carriage they
occupied and ran towards the delapidated cottage. The cries continued,
coming from somewhere in the interior.
"Wait--we'll look in the window first," suggested Sam. "Maybe old Duff
is having a quarrel with one of his neighbors, and if so it might not
be wise to interfere."
There was a window with small panes of glass close at hand, and going
to this the two youths peered into the cottage. To their surprise they
could see nobody. Both lower rooms of the old building seemed to be
unoccupied.
"Let's go around to the rear. Maybe the sounds come from there,"
suggested Songbird.
There was a path full of weeds leading to a rear porch that was almost
ready to fall down. The back door stood partly open. Nobody was in
sight.
"The call comes from somewhere inside," said Sam. "Come on in. But be
on your guard, Songbird. We don't want to get into trouble."
Both lads crossed the rickety porch and entered what was the kitchen of
the cottage. A musty odor pervaded the building, for old Duff usually
kept everything tightly closed.
The place was in disorder, a chair being overturned and several cooking
utensils littering the floor. On the stove, which was cold, lay a big
carving knife.
"What do you want? Where are you?" called out Sam.
"Oh, help me! Get me out of here!" came the somewhat faint reply. "I
am in the cellar!"
"In the cellar!" repeated Songbird. "Are you Mr. Duff?"
"Yes. Help me out, please."
Both boys looked around for a stairs, but there was none. Then, to one
side of the kitchen floor, they saw a trap door. It was shut down and
bolted by means of a plug stuck through two staples.
It was an easy matter to kick the plug away and raise the trap door.
The boys peered down into the opening below and saw Hiram Duff sitting
on the lower step of the stairs. He looked hollow-eyed and almost
exhausted.
"What's the matter, Mr. Duff? How did you get shut up this way?" asked
Sam, kindly.
"Oh, my! Oh, my!" sighed the old miser. "Ca--can't you help me up the
stairs? I am so--so weak I can't hardly walk. Where is the rascal who
shut me up this way? I'll have the police on him!"
"Did somebody shut you up In this cellar?" asked Sam, as he and
Songbird crawled below to give the old man assistance. They saw that
the cellar was merely a big hole in the ground and the stairs were very
steep and not particularly safe.
"Yes, somebody got me to come down here and then locked that trap door
on me," grumbled the miser. He got up with difficulty and crawled
slowly to the kitchen, the boys coming after him to see that he did not
fall back. "Oh, dear, what a time I have had of it!" he whined.
"When was this?" asked Songbird.
"I don't know--that is, I can't tell how long it was until I know what
time it is now."
"It is half-past ten," answered Sam, consulting his watch.
"What! Do you mean half-past ten in the morning?" burst out Hiram
Duff. "If that's true then I've been down cellar all night--ever since
yesterday afternoon! No wonder I was hungry and thirsty. I've got to
have something to eat and drink soon, or I'll starve to death!" And he
walked to the kitchen cupboard and got out some bread and meat. There
was water in a pail on the bench and he took a long drink of this.
"Who was it locked you in the cellar?" asked Sam.
"Who be you boys?" asked the miser in return.
"We belong to Brill College. We were driving past and we heard you
yell," answered Songbird.
"Yes, I thought I heard a carriage on the road, so I called as loud as
I could. I did that ever since that fellow went away, but I guess
nobody heard me--leastwise, they didn't pay no attention."
"Will you tell us how it all happened?" asked Sam, and then he added
aside to Songbird. "Don't say anything about Tom." And the would-be
poet of Brill nodded to show he understood.
"It was this way," answered Hiram Duff, dropping down on the chair Sam
fixed for him. "I was sitting on the back porch mending my coat when
all of a sudden a fellow came around the corner of the house. He was a
strange looking young fellow and he wore a funny looking cap pulled
away down over his eyes. He asked me if I wasn't Hackler. I said I
wasn't, that my name was Hiram Duff. Then he says, 'I knew it, I knew
it! At last!' and sits down on the porch. I says, 'At last, what?'
and he says something about a nugget of gold. He acted awful
mysterious like, and finally he asks me if I'd like to own half of a
big nugget of gold. I told him I certainly would."
"And then?" asked Sam, as the old miser paused to take a bite of bread
and meat.
"Then he told a queer story about a nugget of gold brought down to this
place from Alaska. He was very mysterious, and at last he said the
nugget was right down in my cellar, and if I'd dig it up fer him he'd
give me half. At first I thought he was fooling, or wasn't just right
in his mind, but a nugget of gold--even a little one--isn't to be
sneezed at, and it wouldn't cost me nuthing to go down cellar and look.
So I starts to go down the stairs when he says to be careful, that he
would look around, to make sure nobuddy was a-spying on him. He said
the nugget was in the northwest corner. I went down and the next thing
I knew I heard a strange cry upstairs. 'You shan't rob me! The nugget
is mine!' yells that fellow and bang! goes that trap door, and then he
up and bolts it fast, so I couldn't open it. I calls to let me out,
and he calls back for me to keep quiet until he got some friends, so I
couldn't rob him of that nugget. Then he slammed around upstairs here
something awful. At last he went away; and that's the last I seen or
heard of him."
"What did you do? Didn't you try to get out?" questioned Songbird.
"For a long time I waited, thinking he would come back. And as he
seemed so sure about the nugget I took the lantern and looked for it.
But there wasn't no signs of any gold. Then the lantern got dry and
went out, leaving me in the dark. I didn't know what to make of it. I
went up the stairs and tried to open the door, but I couldn't budge it.
Then I tried to dig my way out of the hole, but the old shovel I had
broke and there I was. I'm an old man and pretty full of rheumatism,
and staying down cellar all night has most finished me," concluded
Hiram Duff, with a groan.
"Did the fellow say where he was going?" asked Sam, after a pause.
"Said he was going to get help, that's all, so I couldn't rob him of
that nugget. I don't know what to make of it. Might be he was a
lunatic, eh?" went on the old miser, suddenly. "Maybe he run away from
some asylum."
"Possibly," answered Sam, shortly. "Did he take anything, do you
suppose?" he went on.
"Take anything? You mean steal anything?" cried Hiram Duff, and
started back. The sandwich he had made for himself dropped from his
hand. "I--I wonder if he did take anything," he muttered, and his eyes
roved towards the other room of the cottage.
"Better take a look around, if you had anything of value," said Sam,
and gave Songbird a meaning look.
With feeble steps the old miser walked out of the kitchen into what had
been the sitting room of the cottage. As he was too feeble to sleep
upstairs, Hiram Duff now used the apartment for a bedroom as well. He
closed the door between the two rooms and the boys heard him rummaging
around among his possessions. Then came a wild cry.
"It's gone! It's gone! My tin box is gone!"
"Your tin box?" repeated Songbird, as the old man threw open the door.
"Yes! yes! The fellow has robbed me! Oh, this is dreadful! What
shall I do? I am a poor man! Oh, I'll have to go to the poorhouse!"
And the miser commenced to wring his hands.
"What did you have in the box?" questioned Sam.
"I had--some--er--some money, and some--er--jewelry," faltered Hiram
Duff. He was a very secretive man naturally and it galled him to make
the admission.
"How much money, Mr. Duff?"
"Oh, a--er--quite some. Oh, this is too bad! What shall I do? This
will ruin me! Oh, where is that rascal? How can I catch him?" and the
old man ran around the kitchen, staring at one thing and another, and
at the boys.
"This must be Tom's work," whispered Sam to Songbird. "I wonder what I
had best do about it?"
"Wait until you are sure it was Tom," advised the would-be poet.
Sam commenced to question the old miser regarding the looks of the
fellow who had visited him. He soon became convinced that it must have
been Tom. Clearly his brother must now be completely out of his mind.
"Poor, poor Tom," he sighed. "If he is going to act this way, what
will he do next? I wish I could find him, and that Dick was here to
help me to take care of him and clear up this mess."
"I don't know what I'm a-going to do," whined Hiram Duff. "I gotter
find that box."
"How big a box was it?" questioned Sam.
"'Twasn't so very big--a fellow could put it in his pocket. But it had
gold--I mean money--in it, and my dead wife's jewelry."
"How much money, Mr. Duff?"
"What business is that of yours?" demanded the miser, suspiciously.
"Why, I think--maybe I can help you get it back," stammered Sam. He
grew red in the face. "To tell the plain truth, I think I know who
that fellow was."
"Who?"
"Tell me what you lost first."
"Well, if you must know, that box had three hundred dollars in gold in
it, besides the jewelry. That my wife got from her folks when they
died, and they said it was wuth over a hundred dollars."
"Is that all?"
"Ain't that enough? Land sakes! I ain't no millionaire! That gold
was a-going to keep me from the poorhouse." And Hiram Duff shook his
head dolefully. He did not tell the young collegiates that he had an
even ten thousand dollars in the banks. He had saved money all his
life, denying himself and his wife almost the necessities of life.
"Do you suppose anybody else could have come in and taken the box?"
said Songbird.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, did anybody come in after that fellow left?"
"How should I know?--I was down cellar."
"Did you hear anybody?"
"I heard something. Maybe it was somebody, or maybe it was my sheep.
They come up to the house sometimes."
"I see."
"But what do you know about this?" demanded Hiram Duff, turning to Sam.
"You said you might help me to git the money back."
"I'll tell you," said Sam, and related how his brother had disappeared
and how the blow on the head seemed to have affected him.
"That's it! That's him! That's the man!" cried the old miser. "He
did it! You catch him and git my money back!" he went on, excitedly.
"I'll certainly do my best to find him, Mr. Duff," answered Sam. "And
if he really took your box you shall have what you lost back."
"Is he crazy, do you think?"
"He wouldn't do such a thing if he was in his right mind."
"Tom Rover is as honest as the day is long," declared Songbird. "If he
really took your box he didn't know what he was doing."
"Well, he certainly did act queer," agreed Hiram Duff. "But that ain't
here nor there. I want my box back, with all that's in it, and I'm
going to have it. I guess I had better go to town and tell the police
about this."