A GUEST AT NELS ANDERSON'S
In vain did the youthful searchers examine every foot of the cellar's
earthen floor. The thought that there, if anywhere, the treasure might
be buried, impressed them strongly and right diligently did they apply
themselves to their task.
A few old boxes, a heavy pine table and a combination cupboard and ice
chest were substantially all the cellar contained. All these were explored
and the ground beneath them thoroughly inspected. "Nothing doing," was
the way Jones summed up the result, and if he meant by this that every
effort was fruitless, as would appear likely, he was quite correct.
All through the automobile shed and all about the club grounds the boys
carried their exploring and their minute inspection of whatever had the
appearance of being a likely hiding place for a suit-case containing
twenty thousand dollars of currency. Despite the temptation to experiment
with the engine that had been used for pumping, to try the tools of the
workbench, or to put afloat the fishing skiff they discovered, partly
covered with lumber at the far end of the shed, they molested nothing.
They only looked, but this they did thoroughly.
It was noon and Chip Slider, keeping camp alone, had become anxious and
worried for the safety of his new friends before the latter made their
appearance at the lean-to. He looked wistfully from one to another and
read in their faces the answer to the question in his mind.
All hands fell to with preparations for dinner. Chip had busied himself
with the gathering of an immense quantity of dry wood, but fresh water
must be brought from the well in the sandy beach, potatoes must be washed,
peeled and sliced for frying; bacon must be sliced; eggs and butter
brought from the "refrigerator," also,--something for everyone to do, in
short, under Chef Billy's competent direction.
Whether Murky, as well as the wearer of the golfing cap, that is, the
recent tenant of the clubhouse, had departed from the woods, was a
question all tried in vain to answer satisfactorily as the boys sat at
dinner. And if one, or both, had or had not really gone for good, was also
an inquiry, the answer to which could not be discovered.
Paul Jones proposed that a visit be made to the den Murky had made for
himself. Slider could show the way. Approaching carefully, it might be
quite easy to discover the tramp's presence or absence without danger of
being seen by him. Billy Worth interposed with the suggestion that a trip
to Staretta was more important. Provisions were needed, there would surely
be some mail at the office and the letters written yesterday should be
posted.
"Yes, and stop at Anderson's, too!" put in MacLester. "I'm mighty
suspicious of that individual, _myself_,--'specially after Jonesy's
experience!"
With these good reasons for going to town confronting them, together with
the fact that the use of their car was always a source of keen enjoyment
to the Auto Boys, it seems quite needless to state what they decided to do.
Paul inspected the gasoline supply and added the contents of a ten gallon
can kept as a reserve, not forgetting to put the now empty can in the
tonneau to be refilled at Staretta. Dave looked to the quantity of oil
in the reservoir and decided none was needed. Phil in the meantime
was examining nuts and bolts with a practiced eye--a hardly necessary
proceeding for every part of the beloved machine had been put in the
pink of order on Saturday afternoon.
"Worth's turn to drive," said Jones. "So go on, Bill. I'll wash dishes.
Gee whiz! If there's anything I'd rather do than wash dishes--"
"Yes, the list would fill a book!" Worth broke in. "You go ahead, Paul,
I'm going to stay in camp. Going to cook up a little stuff and all I ask
of you fellows is to bring these things from Fraley's."
Worth passed over a list he had been writing and, with a show of an
extreme reluctance he did not feel, Paul climbed up to the driver's seat.
Phil Way meantime was protesting that he would remain to guard camp.
Billy would not listen, but said in an undertone that Way must go along
to make Chip feel comfortable and contented.
For Slider had shown for Way a fondness that was both beautiful and
pathetic. It was as if he realized that he had truly found the answer
to the musing questions of his lifetime at last. This was true with
regard to all four of the chums but most especially was Chip already
devoted to Phil.
With MacLester up beside Paul, and Way and the now clean and well-fed
boy of the woods in the tonneau, the graceful automobile threaded its
route among the trees. With roads averaging from fair to good, an hour
would have taken the travelers to Staretta easily. With six or seven miles
of woodland trail, then an equal distance of but moderately good going
before getting fairly out of the forest, Paul took an hour and a half
for the trip. There was no need to hurry, he said, but just the same as
soon as the wheels struck the good, level earth not far from town the
speedometer shot up to "30."
Link Fraley was found, busy as usual, this time packing eggs into a
shipping case; but for once he stopped working the moment he caught sight
of his callers. Sometimes he had allowed his father to wait on the boys
as they did their buying, but today he told the senior member of the
house he would attend to them himself.
"Been wantin' to see ye," said Link cordially. "Anything new back in the
timber?"
The young storekeeper's voice had a peculiar inflection and his face bore
an expression that answered "yes" to his own question.
"A little; that is, we have something to tell and something to ask about,
as usual," Phil replied. "Here's the list of things Billy wanted. If
you'll get them ready while we go over to the post-office--we want to
have a good, old talk with you."
"Been annexing part of our lumber country population, I see," remarked
Fraley in an undertone, glancing toward Slider who had waited at the door.
Phil nodded.
"Want to look a little out," Fraley continued, with a shake of his head
and a tone of doubt; but he turned away at once to find the baking soda,
item number one in Billy Worth's list, and his young friends betook
themselves to the post-office.
At the rear door of Fraley & Son's establishment was a platform to
facilitate the loading and unloading of freight. It was roofed over with
pine boards that gave protection from sun or rain and, as whatever
slight breeze there might be blowing was to be found here, there was
no better place in Staretta for a chat on a hot day. Seated on kegs of
nails on this platform, upon their return to the store, the Auto Boys
told Mr. Fraley, Jr., the main facts of their discoveries since last
seeing him.
Link listened with the most sober attention.
"I honestly don't know," said he at last, "whether to take much stock
in the story of the suit-case full of swag or not. But it does look as
if things in general pointed in that direction. I didn't believe, at
first, that your neighbor up there by the lake was anything more than one
of these vacation tourists that often go trapsing 'round, even if he
wasn't just a chap doing some shooting out of season. But I'm pretty
well satisfied now that a lot more than ever _I_ suspected has been going
on. Listen here!"
With this Link took from between the leaves of a notebook a neatly folded
clipping from a newspaper. Clearing his throat, while he opened the
clipping and smoothed it over his knee, he proceeded to read aloud.
The newspaper item was an Associated Press dispatch dated from ----, the
home city of the Longknives Club. Its substance was that Lewis Grandall,
teller of the Commercial Trust & Banking Company of that city, was
missing from his home. His absence was supposed to be on account of an
investigation the Grand Jury had been making in connection with certain
city contracts in which he had been interested, not as an officer of the
bank, but personally. The disappearance of Grandall, the dispatch stated,
had caused a small run on the bank and general uneasiness among the
depositors and stockholders. This had later been quieted by a signed
statement from the directors stating positively that the company's
interests were not involved in any of the missing teller's personal
business affairs.
"From which it would seem to a man up a tree that one certain Grandall
was finding Opal Lake atmosphere good for his constitution," remarked Link
Fraley as he finished reading. "But," he went on, "it looks to me a lot
more as if he had come up here for his health, so to speak, than to
hunt for a bag of the coin of the realm that somebody stole three years
ago. The point is, that if the twenty thousand dollars that the road
builders should have got, but didn't, was put through a nice, neat and
orderly system of being stolen here and there till it all got back to
Grandall again, he ain't been letting it lie around the woods and drawin'
no interest nearly three years now."
"By ginger! I knew that fellow at the clubhouse was Grandall, all right,"
spoke up Paul Jones. "And you must have hit the nail on the head when you
told us in the first place that Nels Anderson was mixed up with him in
cheating that whole army of men out of their pay," the boy added briskly.
"That doesn't dovetail with what we already know about Murky getting the
money first and then Slider taking it from him and its getting back to
Grandall again," said Paul thoughtfully.
"Oh, no! that wouldn't make much difference," said Fraley. "Grandall was
playing everybody against everybody else for the benefit of Grandall.
That was his general reputation, too--downright deceitful! Never knew
just where he'd hook up or how long he'd be either one thing or the
other--your best friend, or your worst enemy."
Whether Grandall had been frightened away from the clubhouse by finding
Murky to be in the vicinity, or for other reasons had deemed the lake
an unsafe hiding place, the boys and Fraley debated for some time. As
they at last prepared to go, Link called Phil to one side. He did not like
the notion of Chip Slider being taken up by the Auto Boys in any very
intimate way, he declared. He had known the elder Slider, he said, and
there were a lot of better men in Michigan than he and a lot of better
boys than his son was likely to be.
Phil told Fraley he was surely mistaken with regard to Chip, at least,
but promised he would be on his guard in case he found any deceptive
tendencies developing in the young gentleman in question.
Meanwhile Paul and Dave had driven to the general repair shop at which
their gasoline was purchased and all were soon ready for the road. With
a steady purr their quiet, powerful car left the town behind. What a
perfect machine it was! And what its owners would do were anything to
happen to deprive them of its ever-ready services--the very thought would
have been quite unbearable. It is a wise plan, indeed, that none of us
can see even a few short hours forward, or know certainly the changes a
single day may bring.
An adequate excuse for stopping at the lowly home of the Andersons had
not been forgotten by the chums while in town. Choosing to call there on
their homeward way rather than when on the road in from the woods, they
now had with them an extra half dozen of bananas.
Mrs. Anderson sat on a rickety chair at the shady side of the little house
vainly trying to get a breath of fresh air while doing some mending, as
the Thirty came to a stop near her. Hastily she arose and went around to
a back door.
Phil was already out of the car and was walking up to the low front
step--the dwelling was without a porch--when through the open doors
he saw Mrs. Anderson enter at the rear. She spoke some words in her
native tongue the boy did not understand; but directly Nels Anderson
stepped forward from the kitchen to meet him while at the same time
another man glided silently out of the door at which the woman had just
come in. The man wore a golfing cap. If he was not the identical person
who had lately occupied the clubhouse then Phil Way was vastly mistaken.
"Wouldn't you like some bananas?" asked Way pleasantly. "We thought likely
you did not get to town often and maybe would relish a taste of these,"
and with a friendly smile he tendered his offering.
With only a word of thanks and that spoken rather indifferently, Phil
thought, the great Swede accepted the fruit. Still holding the paper
sack under his arm he said he wished the camp at the lake only good luck
but he thought it dangerous for the boys to stay there. It would be more
so as time went on, unless a pouring rain came very soon to wet the ground
and foliage. The probability of forest fires near by was becoming serious.
Two severe blazes had already occurred. He pointed away to the west and
south, calling attention to smoke that he said he could see over the
distant tree tops.
Oddly enough Phil could see no smoke, at least nothing more than usual.
The horizon in this region had always a hazy, smoky tinge, he had
observed. Nevertheless he said he appreciated the suggestion and added
that a few days more would see the breaking of camp at the lake, anyway.
It was in his thoughts to ask what Anderson himself would do in the
event of a forest fire. The tiny clearing, he thought, would be very
little protection if the flames came near it.
But Way refrained from speaking of this. There was a matter of more
importance about which he wished to inquire. "Do you know if there is
anyone staying at the clubhouse at the lake, Mr. Anderson?" Thus did the
boy frame his question. Receiving no answer but a shake of the head, Phil
then continued. "Because," said he, "it would be right convenient if we
could get permission to use the workbench in the automobile house. We'd
do no harm to anything."
"I tank yo better let him bay," Nels answered, the least bit sharply.
But more kindly he went on to say that he knew of no one being at the
clubhouse now and that while the property was not his, the best advice
he could offer was not to meddle with anything in the buildings or on
the grounds.
Quite baffled by the Swede's apparent friendliness, yet certain that he
was practicing deception, Phil returned to the machine. He told fully of
the conversation with Anderson while the car purred forward.
Without exception the boys agreed with him that the talk of forest
fires was like the denial of all knowledge of the clubhouse being
occupied--simple deception, and nothing else. Clinching the soundness
of this reasoning also, was the certain fact that the recent clubhouse
tenant was now Anderson's guest.
"Grandall! He saw Murky or Murky saw him! He must have guessed that Murky
has found out how he had been given the double cross, and was after him
in dead earnest. Result: Grandall, in cahoots with Anderson for some bad
business or other, packs his little satchel and goes to the Swede's to
stay."
So did Dave MacLester reason the whole matter out. Chip Slider nodded his
endorsement of these conclusions.
"They've got that stolen money, so they have!" he said. "We could have
them arrested," he added, only the word he used was "pinched."
"And we will! _Mark that!_" said Phil Way.
Yet it often does happen that young gentlemen, and older ones, too, make
assertions which, in the end, lead not where it was thought they would do
at all.