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Title: The Mystery of the Deserted Village

Author: Elbert M. Hoppenstedt

Release date: September 19, 2021 [eBook #66341]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Franklin Watts

Credits: Stephen Hutcheson, Sue Clark, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF THE DESERTED VILLAGE ***





_The Mystery of the Deserted Village_




Contents

               Page
  Chapter  1      1
  Chapter  2     15
  Chapter  3     23
  Chapter  4     30
  Chapter  5     38
  Chapter  6     50
  Chapter  7     57
  Chapter  8     65
  Chapter  9     72
  Chapter 10     79
  Chapter 11     87
  Chapter 12     96
  Chapter 13    104
  Chapter 14    113
  Chapter 15    121
  Chapter 16    130
  Chapter 17    138
  Chapter 18    148




_The Mystery of the Deserted Village_

  by
  Elbert M. Hoppenstedt

  _Franklin Watts, Inc._
  575 Lexington Avenue · New York 22




_Library of Congress Catalog Card Number_: 60-11186

  © 1960 by Franklin Watts, Inc.
  Printed in the United States of America
  FIRST PRINTING




_For Richard_




_The Mystery of the Deserted Village_

_Chapter 1_


Ronnie was in the hayloft sliding down the piles of newly-stacked
hay when he heard the car drive up into the yard and come to a stop.
Spitting a mouthful of hayseeds from his lips and tongue, he ran over
to the open doors and peered down into the yard.

The car was shiny and new, a big black sedan with white-walled tires. A
man in a business suit carrying a briefcase climbed out of the driver’s
seat and headed briskly for the front door of the house.

Ronnie knew who he was and why he was here, and his heart sank. Why did
the St. Lawrence Seaway need a piece of the Rorth farm land, and _why_
did it have to be just that part where the deserted village lay?

Of course he really knew the answers to his questions. What he meant
was--why did it have to _happen_ that way? Why did the land have to be
so low that when the dam was built and the waters of the St. Lawrence
River began to pile up behind it, the deserted village would be flooded?

He thought of Grandfather and Father in the parlor talking with the man
and he wondered about what they were saying and how it would all turn
out. The last time Mr. Evans had come in his black sedan Grandfather
had gotten very angry and Ronnie had heard him shouting and thumping
his cane on the floor.

Ronnie went over to the opening in the loft floor and, grasping the
ladder, climbed quickly down to the bottom. It was darker below, and
for a moment the boy had trouble seeing his way. He heard Beatrice
stamping in her stall, and smelled the sharp, pungent odor of fresh
manure.

His bare feet padded across the hard earth floor as he moved toward the
barn door. A moment later he was out in the glaring sunlight, the full
heat of the afternoon striking him on his bare shoulders and back.

He saw his brother Phil lying in the hammock beneath the grape arbor.

“Hey, Phil!” he called. “That man’s here again.”

Phil opened his eyes lazily. “What man?” he asked indifferently.

Ronnie squatted down beside him. “The man from the Seaway, of course. I
just hope Grandfather gets hopping mad again and gives it to him good.
Nobody’s got a right to just come along and tell a person he’s got to
sell his land. Nobody!”

Phil closed his eyes again and started the hammock swinging.

“Of course _you_ don’t care one bit, Philip Rorth!” Ronnie continued.
“I think Grandfather was right. He said you’re not a _real_ Rorth!
’Cause a _real_ Rorth’s got fighting blood and a love for his land, and
most of all he wouldn’t let the village go without a fight.”

Phil opened his left eye and squinted up at his brother. “All the
fighting in the world’s not going to save the village, Ronnie, ’cause
when the government wants something, it gets it. _Period!_”

Ronnie turned away in disgust. What could he expect of Phil? His
brother had never gotten excited about anything, and he probably never
would.

He headed toward the other side of the house, partly because it was
shady there, but mostly because he knew the parlor window was open and
he might be able to hear what was going on inside.

He passed the woodshed and swung around the corner of the house. Almost
immediately he heard Grandfather’s voice. “Why, young fellow, do you
know this land’s been in the family close onto a hundred and fifty
years? And you come along, and without so much as a how-do-you-do,
tell me I got to up and off it? Hah! Well, I’ve got a lawyer, too, to
protect my rights!”

Ronnie settled down in the shade near the lilac bushes. He really
wasn’t eavesdropping. He’d been wanting to weed the lily-of-the-valley
bed for some time now, and this was a perfect time to do it with the
sun on the other side of the house. He grabbed hold of a ragweed and
started to pull it, but he stopped tugging after a few seconds so he
could hear what Mr. Evans was saying.

“Mr. Rorth,” the man said, his voice like a whisper compared to
Grandfather’s, “Mr. Rorth, I wish you’d try to understand. We--”

He didn’t get any further because when Grandfather was angry he didn’t
usually give anyone else much time to talk. “I don’t understand, eh?
Well, young fellow, I understand just fine, and just don’t you bother
giving me any more of that hogwash about how wonderful it will be when
big ships can come sailing down the river from the ocean to the Great
Lakes, because that doesn’t touch me one bit.”

Ronnie heard his father’s voice next. “Father,” said Mr. Rorth, “it
doesn’t do a bit of good getting yourself all upset like this. The
Seaway Authority has told us that the water level of the lake formed
behind the dam will cover the section of land where the deserted
village is, and for this reason it will have to be purchased. There
isn’t a thing we can do about it. Our lawyer has told us that himself.”

“More hogwash! Sometimes I think that lawyer is working for both sides
and against the middle.”

The weed came loose from the ground with a suddenness that sent Ronnie
reeling backward. Before he could catch himself he had crashed against
the side of the house. When he looked up, there was his father peering
at him from behind the screen. “Ronnie, what are you doing out there?”

“I--I’m weeding the lily of the valley,” he managed to stammer.

“Well, you’d better weed it some other time. Now go somewhere else.”

“Y--yes, sir.” Ronnie wandered away toward the front of the house. He
felt ashamed for having been caught snooping, and he was peeved at
himself too. He wanted to hear what happened next. He hoped and prayed
that there could be something that would save the village.

Almost without thinking, he headed across the dirt road that led out to
the paved highway and then he entered the apple orchard. The blossoms
had faded already, and in their place were clusters of tiny green
knobs with big whiskers on the ends.

A few minutes later he left the orchard and stood for a moment at the
top of the bluff, looking down into the tight little valley where the
buildings of the deserted village lay half hidden among the hemlocks
and spruce and maples and oaks. Great-great-grandfather Ezra Rorth’s
father had built the village, and had chosen a beautiful location. The
brick and stone buildings were nestled comfortably in the deep ravine.
A cobbled road ran through the center of the village, and Goose Brook
raced along its rock-strewn course down to the St. Lawrence.

Every time he stopped to look at the village from up here on the bluff,
Ronnie thought of Grandfather. When Ronnie was hardly old enough to
walk, his grandfather had brought him here. For many years after that
the old man and the boy had walked together down the cobbled road in
the late evenings, and Grandfather had told stories of the days when
the village was alive with people, and the glass furnace belched smoke
day and night and Rorth glassware was known almost around the world.

Now, as always, the village drew Ronnie like a magnet. He raced down
the face of the bluff, whirling his arms about like propeller blades to
keep his balance. At the bottom he stopped. Now that he was here, he
couldn’t decide just which part of the village he wanted to visit. He
could swing on the wild grapevines in front of the gristmill, and maybe
take off his trousers and go sailing feet first into the millpond. Or,
he could have fun climbing around on the pile of rubble that remained
from the old bakery building.

He decided to visit the old, padlocked, boarded-up building which
had been the office of the Glassworks back in Great-great-grandfather
Ezra’s days. He started down the path, keeping his eyes open for any
big toadstools he could splatter against a tree trunk. Then he spied
Bill.

His best friend was coming through the trees from the opposite
direction. Ronnie put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly.

“I was just coming over to your place,” Bill greeted him. “Where are
you headed?”

“No place special. Thought maybe I’d climb around on the old office
building roof and maybe get a look at that swift nest down the chimney.
You figuring on something else?”

“Nope.”

They started down the path together. “You know, Ronnie,” Bill said as
they came to the cobblestone road through the middle of the village,
“you know, I’d sure like to get a look inside that building sometime.
How come your grandfather keeps it all locked up with shutters on the
windows?”

“He’s had it open once or twice.”

“I’ve never seen it open.”

“I guess that’s because he hasn’t opened it up since we were big enough
to remember,” Ronnie said.

“My pa was talking about it the other night. He said it’s supposed to
be haunted. You believe that, Ronnie?”

Ronnie thought it over. “Maybe, maybe not.” He wouldn’t let Bill know
how he really felt. Grandfather never seemed to want to talk about the
building, so perhaps there _was_ something that he wanted to hide.
Of course, Ronnie had heard the stories from others, about how his
great-great-grandfather Ezra had killed someone in the office building
and had robbed the Glassworks of money. No two people told the same
story, and Ronnie had decided not to believe any of them.

“I’d sure like to get inside,” Bill repeated.

The old office stood back from the cobblestone road. Two giant sentinel
pines towered over the roof, dwarfing the building and the sapling
hemlocks and pines that crowded close to its sides.

“Race you to it!” Bill yelled suddenly and started down the narrow path
from the cobbled road.

Ronnie knew he couldn’t outrun Bill with his longer legs, but he’d
sure try anyway. Gasping for breath, Ronnie reached his friend, who
had dropped to the ground and stretched himself out in a nest of last
year’s leaves just in front of the padlocked door. Ronnie threw himself
down beside Bill.

They lay there for a few minutes catching their breaths. Then Bill got
up and began to hunt around on the ground. He found a rock and brought
it over to the door.

“What are you aiming to do?” Ronnie asked.

“I can smash that lock easy,” Bill answered.

Ronnie pulled himself to his feet. “Forget it. We were going to climb
to the roof and look down the chimney at the swift’s nest--remember?”

Bill looked at the stone in his hand and then into Ronnie’s face.
“O.K.,” he said, letting the rock drop to the ground. “Some other time,
maybe. But, by golly, I sure want to see what’s inside.”

“Grandfather said there’s nothing much. And he knows because he’s
hunted through everything.”

Bill had shinnied up a young sapling and was pulling himself carefully
onto the roof. “What was he looking for?” he grunted.

Ronnie started up after him and by the time he reached Bill’s side he
had conveniently forgotten to answer the question. They mounted the
slope together and then edged their way down the other side where the
chimney was located. Bill had no trouble peering down into the chimney
flue, but Ronnie had to stand on his toes to do it.

“See anything?” Ronnie asked.

“I can make out the nest. See it, over there toward the back? I think
there are eggs in it.”

“Yes,” Ronnie agreed. “Looks like three of them.”

They watched for a minute or two more and then lost interest. Instead,
they sat down on the edge of the roof, with their legs hanging
dangerously over the side.

Off in the distance, Ronnie could see a stretch of the St. Lawrence
River and a smudge of smoke from a river boat, now already out of sight.

“A man from the Seaway’s at the house talking with Dad and
Grandfather,” he said suddenly.

“The Seaway’s dickering with my pa, too,” Bill said. “Pa says it’s the
best thing that ever came to him. They’re going to pay him five hundred
dollars an acre, and most of it’s no-good swamp land. ’Course, it’s
different with you, Ronnie. I know it’s the village that’s going.”

“I wish there was something I could do.”

“Pa says there’s not a chance.”

“I know. Grandfather won’t say it, but he knows he’s licked.”

“Sure is a shame, because they don’t really need that part where the
village is. Not for the main steamship lanes, anyway. But just because
it’s bottom land and will flood up, it’s got to go.”

“Goose Brook will be swallowed up, too.”

“Too bad your great-great-grandfather didn’t build the village on high
ground. But then, I guess they used the stream for power to turn the
wheels for the gristmill.”

Ronnie nodded. “I sure as shooting wish I could just pile up a heap of
ground along the river to keep the water out. Then they wouldn’t want
the village land.”

He was looking at the narrow gap where Goose Brook tumbled between the
two bluffs that formed the margins of the valley. Why, it wasn’t more
than seventy-five or a hundred feet across, and if it were filled in,
the water behind the new Seaway dam could rise as high as it needed to
without flooding the valley.

Ronnie almost lost his balance and plunged over the edge as the thought
struck him. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I’ve just gotten the coolest idea you
ever did hear of. Now why in the name of common sense didn’t I think of
it sooner?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Bill answered, “seeing I haven’t got the
slightest idea of what you’re talking about.”

“Well, come on and I’ll show you!” Ronnie exploded. Then he scrambled
up the roof and back over the other side, and swung himself into the
sapling like a monkey let out of its cage.




_Chapter 2_


Ronnie was so busy telling Bill about his idea, and Bill was listening
to it so intently, that neither of the boys saw the station wagon until
it was almost upon them. “... and if we could build a dam across that
narrow gap the village could be saved,” Ronnie was saying.

It was Bill who saw the station wagon first and he stopped dead in his
tracks. “Look, Ronnie,” he exclaimed, “a car--in _here_!”

There was an old dirt road leading from the highway and connecting
with the cobblestone road, but neither of the boys could ever remember
seeing it used. But now that Ronnie thought about it, there wasn’t any
reason why it couldn’t be used--if someone had a mind to get to the
village without walking, someone traveling along the highway, that is.
And here apparently was someone who wanted to do just that.

The man stopped the car, turned off the engine, and stepped out. He
came toward the boys, smiling broadly. “You don’t know how glad I am
to see you. I thought sure I was lost and the road was too narrow to
turn around and go back to the highway.” He took a step toward Ronnie,
offering his hand. “My name’s Caldwell,” he said. “Joseph Caldwell.”

Ronnie shook hands. “I’m Ronnie, and this here’s Bill. You looking for
something special, mister?”

“Yes. The old Rorth Glassworks.”

“You’ve found it,” Bill answered.

“But there’s nothing here any more, Mr. Caldwell,” Ronnie added
quickly. “I mean, they don’t make glass now--not for the last
seventy-five or eighty years, near-abouts.”

“I know.” The man smiled faintly. “Anybody who’s traveled up that dirt
road could guess that there’s been no activity here for years.”

Ronnie grinned. “Now that you’re here, what are you fixing to do?” he
asked.

“Well, what I’d like to do is look the place over. But I suppose I’ll
have to get permission first.”

Ronnie shook his head. “You won’t have to do that, Mr. Caldwell. This
land belongs to my grandfather. He’ll let you look. Maybe you’d like to
have us show you around?”

“I’d like that very much!” Mr. Caldwell answered.

As Ronnie led the man down the cobbled street, a hundred stories
Grandfather had told him about the village leaped to his mind and
begged to be told. He remembered the evening Grandfather and he had sat
on the top of the bluff overlooking the village, with the bats circling
overhead and the buildings standing silent below and fading from sight
among the trees in the gathering darkness. How vividly Grandfather
had told the story of the great fire of 1871 when ten of the workers’
cottages had burned to the ground, and Great-great-grandfather Ezra had
worked beside his men, battling the blaze until he had fallen from
smoke poisoning.

Or, the winter of the great blizzard when the roof of the Glassworks
had caved in from the weight, and when the drifts were so high it took
three days to dig out the road so that supplies could be procured from
the storehouses.

He remembered, too, the story Grandfather told about the duchess
from Bavaria who had visited the Works because she admired the Rorth
glassware so much. Great-great-grandfather had blown a special piece
for her that day, and she, in turn, had left a treasured piece of
Bavarian glass.

They approached the two-story building beside Goose Brook. “This was
the gristmill,” Ronnie told Mr. Caldwell. “Every bit of flour and meal
for the village was made here from the grain grown on the fields up
above where Dad has his orchards now.”

Caldwell inspected the huge, overshot waterwheel mounted on its two
stone-and-cement piers and connected to the inside of the building with
a rusty shaft by which the power was transferred to the grinding stones.

They went inside. A musty smell of damp stone and stale air touched
Ronnie’s nostrils. The large grinding stone stood motionless now. Big
copper caldrons and stone mixing pots gave evidence that the grain had
not only been ground to flour, but baked into bread as well. A massive
fireplace with an iron oven on each side formed the entire rear wall.

Caldwell poked about among the smaller articles for a while and then
followed the boys outside. Next they visited the main building where
the glass had been made and blown. Bill showed the man the main
furnace with its four openings into the main chimney which rose like a
giant above the furnace and disappeared through the roof. Some of the
long-handled “pots” in which the glass was heated were still stacked
against the wall.

Otherwise, the building was bare of its former equipment. Caldwell led
the way outside. “I’ve got time for more--if you have,” he announced.

The church, sawmill, and a few of the workers’ houses which were still
intact, followed. Then came a quick inspection of the smith shop and
finally the old office.

“All boarded up and locked, I see!” Caldwell commented. “Something
special housed inside?”

“Why, no, sir!” Ronnie answered. He didn’t feel like giving an
explanation of something so personal that even Grandfather didn’t like
to talk about it.

Caldwell didn’t press his question. “I certainly am impressed by how
well preserved some of the buildings are,” he said instead.

“That’s because Grandfather didn’t want to see the village fall to
pieces,” Ronnie answered. “Before he came down with his gout he spent
days working down here, every time he could get away from the farm. He
told me for a while he even milled his own lumber from the wood lot
so’s he could afford to do it.”

“Your grandfather must have a real love for this place,” the man said
sincerely.

“I reckon it’s just about the biggest thing in his life.” Ronnie was
going to add “and mine too,” but he didn’t because Caldwell had turned
away and had started down the path toward the cobbled road.

“Grandpa even replaced some of these stones in the old roadbed,” Ronnie
added as the three headed back toward Mr. Caldwell’s car.

He handed each of the boys a quarter. “You’ve been real fine guides,”
he said. “Thank you for taking me around.”

“You don’t need to pay us, mister,” Ronnie said, handing the money
back. “Bill and I--we would have hung around here anyway.”

“Keep it, please,” the man insisted. “Who knows--I may want you to help
me more, and then I wouldn’t feel right asking you, would I?”

“All right,” Ronnie agreed. Bill had already pocketed his quarter.
“Say, Mr. Caldwell,” Ronnie had an idea, “do you suppose other people
would pay money to have us show them around?”

Mr. Caldwell thought about the question. “I’m sure you could attract
quite a few interested people--if they knew about it.” He opened the
door to his car. “Say, son, I wonder if I could come to see your
parents tomorrow and your grandfather, too.”

“I haven’t got any mother. She died when I was born. But you can sure
come to see Dad and Grandfather. Something you want, maybe?”

“Well, perhaps. You see, I’m writing a book about early American
glassware, and an idea just struck me that might prove interesting. But
let me go back to my motel and think it over, and I’ll tell you about
it tomorrow when I visit your folks.”

“Suits me fine,” Ronnie answered.

Caldwell climbed into his car and started the engine. Ronnie and
Bill watched him while he maneuvered his machine about on the narrow,
cobbled roadway and headed in the opposite direction. Then Caldwell
leaned from the window and waved good-by. He started back up the road
toward the highway in low gear.

Bill turned to Ronnie.

“Now just what do you suppose brought him here to see the village in
the first place? He couldn’t have stumbled on it just by accident,
that’s for sure!”

“He was eying the locked-up building mighty suspicious-like, I’ll tell
you that!” Ronnie added. “Did you see him, Bill?”

Bill nodded his head. “He’s come here for something, and I don’t think
writing a book is the whole answer.”

They walked up the path together, picking up old acorns and shooting
them into the trees. Suddenly Bill stopped and confronted Ronnie. “How
come you asked him would other people pay money to see the village,
Ronnie?” he asked.

“I was putting one and one together, and I think I came up with two.”

“And what’s this two you came up with?”

“Well, that narrow gap where Goose Brook comes down through the valley,
plus some money we might be able to earn this summer showing people
around. Maybe it equals a dam and saving the village.”

Bill thought about that while he searched the dried leaves beneath a
giant bull oak for more ammunition. “How much you figure a dam would
cost?”

Ronnie shrugged. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. A hundred dollars,
maybe?”

Bill shook his head. “Maybe more like a thousand. Maybe ten thousand.”

“Well, it would be a _beginning_ anyway. And I know people hereabouts
who would want to see the village saved, too, and I’ll bet if they
heard how we were working to earn money, maybe they’d help out too. My
dad knows the president of the historical society in town, and he told
Dad he was sick hearing about how the village would be bulldozed and
flooded, and if there was anything the society could do to help, he
should just speak up.” Ronnie sighed. “I’d sure like to _try_ to earn
the money to save the village. It would be fun, too--you and me and
maybe Phil, if he wants to, and you don’t care.”

“And then if we can’t use the money for the village, we can always have
it to put in the bank.”

“Let’s try it, huh, Bill?” Ronnie said.

“It’s a deal! Rorth and Beckney, Guided Tours of the Rorth Glassworks’
Deserted Village.”

As they walked together down the path, each of the boys was filled with
ideas as to how they would proceed. There would have to be a sign on
the highway, of course. And the road leading into the village would
need some repairs, and the branches overhanging it should be pruned
short. They’d have to decide upon how much to charge and what they’d
tell their guests about each of the buildings.

They stopped where the path divided--one route leading toward the
Beckney farm, the other, up the embankment to the Rorth orchard.

“Tomorrow, Bill?” Ronnie asked him.

“Tomorrow, partner!” Bill answered.

Ronnie turned and began to run, digging his toes into the embankment
as he scrambled to the top. He raced through the apple orchard, leaping
a time or two to grab at a pea-sized apple. He suddenly felt light
enough to fly. At least now he’d be _doing_ something to save the
deserted village, not just standing by and listening to Grandfather
argue with Mr. Evans.




_Chapter 3_


When Ronnie entered the house, he was whistling a tune through the
space between his two front teeth. In the living room he found Phil
sprawled out on the couch with his head propped up against a pillow and
a comic book in his hands. Phil turned a page and looked up at Ronnie.
“Hi!” he said. “Where’ve you been?”

“Down in the village.” Ronnie went over to Dad’s desk to see if there
might be some important-looking papers as a result of the meeting that
afternoon. “Don’t you get tired of lying around all the time?” he asked
Phil.

“Not me.” Phil shifted his position. “It’ll take me another month to
rest up from a year of school. What’re you looking for?”

“Oh--nothing. Maybe a deed to the village property.”

“Nothing like that--yet. Gramp’s lawyer arrived soon after you got
booted away from the window, and they got nowhere from then on!”

“How’d you know what happened to me?”

“Because I was listening from the other side--from the hall! Soon’s
the lawyer arrived, Gramps began demanding a lot more money for the
property than the Seaway wanted to give, and they argued about that for
a while and then Mr. Evans left. I’m telling you all this because I
know you’re going to ask me anyway.”

Ronnie nodded. “Sure I want to know about it. Where’s Dad?”

“Out in the barn, I think.”

Ronnie turned and headed for the kitchen, where he was met with a frown
from Mrs. Butler, who did the housework and prepared the meals for the
Rorths.

Mrs. Butler was a huge woman with a heavy-set jaw and a sharp, straight
nose and piercing eyes that darted rapidly from one place to another.

“Now don’t you be running off somewhere!” she warned Ronnie. “Supper’s
nearly ready to serve up, and if it’s like usual I’ll have to hunt the
four corners of the farm to find everyone.”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean no ma’am.”

“If you’re going out back, take a look at the gas tank for me, will
you? I don’t think it’s been exchanged in a month.”

The indicator showed the tank to be almost half-full. Ronnie passed
this information on to Mrs. Butler and then hurried toward the barn,
chasing a dozen chickens out of his path.

His father was sitting on the homemade, bicycle-propelled grindstone
sharpening one of the blades to his haymower. He didn’t look up from
his work as Ronnie came to a stop at his side and stood watching him.

“Want me to spell you, Dad?” Ronnie shouted above the racket.

Mr. Rorth slowed down his pumping and then climbed off. “All right,” he
answered. “I’m on the last one, but my legs are getting tired.”

Ronnie climbed onto the seat and started turning the pedals. The
eight-inch-diameter stone began to whirl. Sparks shot in every
direction as Mr. Rorth laid the edge of the blade against the stone.

A few minutes later, he signaled the boy to stop. “There, that’s
better,” he said, running his finger cautiously along the edge of the
blade. “Now if the weather holds out, I can get the north field cut and
maybe into the loft.”

“You’re going to have company in the morning, Dad,” Ronnie said.

“_Now_ who’s coming?” Mr. Rorth sounded annoyed. “I wasted the whole
afternoon on this property deal when I should have been haying. Now
who’s going to take over another half a day?”

Ronnie sympathized with his father. It wasn’t an easy job teaching
agriculture in the local high school during the winter and then trying
to run a sixty-acre farm during the growing season. Ronnie wanted to
say, “I’ll give you a hand, Dad,” but he couldn’t summon enough will
power to do it because he was looking forward so eagerly to starting
his business venture.

Instead, he answered his father’s question. “Mr. Caldwell, Dad.”

“Caldwell? Never heard of him.”

“Me neither, until a little while ago. He came driving into the village
while Bill and I were there, and he asked us to show him all around.
And after we’d done that, he said he’d an idea he wanted to see you
about--you and Grandfather.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure Grandfather can take care of it by
himself.”

Mrs. Butler’s voice bellowed from the rear door. “Come and get it!
Come and get it before I throw it down the sink.”

Mr. Rorth grinned to himself. “Nice wholesome creature, that Mrs.
Butler. But heaven knows what we would do without her.”

Mr. Rorth wiped his hands free of grease and started toward the
barnyard door. Ronnie snapped off the overhead bulb and followed.
“Dad,” he said, hurrying to catch up, “Dad, if you need me with the
haying, I’ll help.”

Mr. Rorth thought it over. “I guess not. Thanks, son. Maybe after I
get it cut, you can help load the truck. And I’ll probably need a hand
getting it up into the loft, the same as last week.”

Ronnie went into the dining room to wait for the others to arrive. He
stood in front of the sideboard, idly tinkling the bullet-sized glass
crystals that hung in a circle of dewdrops from the rim of one of the
Rorth candlesticks. A ray of light from the ceiling chandelier struck
one of the crystals, and a rainbow of colors danced before the boy’s
eyes.

Grandfather’s cane came thumping into the room and stopped behind the
boy. “You watch your step with that candlestick!” Grandfather warned.
“Doesn’t pay to monkey around with it for no good purpose. There’s
little enough of the old Rorth glassware left in the world, and those
two candlesticks are the prize of the lot.”

“I won’t harm it, Grandfather.”

“I know. I know. I’ve heard you say that before--with disastrous
results. Those sticks, next to the village, are the pride of my life.
Now you wouldn’t want to have _everything_ taken from me, would you,
lad?”

“No, Grandfather.” He turned away from the sideboard and looked up at
his grandfather. “Grandpa,” he said, “Dad told me once there was a
story about the candlesticks. Will you tell me about it? Dad said you
were the one to tell me if I was to know.”

Grandfather’s gray eyes twinkled for a moment. “Remember how not so
long ago you used to come sit a spell in my room after supper, and we’d
talk about the village and about your Great-great-grandfather Ezra and
about the Glassworks?”

Ronnie nodded.

“Well, maybe if you were to slip in for a while tonight, we could talk
about the candlesticks.”

“And maybe about the locked-up building, too, huh, Grandpa?”

The old man frowned. “That’s best forgotten, lad, best forgotten.”

Phil was already seated at the table, and Mrs. Butler was glaring in
Ronnie’s direction, warning him to do the same. He helped Grandfather
into his special armchair at the head of the table, and then slipped
around and sat down next to Phil. Grandfather said grace, Mrs. Butler
brought in the corned beef and cabbage, and Mr. Rorth made a late
entrance to take his place opposite Grandfather. Mr. Rorth’s face was
drawn into a frown. “I wish,” he exclaimed irritably, “the Seaway would
hurry up and buy the land so I could get on with the farm work.”

A loud snort from Grandfather warned him that he had not worded his
feelings in quite the way the old man would understand. “What I mean
is,” he hurried to correct himself, “what I mean is that we haven’t got
a ghost of a chance of saving it, so we might as well be done with the
whole thing.” But it was too late. Grandfather had already risen to his
feet, his hand turning white as he clenched the handle of his cane. His
face was a fiery red against his snow-white hair, and the vein on his
right forehead popped from the surface like a big purple knot.

For a moment he was so angry his words wouldn’t come out straight.
“You, why, you--you’re a traitor to the Rorths! The village is the
soul, the heart, the _life_ of this family, and you throw it away in a
few idle words. Why, why this boy here,” he pointed to Ronnie, “has a
greater appreciation for what the village means. Far greater. I can’t
understand it. I just can’t understand it.” He sank back down into his
chair, breathing rapidly.

For a minute there wasn’t a sound in the room. Ronnie could hear a
cricket chirping mournfully in the cellar. Then his father looked up
from his plate. “I’m sorry,” he said to Grandfather. “I really didn’t
mean it the way it sounded.”

Grandfather grunted, but said nothing.

After supper Ronnie and Phil helped Mrs. Butler with the dishes. “Folks
down in town are mighty sad knowing the old deserted village isn’t to
be spared,” she said as she wrapped up some of the table scraps to take
home to her cats. “Mighty sad. It’s surprising how many folks there
have a fond spot in their hearts for the place. Fact is, there’s talk
going around to do something about saving it--if there’s a way to get
it done.”

Ronnie pricked up his ears at this. “Gosh, do you think they can?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, boy, sometimes public opinion is powerful strong
magic when it comes to something like this. The government doesn’t
like to rouse up public sentiments if they can help it.”

There was a lot to what Mrs. Butler had said, and Ronnie stored the
information away for later use. Maybe a combination of raising money
for the dam and getting the townspeople interested might just turn
the trick. Now, more than ever, he was anxious to get started on his
venture.

Mrs. Butler had her scraps wrapped, and turned now to putting away the
dishes Phil had dried. “You know,” she said, “either I’m getting daffy
in my old age, or something mighty queer’s going on around here.”

“How come, Mrs. Butler?” Phil asked.

“Well, I’ll let you figure it out. This afternoon I put a blanket out
on the line to air. A little while ago I went out to get it, and it
was gone. I even got a flashlight to follow the line down to the barn,
thinking maybe I’d put that blanket farther away from the house than
I’d figured.”

“And it wasn’t there?” Phil asked.

“Nowheres about. Not even on the ground, figuring maybe the wind might
have taken it--if there’d been a wind. Asked your pa, asked your
grandpa if they’d taken it.”

“Golly, that is strange,” Ronnie agreed.

“Some tramp, probably,” Mrs. Butler grumbled, going to the closet to
get her coat. But something in her voice told Ronnie she didn’t believe
it.




_Chapter 4_


After Mrs. Butler had left, Ronnie headed for the sunny room on the
ground floor of the back wing of the house. There he found Grandfather
seated in his Morris chair, working frantically at the dials of his
radio transmitter. “Confounded sunspots,” the old man growled. “I just
can’t seem to make contact with Donavon tonight.”

“Maybe he’s not home.”

“Now that’s as foolish an explanation as I’ve ever heard. Of course
he’s home! He’s been home every night for the past two years, all ready
to give me his next move and hope like the devil that he’s got me
stymied.”

Ronnie looked over at the table beside the transmitter where
Grandfather had his chess set. It was a beautiful board of alternating
light and dark squares of imported inlaid woods. The chessmen
themselves were large and ornate and handsomely carved from the best
ivory.

The crackle in the loudspeaker was suddenly broken by Albert Donavon’s
voice in Detroit. “W3x2Z calling W2N4L. Come in, W2N4L.”

“Why in blazes are you telling _me_ to come in, you old fogy?”
Grandfather retorted. “I’ve been trying to raise you for the past ten
minutes. What’s the matter--you afraid I’m going to check you with my
next move?”

“There isn’t a move in the books you could check me with!” Donavon
returned.

They chatted for a few minutes about the weather and each other’s
health, and then exchanged their moves. “Move my castle to White’s king
rook file, third rank,” Grandfather told him, “and then sweat that one
out!”

“Why you old buzzard!” Donavon came back, “you think that’s going to
help you? Wait until you see what I’ve got in store for _you_! Move my
queen’s bishop to the king knight’s file, fifth rank. Now figure that
out if you can!”

“Ha!” Grandfather was indignant. “You’ll have to get up early in the
morning to find a move that I can’t figure out. Your trouble always has
been that you jump to too hasty conclusions, Donavon!”

But Grandfather looked worried, Ronnie noticed. He was studying the
board and frowning. “See you tomorrow night, same time!” Donavon signed
off, and the loudspeaker went dead.

Then Grandfather turned off his transmitter and receiver. “Thinks he
has me cornered, does he! Well, let him figure out that move I gave
_him_!”

He leaned back in his chair. “Ronnie,” he said, “it’s nice having you
back in here with me like old times. I’ve been fearing that maybe
you and I were drifting apart of late.” He closed his eyes for a few
moments and leaned his head back against his chair. “So many things
have been slipping from me these past weeks, so many things.” He opened
his eyes again and looked at Ronnie. “You aren’t going to slip from me
too, are you, boy?”

“Of course not, Gramps. It’s because you’ve been worried about the
village and I didn’t want to pester you,” Ronnie explained. “That’s why
I haven’t been coming in here to see you so much lately.”

“Of course, and you’ve been worried too!” Grandfather added. “Why,
it’s been written all over you. You wouldn’t be my boy if you weren’t
worrying about the village.” He stretched out his game leg to ease
some of the pain. “You won’t be forgetting the wonderful times we had
together in the village now, will you, boy?”

“No, sir, Gramps!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Why, just this afternoon I was
telling Mr. Caldwell some of the stories you told me!”

“Caldwell? I don’t recall that name.”

Ronnie explained to Grandfather how Caldwell had driven into the
village and how Bill and he had taken the man on a tour of the
buildings. “And he gave me and Bill a swell idea, Gramps. We’re going
to make money so we can build a dam across that pass where Goose Brook
comes through, and then they won’t have to flood the valley and--”

“Say, hold on there a minute, boy! You’re going faster than a runaway
locomotive down a steep grade, and I lost you a ways back. Now just how
are you going to make this money, and _what_ pass are you going to dam
up? This all sounds pretty fantastic to me.”

But by the time Ronnie had finished explaining his plans, Grandfather
was nodding his head slowly and puckering his lips the way he did when
he was almost convinced. “There’s a chance ... there’s a chance,” he
kept repeating. “I know the spot you mean. It would take a lot of fill,
but it’s not impossible. And with folks in town stirring things up for
the Seaway, it might come about. Of course, you realize you couldn’t
raise near enough money yourself to do the job, don’t you?”

“Maybe not, Grandpa, but somebody’s got to start things going.”

“You never said a truer word, boy! You’ve got my blessings. Go to it,
and don’t forget, just because I’ve got a leg here that won’t do its
job any longer doesn’t mean I can’t help. There’s one thing I got
plenty of--advice!”

Ronnie smiled up at his grandfather. “We’ll lick this yet, won’t we,
Gramps? And now will you tell me about the candlesticks?”

The old man nodded, then frowned. “Now where in tarnation do I begin a
story like this? Well, let’s begin with your great-great-grandfather,
Ezra Rorth. He was the son of the man who founded the Glassworks down
in the valley, but it was really Ezra who built it up so that it was
known practically around the world for its fine glass. I reckon Ezra
was a real craftsman, an artist in his trade. He had a habit, so I
hear, of rarely duplicating what he once had made.

“Well, now, this Ezra, for some reason nobody’s ever been able to
figure out, took in a partner, a man by the name of Jacob Williams.
Seems like both these men fell in love about the same time and got
themselves engaged. Then they decided to hold a double wedding
ceremony. Old Ezra, about that time, got the idea he and Jacob ought
to give their brides-to-be something extra special for a wedding
present. So the two went off for three, four days into the Glassworks
and shut themselves up and said they didn’t want anybody busting in
and bothering them for any reason at all. When they came out, they’d
created two pairs of those candlesticks, one pair for each bride. Those
in the dining room came right down the family tree from generation to
generation. I gave them to your grandmother, and when your dad got
married he gave them to your mother. It’s your turn next, seeing you’re
the oldest.”

“Me?” Ronnie blushed. “I’m never going to get married, not on your
life.”

Grandfather roared with laughter. “You’ll sing a different tune in
another ten years--maybe sooner.”

“No, sir! I’m going to stick around and take care of _you_,
Grandfather!”

“Well, that’s mighty nice of you to say, lad. Tarnation, you don’t know
how sad this whole affair with the village has made me. And your father
isn’t showing the fighting spirit I expected of him. So it’s good to
hear you say nice things like that.”

“Dad really is fighting, Grandpa. I know he is--in his own sort of way.”

“Well, maybe so, and I’m sure sorry I lost my temper like I did at the
table. Always was one for blowing off steam and then feeling sorry
about it afterward. I’m glad that’s _one_ trait you didn’t inherit from
me.”

Ronnie got up, stretching, and then started for the door. “Gramps?”
he said, turning about suddenly. “You’ll tell me about the boarded-up
building too, won’t you?”

Grandfather’s eyes came closed wearily, as if he were trying to shut
out thoughts of the building. “No, boy,” he answered finally, his eyes
still closed. “Let’s let its secret die along with me. I searched the
place timber to timber, but I found nothing. She’s stubborn, that
building, just like some of the Rorths. I guess she’s old and set
in her ways, and if she won’t tell me what happened, she won’t tell
anybody.”

“She likes me, Grandfather. I know she does. I’ve sat on the roof lots
of times, and listened to the swifts down in her chimney, and I’m sure
she was telling me to look! But I don’t know what to look for.”

Grandfather’s eyes were open again and he was smiling. “You’re a clever
rascal, you are, boy! Trying to touch my sentiments, are you? Well,
I’ve made up my mind the secret’s to die with me, so there’s no use in
your pestering further.”

“Oh, all right. But I think it’s a shame, letting the secret get buried
under all that water.”

Grandfather’s smile faded and his face grew flushed and the vein on his
temple began to swell and turn purple. He started to rise, too, but
suddenly changed his mind and sank back down and rested his head back
against the chair. “I won’t get tempered over it again,” he said, more
to himself than Ronnie. “But don’t you go talking like that any more.
Remember, always keep thinking the _best_ is going to happen.”

“I really do believe that, Gramps. I was just saying what I did because
I hoped you’d change your mind and tell me the secret.”

“Well, I’ll think on it. I’ll think on it. Maybe I’ll decide to tell
you. But don’t bother me about it any more, you hear?”

“Yes, Gramps.”

“All right. Now go on and get out of here. I’m tired and I’m going to
bed.”

Ronnie was tired too, but he stopped in the dining room on his way
upstairs to take another look at the candlesticks. They _were_
beautiful. Twelve cut-glass, diamond-shaped crystals hung by spun glass
chains in a circle from the rim of the candle holder. The base and
stick itself were of solid frosted glass, embellished with intricate
designs of rose and turquoise embossing. He set one of the crystals in
motion and it tinkled like a bell against its neighbor crystal.

He climbed the stairs to the upstairs hall. Phil was in his own room,
working at his desk. Ronnie poked his head inside and watched his
brother cutting out baseball players’ pictures from the backs of cereal
boxes he had been accumulating. “Bill and I are starting a business in
the morning. You can come in with us if you want.”

“What kind of a business? If it’s work, you can count me out.”

Ronnie explained what they had in mind. Phil seemed interested. “I’ll
sleep on it,” he told Ronnie and went on with his work.

Ronnie moved down the hall and entered his own room. He didn’t turn
on the light, but instead went to the window and, brushing back the
curtains, stared out into the blackness.

The moon was at the quarter, but there was enough light from it to
light up patches of the St. Lawrence River so that it looked like
stretches of a concrete highway cutting through the darkness. Below and
a little to the left, the night was blackest, and here Ronnie located
the deserted village.

For a moment he thought he could picture the black, inky water covering
the land as the floodwaters rose behind the proposed dam. The thought
of such a thing happening sent his stomach sinking.

Then suddenly his eyes widened. He blinked a few times to make sure he
wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there.

It was there all right! Directly in the center of the black patch of
night where he had located the village, a halo of light lay shimmering
over the roof of one of the buildings. It moved a little to the left,
then shifted back again slowly, faded slightly, and brightened again.

Ronnie rubbed at the windowpane to clear the glass. But he couldn’t
erase the light he had seen--not for another minute or two anyway. Then
it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.




_Chapter 5_


Ronnie was up bright and early the next morning. All the time he was
washing himself and brushing his teeth, he was trying to figure out
what it was he had seen the night before.

It had looked somewhat like a flashlight beam hitting the thick foliage
from underneath a tree. But that wouldn’t account for the way the light
had reflected from the sloping-roof surface of one of the buildings.

“I reckon that was just about where the boarded-up building is,” he
told himself.

He wondered if he should tell anybody about what he had seen. Nobody
was likely to believe him. In fact, he was having a hard job trying
to convince himself that his eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on him.
Sometimes the netting in the screens made lights take on strange shapes
and do crazy things. Or maybe it was the moon coming out suddenly from
behind a cloud and lighting up the roof of the building. Yet this
wasn’t the first time he had gazed out over the deserted village from
his bedroom window, and he had never seen the light before. He pulled
on his trousers and went down to the kitchen where he found his father
at the table finishing a bowl of cold cereal. “Morning, Dad,” he said.

“Morning, Ronnie! What’s the special occasion--getting up so early, I
mean?”

The boy explained about the plan Bill and he had made--how they hoped
to attract tourists to the deserted village and perhaps earn some money
too.

“Sounds like a fine idea to me, son!” Mr. Rorth nodded his head. “Let
me know if I can help you in any way.”

Mr. Rorth washed his dish out at the sink and set it into the drain to
dry. “A fine day for haying,” he said glancing out the window at the
sky. “In a few days I’ll need you and Phil to help gather it in.”

After his father had left, Ronnie got his breakfast of fruit juice and
cereal from the refrigerator and pantry shelf and then sat down at the
table to eat.

While he was eating, he thought over all the things Bill and he would
do that day to prepare for their new business venture. He jotted them
down on a piece of scrap paper: “Clean out all the buildings that are
in pretty good shape. Cut off all the branches that stick out over the
dirt road and the cobblestone road. Clear a small parking place. Print
a sign to put on the highway.”

Then he added: “Tell Bill what I saw last night?” He added two more
question marks at the end of the words.

Just as Ronnie was finishing his meal, he heard Mrs. Butler drive up
in her car. A few minutes later she came bustling into the kitchen.
“Well,” she exclaimed, “aren’t you the early bird!”

She opened the cupboard door and placed her pocketbook inside.
“Strangest thing about that blanket,” she said to Ronnie. “I was sure
I’d find it this morning. But I don’t see hide nor hair of it. Did you
make your bed, youngster?”

Ronnie flushed. “No, ma’am,” he confessed.

“I might have guessed. Well, I’ll take care of it for you this once.
’Pears like you’ve got some mighty important things on your mind, or
you wouldn’t be up so early. Keep your eyes peeled for that blanket.”
She picked up the carpet sweeper from beside the refrigerator and
hurried from the room.

Phil shuffled into the kitchen, still in his pajamas. He fell into a
chair and yawned deeply. “That cereal looks O.K. Mind fixing me up a
batch?”

“Help yourself. Be my guest.” Another idea had come to Ronnie and he
jotted it down on his list: “Maybe make some circulars to leave around
town telling about the village.” Lots of tourists came through Massena
on their way to the Thousand Islands. Some might be interested in
seeing the old glassworks.

Phil settled himself at the table with a bowl of corn flakes and a
bottle of milk. “Watcha writing?” he asked his brother.

“Just jotting down some ideas about starting our business.”

“Maybe I’ll tag along and see what it’s all about. If it looks
interesting, I’ll think about joining up.”

“Don’t put yourself out.”

“Aw, I don’t mind. In fact, it sounds kind of intriguing. Maybe I can
pick up a few fast bucks to get that bicycle I’ve had my eye on.”

Ronnie put down the pencil, folded up the paper and stuffed it in his
trouser pocket. “All the money we make is going into helping to save
the village. If you want to come, you’d better get dressed because I’m
taking off in a few minutes.”

“You can go on ahead. I’ll join you later.”

Ronnie washed out his plate and glass and put them away. Then he left
the house. The sun was hardly over the treetops, and the grass still
sparkled with early morning dew. A fine haze streaked the horizon, and
the boy knew it was going to be hot before the day was over. He cut
through the orchard, slid down the embankment, and cut into the forest
where the buildings of the village were scattered.

On the cobbled road he paused and whistled shrilly, a signal to Bill.
He listened, but no answer came back to him. Well, he’d wait for Bill
by the boarded-up house.

He cut down the side path to the building. The bare earth, where the
leaves had blown away, was damp from the night dew, and his bare feet
padded noiselessly along. He broke out into the small clearing that
faced the front of the building and stopped abruptly.

For a second he had thought the figure moving hurriedly away from the
rear of the building was Bill, and he had been just about to whistle a
greeting. Now he saw that it was a man, and while he could only see a
portion of his shoulders and head, he thought of Mr. Caldwell, the man
who had driven into the village the day before. “Hi, Mr. Caldwell!” he
yelled.

The man turned for an instant to face the boy, then whirled about and
hurried into the woods.

The man’s face had been in the shadows for that single instant he had
faced Ronnie, and the boy still wasn’t sure whether he was the man
who had paid them the visit and promised to return for a talk with Mr.
Rorth. Ronnie shrugged, as if to tell himself that it really didn’t
matter. If it had been Caldwell, he’d explain his actions later.

Ronnie decided to take a quick swing around the building to see if he
could find anything that might tell him about the light he had seen the
evening before. The rusty lock, snapped in place three or four years
before when Grandfather had abandoned his search, was still in place.
The window shutters were as tightly closed. Everything looked perfectly
normal.

“Strangest thing ever,” he said to himself. He was beginning to believe
he _had_ been seeing things the night before.

He spied a narrow crack where the shutter did not fit tight against the
window frame, but it was a little too high to look through. But off in
one of the thickets of hemlock saplings, he saw a fair-sized log. He
grabbed hold of it, rolled it over beneath the window, and then wedged
a smaller piece of wood under it to keep it from moving.

Holding onto the window frame for support, Ronnie climbed onto the log
and placed his right eye against the crack. The room was dark except
for the glow from a faint patch of light that found its way down the
chimney flues.

The light, however, was sufficient for him to make a very puzzling
discovery. Somebody, apparently, had spent the night sleeping in the
boarded-up house! Spread out on the hearth was Mrs. Butler’s missing
blanket. The stub of a candle was waxed securely to the floor, and a
flashlight lay to one side.

“Hi, Ronnie!” he heard Bill’s voice behind him. “Gee, let me take a
look inside too!”

Ronnie stepped down from the log. “Hi, Bill. I just discovered the
queerest thing. You take a look and tell me what _you_ think.”

“Sure thing!” Bill was only too happy to comply. He climbed the log
and, shielding his eyes, peered through the crack. A minute later he
was down on the ground again facing Ronnie. “Looks like somebody’s been
sleeping in there!” he exclaimed.

“Just what _I_ thought!” Ronnie agreed. “And that looks just like the
blanket Mrs. Butler lost yesterday. I know it because it’s the one she
uses when she takes her nap in the afternoon. I’d know that Indian
blanket anywhere!”

“Well! Let’s go in and take a look around,” Bill exclaimed.

“In?” Ronnie was flabbergasted. “Why, I don’t know how _he_ got in! I
just looked at the lock, and--and all the shutters are still nailed
shut--I _think_.”

“Couldn’t be!” Bill started out on his own inspection tour. He joined
Ronnie a few minutes later, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re
right,” he said. “I couldn’t find any way to get in, either. You’d
better tell your dad about this, Ronnie!”

“I’ll sure do that,” he said.

“And maybe your grandfather will open up and take a look inside to find
out what’s going on.”

“Yea, sure.” Ronnie was still too deep in thought to pay much attention
to Bill’s remarks. _How_ had the intruder gotten in? he asked himself
over and over again. Mrs. Butler had hung the blanket on the line the
day before, and now Ronnie was sure that it was inside the boarded-up
building. But _who_ had put it there, and _how_ had he gotten inside?

The boys didn’t give up searching for an answer until they had
re-examined the four walls and had even climbed to the roof for an
inspection. “Maybe he went down the chimney!” Bill suggested.

“Don’t be silly!” Ronnie laughed. “Even a baby couldn’t get down
there.” He peered over the top and looked down the flue. “Besides, the
swifts’ nest is still there, and it would be broken if anyone had gone
down.”

Just then Bill spied Phil coming down the cobblestone road. “Hey,
Ron-_nie_. Hey, Bill,” Phil called out.

“Don’t let on what we’ve found inside,” Bill warned Ronnie. “It’s our
secret--yours and mine. O.K.?”

Ronnie nodded. They went down the path to meet Phil, who had seated
himself on a fallen log to wait for them to join him. He had cut
himself a walking stick from a wild cherry tree and was busy paring
ringlets and designs by stripping off the bark. The live wood showed
through, a pale green.

“Thought you’d never get here,” he said without looking up from his
work. “How’s the business coming?”

“We haven’t started yet.” Bill turned to Ronnie. “I was thinking last
night that first off, we’ve got to have an office to work in, and where
we can keep all our stuff.”

“That’s right!” Ronnie agreed.

“How about one of the workers’ cottages?” Phil suggested. “Gramps fixed
up a couple of them and they’re still in good shape.”

Ronnie and Bill agreed, and the three set off down the cobbled road,
crossed Goose Brook and struck out down the overgrown path that led
to the row of workers’ cottages. Only two of them were still in good
repair, the two on each end of the row that formerly contained close
to a dozen. Of the rest, most had completely fallen to ruin. Only their
foundations and chimneys were still standing. A few had walls, but the
roofs were caved in and rotting.

The boys chose the one closest to the cobbled road and set to work
cleaning it up. While Ronnie and Phil removed the debris that littered
the floor, Bill ran home to get a broom and pail and mop.

By noontime the walls and floors had been mopped with water from the
brook, a makeshift desk had been constructed from old lumber, and
several rickety but serviceable chairs had been located in other
buildings.

“We should have done this a long time ago,” Bill said, wiping the
perspiration from his forehead, “even if it was just for a clubhouse.
It’s real neat!”

Before leaving for lunch they agreed to return that afternoon and begin
work on some of the items Ronnie had written on his list at breakfast
that morning. “The road from the highway comes first,” he decided.
“Then, cleaning up the buildings we’re going to use in our tour. Then,
the sign.”

Phil groaned. “I just remembered,” he announced. “I’ve got a date with
the hammock for the afternoon.”

When Ronnie came within sight of his own house fifteen minutes later,
he recognized Mr. Caldwell’s station wagon parked near the back door.
He’d already left Phil a good distance behind, so he began to run,
afraid that he might already have missed something of importance.

Mr. Caldwell was in the barn, talking with Ronnie’s father. He looked
up and smiled in the boy’s direction as Ronnie entered. “Hello,
Ronald,” he said.

“Hi!” Ronnie answered.

Ronnie tagged along behind his father and Mr. Caldwell as they walked
slowly from the barn and then stopped alongside Mr. Caldwell’s car for
a few final words. Then Mr. Caldwell climbed into his station wagon and
started the engine. Ronnie waved good-by.

“Dad,” he asked, following his father back to the barn, “what did he
want?”

“Supposing you come up in the loft with me and help pile up the hay you
knocked down the other day. Then I’ll be able to get the rest of it
in after it’s finished drying on the fields. I’ll tell you about Mr.
Caldwell while we work.”

Ronnie followed his father up the ladder. It was stifling hot in the
loft. Mr. Rorth opened the two loft doors that faced onto the barnyard.
Overhead a wasp darted angrily among the beams, droning like a model
airplane.

Mr. Rorth picked up two pitchforks and handed one of them to Ronnie.
“How come you’re so interested in this Mr. Caldwell?” he asked,
starting to move some of the hay toward the rear of the loft.

Ronnie grinned. “I guess maybe because I’m just plain nosey!” he
answered.

Mr. Rorth had gathered up a large pile of hay. Now he jabbed the
tines of his fork underneath it and heaved the load to the top of the
stack. Then he turned to face the boy. “Couldn’t ask for a more honest
answer than the one you gave me, could I?” he queried. “I’ll say this,
though, about the man,” he went on, more seriously, “I’ll say that I
was impressed by the way he talked. He seemed genuinely interested in
antiques, particularly glassware. And apparently he’s built up quite a
name for himself as a connoisseur of old glass.”

Ronnie thought about what his father had just told him. “Dad, what’s a
connoisseur?”

“A connoisseur? Well, he’s a person who knows a great deal about some
special art subject. Caldwell got interested in glassware when he was a
boy. It seems his family had a couple of pieces of Rorth glassware that
had been handed down from one generation to the next. He started doing
some research on them, and pretty soon he was studying up on all makes
of glassware. Now he’s writing a book on early American glassware. He
wants to include a few chapters about Rorth glass.”

Ronnie stopped work long enough to turn toward his father. “And is that
why Caldwell came to see you?” he asked.

“Yes, in a way.” Mr. Rorth leaned lightly on the handle of his fork.
“He wants to spend some time here poking around in the buildings and
talking with your grandfather about the history of the Glassworks. He
thought maybe he could bed down in one of the buildings in the village.”

“He _does_!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Golly, maybe he’ll help us set up our
business, specially if he knows so much about glassware. Think he
might, Dad?”

“Well, now, I don’t know. He’s coming here to learn more about it
himself. But you ask him if you want.”

Ronnie went over to the opening of the loft and sat down on the edge
with his feet dangling out over the barnyard. The perspiration was
running down his body in streams, and he wanted to cool off. The
hayseeds were sticking to his skin, too, and itching something awful.

His father came over and stood behind him, leaning on the handle of his
fork, trying to catch a few puffs of the cooler air.

“When’s he moving in, Dad?” Ronnie asked.

“Right after lunch, I think. He went back to check out of the motel.”

“I wonder if he really slept in the motel last night,” Ronnie mused.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because _somebody_ slept in the old office building, that’s why. And
who else would it be excepting Mr. Caldwell?”

“That’s nonsense, Ronnie,” his father protested. “Why would Mr.
Caldwell want to sleep in the old office building? And how would he get
in without breaking down the door?”

“That’s what Bill and I were wondering too.”

Mr. Rorth shook his head slowly as if to say, “These kids!” and then
picked up his fork and moved back to work. Ronnie got up and followed
him. “Don’t you believe me, Dad?” Ronnie asked.

“Well,” Mr. Rorth said, grinning, “I’ll say I’m having a hard time
believing you. For instance, how can you tell that a man slept
there--what evidence do you have?”

“Well, there’s a little crack in the window, and Bill and I climbed up
and looked through it. We saw the blanket Mrs. Butler was looking for
last night.”

Mr. Rorth raised his eyebrows a bit and looked straight at Ronnie.
“Well, that _is_ convincing.” He thought about it for a moment. “Tell
you what, Ronnie. I’m going down to the village later this afternoon to
see if Mr. Caldwell got settled all right. I’ll take a look at the old
office building on the way.”

“The crack is in the south window and you can peek in through there.”

“Never mind the crack. I’ll bring the key--if that old lock will still
turn. Last time I looked it was wrapped with a cloth to keep it from
rusting.”

“Not any more it isn’t,” said Ronnie.

After lunch Ronnie gathered together some tools and lumber to use in
building a sign for the highway. With these under his arms, he stopped
by the grape arbor where Phil was lying in the hammock. “You coming
down?” he asked, hoping he would so he could carry some of the load.

Phil eyed the lumber and tools. “I’ll be down after my siesta,” he
said. “Nobody with any sense exercises during the heat of the day.”

By resting his load on the ground every few hundred feet, Ronnie
reached their new office without too much trouble. Bill hadn’t shown up
yet, so Ronnie stretched out in one of their chairs, making plans for
the afternoon while he waited for his friend.

But after five minutes he grew restless and decided he’d kill some
time by taking another peek through the shutter into the boarded-up
building. He slipped out of the office and made his way toward the
building. Soon he was standing on the log and peering through the crack.

“Oh, _no_!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Now what’s Dad going to think of
me?”

The blanket, candle, and flashlight were no longer in sight.




_Chapter 6_


“That man,” Ronnie told himself again and again as he trudged back to
their office, “that man I saw this morning running from the boarded-up
house is the person who slept in there last night.” And “that man” had
looked an awful lot like Mr. Caldwell, even seen from a distance and
hidden somewhat by the early morning shadows.

Ronnie groaned. He sure did hate the thought of the teasing he’d get
when his father inspected the building and found nothing there.

Bill was waiting for him when he reached their office building. “’Bout
time you got here,” he said.

“I’ve been here,” Ronnie retorted. “I went over to take another peek
into the boarded-up building. But I wished I hadn’t.”

“How come?”

Ronnie told him. Bill groaned too. “I told my pa about it, too, and he
said he was going to call your pa on the telephone. Somebody’s made a
monkey out of us for sure!”

“Well, _we_ know somebody slept there last night,” Ronnie announced
stoutly. “Some mighty strange things are going on around here, let me
tell you.” He decided to break down and tell Bill about the peculiar
light he’d seen the evening before, and about the man who looked like
Mr. Caldwell who had turned and run when the boy had shouted his name.

Bill gave a long, loud whistle of amazement. “Looks like we’ve got
_two_ things to do this summer--save the village and solve this
mystery, too.”

But within a few minutes they had forgotten the mysterious prowler.
Armed with the pruning sheers and sickle that Bill had brought with
him, they started clearing the overhanging branches from both sides of
the dirt lane. A half hour later, when they were within sight of the
main road, Mr. Caldwell’s station wagon turned off the highway and came
toward them.

He stopped alongside the boys and poked his head out the window. “Hop
in and I’ll drive you back in--that is, if you’re finished.”

Ronnie nodded and the two climbed into the front seat. “You’ve done a
fine job of clearing the roadway,” Mr. Caldwell said. “You are going
ahead with your tourist business, I take it.”

“Yes,” Ronnie answered, “how did you know about it?”

“Your father told me.” Mr. Caldwell swung off the dirt road onto the
cobblestones. “Now, the question is--which building shall I occupy?
Your father said I could have my choice.”

“How about one of the workers’ cottages?” Bill suggested. “We’re
using one of them for our office, but there’s a real good one with a
fireplace at the other end of the row.”

“Sounds like just what I’m looking for,” Caldwell agreed.

Ronnie and Bill helped Mr. Caldwell unload his suitcases and cardboard
cartons from the rear of the station wagon and carry them into the
cottage. Then they sat on the floor with their backs against a wall and
watched him unpack.

Just about that time, Mr. Rorth drove up in his pickup truck. In the
back he had a cot and mattress, blankets and sheets, a table and a few
chairs, as well as some cooking utensils.

“These should make you comfortable,” he told Mr. Caldwell.

Ronnie walked back to the truck beside his father. “Now,” said Mr.
Rorth, “let’s take a look at the evidence of this mysterious guest
we’re supposed to be harboring in the old office building!”

Ronnie looked up sheepishly at his father. “It’s not there any more,
Dad,” he said.

“Oh? So the ghost picked up his bedding and walked away, eh?”

“But it _was_ there this morning, Dad. Honest it was. Bill saw it too.
He’ll tell you.”

Mr. Rorth stared at his son a moment, then laughed and climbed into the
truck. Ronnie’s face was scarlet as he turned back to join Bill.

For the remainder of the afternoon the boys worked at cleaning up the
gristmill and the general store. Phil joined them about three o’clock,
but as usual he wasn’t much help.

Twice during the afternoon they took a breather to see how Mr. Caldwell
was coming with his unpacking. On their final visit, Ronnie exclaimed,
“Gosh, Mr. Caldwell, you’ve got this place looking just like home!”

“And that’s what it’s going to be for a couple of weeks. Who knows, I
might just decide to stay on indefinitely!”

“Oh, but you couldn’t do that--not unless you want to be under water,”
Ronnie explained.

Mr. Caldwell looked at Ronnie questioningly, not knowing whether to
take the boy’s remark seriously or as some kind of joke. “Are you
fooling?” he asked.

“Oh no. In a year or two, when they build the dams on the St. Lawrence
Seaway, this’ll all be under water. Gramps is furious, but Dad says he
can’t do anything about it.”

“What a pity. What a great pity!” Mr. Caldwell exclaimed. “I’m
certainly glad I decided to come here when I did.”

Mr. Caldwell’s alarm clock showed four-thirty. Bill suggested that
they start work cleaning up the main building where the glass had been
manufactured and packed. “We’ll never get started showing people around
at the rate we’re going,” he told Ronnie and Phil.

Ronnie, of course, didn’t need any convincing. He would work all night
if it would step up their opening date. Phil tagged along reluctantly.

They managed to cart five or six loads of the larger debris from the
building and dump it in the woods out of sight, and then Bill announced
that it was probably time for him to get home. He had chores to do
before supper, and so did Ronnie and Phil.

They walked back to the office together. Bill wanted to gather up his
tools to take home. “I’ve got to be _sure_ to get these back,” he
explained. “A couple of nights ago a saw and hammer and a couple of
other tools disappeared from the barn, and Pa insists I took them and
left them somewhere.”

“We haven’t been using any tools like that,” Ronnie said indignantly.

They walked down the cobbled road to where their paths separated. “You
know,” Bill suggested, “we could work on the sign tonight and leave the
cleaning up for the daytime. Think you could get away for a while after
supper?”

“Sure,” said Ronnie. He turned to his brother. “Want to come too, Phil?”

Phil mumbled something about a television show.

When Ronnie got home, he pitched into his chores immediately. He chased
the few remaining hens into the chicken house, filled their trough
with water, and fastened the door shut. He stabled the horse and then
watered and fed her. Then he went into the house to collect the garbage
and trash to take to the dump for burning.

Returning from the dump, he caught sight of his father driving the
tractor and pulling the mowers down the farm road from the fields.
Ronnie cut through the triangle of alder bushes to meet him. “Say,
Dad,” he asked, climbing up beside him, “could I go back down to the
village after supper and work for a while with Bill? We’re going to
make our sign to put out on the highway.”

“I don’t see why not. You pretty near ready to start your big business
venture?”

“Just about, I guess.”

Mr. Rorth nodded his head in approval. “I was in town today and I
happened to run into Steve Mercer. He’s president of the historical
society. Told me that they’d written a letter to the Seaway saying
their society’s violently opposed to any flooding of the village unless
it’s absolutely necessary.”

Ronnie’s heart leaped. “Maybe that’ll help us get permission to build
the dam across the top of the valley.”

“It might,” his father agreed. A smile tugged at his lips. “Think you
can raise that kind of money?”

“No,” Ronnie said honestly. “But it’ll get the ball rolling, and that’s
what counts, Grandpa says.”

“And of course he’s right,” Mr. Rorth agreed. “Heaven knows I want to
see the village spared as much as you and Gramps. But I can’t let the
whole farm go to pieces in the meantime. You’ve got to be practical
about these things.”

       *       *       *       *       *

When Ronnie reached the office at eight o’clock, Bill was waiting for
him. Bill had brought a kerosene lantern and it was already burning
when Ronnie entered the door. Outside, the late evening shadows were
deepening among the trees, and the peepers were piping down in the
marshes along the river.

“Pa gave me a piece of plywood for our sign,” Bill announced, “and I
brought some paint and brushes.”

They sat down at their improvised desk and composed the words they
would letter on the sign:

            Original Buildings and Furnaces
        of One of America’s Renowned Glassworks
                 from the Last Century
  Including a Haunted Building with a Strange History
  Complete Tour: Adults--50¢            Children--25¢

“That ought to get their curiosity roused up!” Bill exclaimed when they
had finished. “Now let’s get it laid out on the plywood.”

The time passed quickly for the two. Outside, the night closed in among
the old buildings and the silent trees.

“Now that looks right nice!” Bill said at last standing back to survey
the sign. “Looks almost like a real sign painter made it. Tomorrow,
first thing, we’ll get it up on the road.”

Ronnie glanced at his wrist watch. “I’d best be getting on home.
Nothing much more we can do tonight anyway.”

They picked up their flashlights, and then Bill blew out the lantern.
The two stepped out into the night. The beams from the flashlights
cut a solid lane down the path as they made their way toward the
cobblestone road. Bill was in the lead. Suddenly he stopped and pointed
off into the trees. “Look!” he whispered.

It was the light again, the same light Ronnie had seen last night from
his bedroom window. Now that it was closer, he could make out more of
the detail.

At first glance it seemed like some strange, unearthly cloud resting
motionless over the top of the building. But Ronnie was quick
to discover that what he really saw was the light striking the
undersurface of the thick canopy of foliage that overhung the roof,
setting the leaves aglow.

Ronnie moved closer to his friend and whispered, “Sure looks spooky,
doesn’t it? First off it does, anyway.”

“Yea,” Bill answered, “sure does. Somebody must be behind the building,
pointing a flashlight up into the trees.”

Ronnie shook his head. “Whoever’s doing it is _inside_ the building,
poking around in the chimney. Otherwise you’d see the light in a
circle.”

“Maybe you’re right. Let’s slip over and take a peek through the crack
in the shutter.”

“I’m with you, boy!” Ronnie answered. “Let’s go!”




_Chapter 7_


Ronnie shivered. The shiver started at his shoulder blades, traveled
down his spine, and made his flesh stand out in goose pimples. Just
a few feet ahead, almost in the thick blackness that lay between the
bushes along the path, he could make out Bill’s light-colored shirt.
And at the end of the path lay the padlocked building with its strange
halo of light still shimmering in the foliage over the roof.

As they drew closer, Ronnie could see that the light did come from
the chimney as he had suspected. “Somebody poking a flashlight around
in the chimney flues, all right!” he thought. But why? Was it just a
trick to scare Bill and him away for some unknown reason, or was this
intruder searching for something?

They were almost to the building when the light went out and the
blackness closed in over the roof. Ronnie shivered again. The building
seemed lonelier and more desolate than it had before.

Bill turned about and came close to Ronnie. “There’s somebody inside
for sure!” he whispered. Ronnie could feel his friend’s breath against
his cheek. “Listen. I can hear him walking around.”

Ronnie heard the sounds too--floor boards creaking under the intruder’s
weight. “Come on,” he breathed, and taking his friend’s arm, steered
him toward the side of the building.

The log was still in place below the window. Ronnie found a hold on
the window frame and pulled himself up. He leveled his eye against the
crack and peered inside.

Only a small portion of the interior came within his view, and the
intruder, whoever he was, was out of range. But a portion of his
flashlight beam was visible and lit up the fireplace and the hearth
before it. Then the light shifted suddenly to the other side, stayed
out of view for a moment, and then returned.

A moment later the light went out completely and the building was
plunged into complete blackness.

Ronnie felt Bill tugging at his arm. “I hear something around back!”
his friend warned. “Maybe he’s getting out.”

“But there’s no way out through the back,” Ronnie protested. Hadn’t
Bill and he searched every square foot of the outside of the building?
But then, the intruder had to enter and leave the building _somewhere_.

Ronnie stole another quick look through the crack before making up his
mind. The interior was still pitch-black. “You stay here and watch the
front and sides,” he directed Bill. “I’ll see what’s going on around
back.”

Before Bill could protest, Ronnie had dropped from the log and was
making his way toward the rear of the building. It wasn’t easy finding
a way through the thick tangle of vines and bushes, but he didn’t want
to risk giving his presence away by turning on the flashlight.

He rounded the corner of the building just in time to see the figure
of a man step back, away from the rear wall of the old office. For
a moment or two his face was silhouetted against a patch of sky.
“Caldwell!” Ronnie called angrily before he realized what a foolish
thing he was doing.

The man’s hand rose. A brilliant beam of light struck the boy full in
the face, blinding him instantly. Then the light went out and the man
sprang away into the darkness.

Burning with anger and disappointed from the stupid mistake he had
made, Ronnie leaped wildly after him, and plunged into the undergrowth.
He had taken no more than a few steps when he tripped over a log and
hurtled headlong through the air. He landed with a jolt in a tangle
of briars and his head smashed against a tree trunk. Whirling lights
and brilliant flashes stood out before his eyes as he fought for
consciousness.

The next thing he knew Bill was standing over him. “You all right,
Ronnie?” Bill was asking. “Ronnie, you all right? Say something, can’t
you?”

Ronnie struggled to sit up. The top of his head throbbed and he could
feel a lump rising. “I--I guess I’m all right,” he said.

He tried to stand up. The trees, the sky, the building started to swing
around before his eyes. He grabbed Bill’s hand for support.

Within a few minutes he felt better. Bill took his arm and helped him
down the path. “Golly, I sure as shootin’ messed that up,” he said to
Bill. Then he told his friend what happened.

“So you figure it was Mr. Caldwell?” Bill asked when Ronnie had
finished.

“Well, I reckon I did _then_, or I wouldn’t have called his name.
But, gosh, now I’m not so sure. It was plenty dark. What a fool I was
yelling out to him. Boy, could I kick myself in the pants for being so
stupid.”

“Yea,” Bill agreed, “yea, if you weren’t so woozy, I’d do it for you.
But what do you say we pay Caldwell a hurry call? I think we can still
beat him back to his cottage, seeing he’s got to detour around through
the woods. Feel well enough to try it?”

Ronnie agreed that he did. Except for a slight throbbing in his head,
he felt as well as he had before the accident.

They hurried down the cobblestone road, using their flashlights only
when they needed them to find the way. They approached Caldwell’s
cottage cautiously. Light was shining from the two windows that faced
the path.

“Let’s take a peek in the window first,” Bill whispered. “You know--see
what he’s doing before he gets wise that we’re here.”

They crept noiselessly to the window and peered over the sill. Caldwell
was seated before a small table that held his typewriter and a kerosene
lamp. He was busily at work.

Bill leaned over to whisper in Ronnie’s ear. “Boy, either he’s real
sneaky or else he wasn’t ever out of the building,” he said. “He
_looks_ as if he’d been at work for hours.”

“Maybe he has been,” Ronnie said. But if Caldwell wasn’t their man, why
had he turned so instinctively when Ronnie had called out his name?

“Let’s go in and have a talk with him just the same,” Bill suggested.
“But don’t let him know we suspect him of anything.”

Caldwell opened the door to them after Bill had knocked. “Well!” he
exclaimed, motioning for them to come in. “How did you know I was just
itching for a little company?”

The two boys sat down on the edge of his cot.

Caldwell turned his chair away from his typewriter to sit facing them.
“What are you doing down here at this time of the night?”

“We were working on our sign,” Bill answered.

“I thought I saw a light coming from your office windows, and I was
thinking about going down to investigate earlier. But I got so wrapped
up in my work I just never got around to it.”

Ronnie glanced over at Bill to find his friend looking at him too. Bill
was thinking the same thing, evidently. Caldwell was claiming that he
hadn’t left his cabin all evening. That didn’t prove a _thing_, of
course, Ronnie realized. In fact, Caldwell might have told them this
just to cover his movements.

Mr. Caldwell got up and crossed over to his “kitchen” and returned with
a box of crackers. “I can’t offer you much, but perhaps you’ll have a
few crackers?”

“Thanks,” Bill answered taking several. “We can’t stay much longer.
I’ve got to be getting back home soon.”

A miller moth made a dive-bomb attack at the lamp. Caldwell picked up a
folded newspaper he had handy and swatted the insect. The lamp swayed
precariously and the moth flew off unharmed.

“Dad’s got some old screens in the barn,” Ronnie said.

“I’ll bet you they could be made to fit the windows. Might even be a
screen door. I’ll ask him about putting them up.”

“You just get them to me--along with some tools--and I’ll do the
putting up, gladly!” the man answered.

Bill stuffed the last cracker into his mouth. “We’d better be getting
along right now.”

Mr. Caldwell came to the door with them. “If I can help you with your
tourist business in any way, just say the word. You’re welcome to use
any of the information I’ve gathered when you’re talking about the
village.”

“Thanks, Mr. Caldwell,” Ronnie answered. “We just might take you up on
that. I’ve been thinking maybe we’d mimeograph a little booklet about
the place.” He turned to Bill. “We could use the Grange mimeograph, and
the paper wouldn’t cost much. We could tell all about the Glassworks
and life in the village in the olden days and--”

“And the mysterious locked-up office building,” Bill added, picking
up the idea with great interest, “and even about those old glass
candlesticks of your grandfather’s, Ronnie!”

“Candlesticks!” exclaimed Mr. Caldwell. “_Rorth_ candlesticks?”

Ronnie nodded.

“They must be worth a great deal,” Caldwell said. “What do they look
like?”

Ronnie described them. Caldwell nodded slowly as Ronnie brought out
detail after detail. “I’d certainly like to see them sometime,” he said
when Ronnie had finished.

“Come on up to the house any time,” Ronnie offered. “I’m sure Grandpa
would be glad to show them to you.”

When they were alone outside, Bill turned to Ronnie. “You know,” he
said, “I think Caldwell is kind of a swell guy. I just can’t believe
he’s the one sneaking around the village and running off when we catch
sight of him.”

Ronnie thought about this after he had left Bill and was hurrying
up the steep incline to the orchard above. Was Bill right about Mr.
Caldwell? There were arguments for and against. That silhouette of the
man’s face against the night sky, for instance. Ronnie had tried again
and again during the evening to convince himself that he had been wrong
when he had called out Caldwell’s name. But somehow he just couldn’t do
it. And he couldn’t forget what had happened that morning! It had been
daylight then. Was it just a coincidence that _both_ times Caldwell’s
name had come to his mind?

He’d talk to Gramps about it, that’s what he’d do. But when he arrived
home he found the door to his grandfather’s room closed and no light
showing from underneath.

He climbed the stairs and headed for his room. Phil was in his own
room, in his pajamas, and lying on his bed with a pile of old comic
books at his side. A wild idea hit Ronnie suddenly and he poked his
head into Phil’s room. “Have you been in the house all evening?” he
demanded. Maybe, just maybe, Phil was playing tricks on them and he had
been in the padlocked house!

Phil looked at his brother in surprise. “What’s the matter--the heat
got you or something? Sure I was here all the time.”

“OK. I was just wondering.”

Phil dropped his comic book and sat up. “Say, something real
interesting must have happened to you down in the village, or you
wouldn’t be putting me on the witness stand. Come on, out with it.”

“Nothing happened. You’re imagining things, that’s all.” Ronnie hurried
down the hall, hoping that Phil wouldn’t have the energy to follow him.

Phil didn’t. Ronnie ducked into his room and closed the door. Then he
went over to the window and looked out.

The valley was in complete darkness. Even the lights in Mr. Caldwell’s
cottage were out. The deserted village was asleep.




_Chapter 8_


After breakfast the following morning Ronnie looked for Gramps in his
room, but there was no sign of him there nor anywhere about the house.
It was Mrs. Butler who told Ronnie where his grandfather had gone.
“Why, seems to me I saw him headed out the door a while back,” she
said. “Went off toward the orchard, I’d guess.”

Ronnie took off after his grandfather. He found him sitting on a
rock at the top of the bluff and looking out over the valley and the
deserted village.

“Hi, Gramps,” Ronnie greeted him.

“Well, now, boy, come set a spell with me. My old legs won’t let me get
down there in the village any more, but by golly, they can’t keep me
from sitting here and looking.”

“Gramps?”

Grandfather shifted his position by leaning heavily on his cane. He
faced Ronnie. “Boy, you’ve got something on your mind, and don’t tell
me you haven’t because I’ve come to know when you’re troubled.”

Ronnie nodded. “There’s something going on down in the village that I’m
all mixed up about.”

“You’re darned tootin’ there’s something going on down there!” the old
man retorted. “Those Seaway people plotting and scheming to take the
village away from me. I know what’s going on.”

“Not that, Gramps. Something else.” Ronnie went on to tell him about
the blanket and the candle he had seen through the crack in the
shutter, and about the strange light that had startled Bill and him the
night before. He told Gramps about the mysterious prowler too.

“Gramps,” he concluded, “do you suppose it’s got anything to do with
the secret of the boarded-up building? Maybe there’s something hidden
there that this man is looking for.”

Grandfather looked at Ronnie sharply. “What man?” he demanded.

Ronnie looked away. “I don’t know who it was,” he answered.

“Come on, boy. Speak up if you know!”

“Really, Gramps. I’m not sure. I don’t want to say until I’m real sure.”

Grandfather didn’t press the point. “Ronnie,” he said, “this village
has been the love and joy of my life. But lately it’s just as if--just
as if the prophecy were meant to come true.”

“What prophecy, Gramps?” Ronnie asked. “Is that what the secret’s all
about?”

“Yes, in a way, I suppose.” The old man looked out over the valley and
then back to the boy. “I reckon the time has come when you must hear
the story. It can’t die the way I’d hoped it would. The past won’t let
it.”

Gramps took out his pipe and tobacco pouch from his pocket. He filled
the bowl of the pipe and placed the stem between his yellowed teeth.

“Turn your mind back, boy, to what I was telling you the other evening
when we were talking about the candlesticks.” He lit a match and drew
heavily on the stem of the pipe until the tobacco glowed crimson.
Then he exhaled the blue smoke in a cloud that rose over his head.
“I told you about your great-great-grandfather Ezra and his partner
Jacob Williams, if you’ll recollect. This Williams fellow was a kind
of no-good scoundrel, from everything I’ve heard tell, and why Ezra
got bamboozled into such an arrangement, nobody’ll ever know. Took
him in as a full partner he did, lock, stock, and barrel, or in other
words--Glassworks, land, and merchandise.”

“Then half this land doesn’t really belong to us, Gramps? Is that
right?”

“Yep, I reckon so, if there’s anyone around to claim it. I’ll come
to that later. Well, anyway, these two partners seemed to have
gotten along well for a number of years. The business flourished.
Rorth glassware got to be known practically around the world. Then
around 1886 or thereabouts, things started worsening up, and by
1888 the company was well-nigh bankrupt. Now this Jacob Williams,
who was keeping the books, finally got around to telling your
great-great-grandfather how bad things were, and darned if he didn’t
accuse Ezra of milking the company dry. Yep, he claimed Ezra had been
stealing quantities of money and glassware from the company. And this
Williams didn’t stop at that. He spread it all around the neighborhood,
and pretty soon people began to believe it was true.”

“But it really wasn’t, was it, Gramps?” Ronnie asked anxiously.

“Can’t really answer that because it’s never been proven one way or
the other. But maybe when you hear the rest of what happened, you’ll
understand it a mite better. Now one day in June of 1889 Jacob Williams
disappeared. Of course, everybody started saying Ezra had done away
with him to keep him from accusing Ezra of the thefts. And I guess
there was some evidence to make people believe it, too. First of all,
more money and glassware were missing. Then there was this man, John
Sutton, a worker at the Glassworks, who testified that he’d heard Ezra
and Jacob Williams arguing and shouting at one another. Then, when he
passed by the building again later, he claims he heard Jacob screaming
for help. He didn’t go in, figuring it was none of his business, but
later on he got to thinking about it, and went back. There was no sign
of Ezra or Jacob Williams. Fact is, that was the last anybody ever
heard of Jacob Williams. Old Ezra made a search for his partner--even
put notice of a reward in the paper for anybody sending news of him.
It was like the earth had swallowed Jacob--him and the money and the
missing glassware.”

Grandfather tamped his pipe with a leathery thumb and continued. “Well,
boy, people here put two and two together, and there began to be talk.
When people begin to talk, they make things bigger and meaner. Old
Ezra had killed Jacob to cover up his own thefts and he’d hidden the
body somewhere. Search parties went over every square foot of the
village, but they didn’t turn up a clue. Well, no matter, people said,
Jacob Williams’ curse was on the Rorth family until Jacob’s death was
avenged.”

Grandfather puffed hurriedly at his pipe to start up the dying coals.
“But what happened to Great-great-grandfather Ezra?” Ronnie asked.

“The case came before the grand jury, but the jury failed to indict
Ezra. There wasn’t proof of anything, really. So Ezra was freed, but
people didn’t stop accusing him for a long time. Some even tried to
find Jacob Williams’ son, then a man in his late twenties, to persuade
him to come back and avenge his father’s death. But he wasn’t anywhere
to be found.

“Then came reports of people who claimed they’d seen Jacob Williams’
ghost near the old office building, and there were those who said the
ghost had cried out that he’d never stop haunting the Rorth family
until his death was avenged. Funny thing was, though--no Rorth ever saw
this ghost!”

“Which just proves the whole thing’s a phony!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Who
believes in ghosts, anyway?”

“No one--excepting maybe those who haven’t gotten a proper education.
But there’s more to this story. A few years after Williams disappeared,
an epidemic of typhoid struck the village. Probably came from drinking
the water out of Goose Brook. Anyway, lots of people died and the rest
left like rats from a sinking ship. Soon there were only Ezra and his
family left. He sent them away, too, while he stayed behind to close
up. The Glassworks never opened again. When Ezra’s wife and my father
returned, they had the office boarded up tight and padlocked, and I
guess it was never opened until I went in there five or six years ago.”

“You were hunting for something, weren’t you, Gramps?”

“Yep.”

“Something that would prove Ezra didn’t harm his partner?”

“Yep, that’s right. It was a terrible blot on the family name. I
couldn’t stand the thought of it. But all my searching proved nothing.
I’m afraid the evidence--if there is any--will be covered by the
floodwaters when they come.”

“_Now_ who’s the one giving up without a fight?”

Grandfather smiled down at Ronnie. “You’re right, boy. That wasn’t a
Rorth talking then, but a discouraged, old man.”

Ronnie looked down into the valley. The thin mists that had settled in
the lowlands during the night were dissipating now under the hot sun.
“Gramps, do you think this man I saw is hunting for evidence too--the
way you were?”

Grandfather thought over the question for a moment or two. “Nope, I
don’t think so, Ronald. More’n likely--if he’s hunting for anything at
all--he’s after the money and glassware that was stolen. There’ve been
others before him.”

“Gramps?” Ronnie asked again. “What finally happened to
Great-great-grandfather Ezra?”

“Well, when my father and mother returned after the epidemic was over,
they found him in the office building. He was dead from the typhoid.
But everyone said it was Jacob’s ghost that did it.”

The old man grasped the head of his cane with both hands and pulled
himself to his feet. He stood for a minute with the hot breeze ruffling
his snow-white beard and hair while he looked down into the valley. His
sharp eyes darted from one building to another and finally rested upon
the old, padlocked building.

“The answer’s in there somewhere,” Ronnie heard him say, although the
wind tried to take his words away. “I hope the good Lord will let me
live long enough to see it found.” He turned to face the boy. “Ronnie,”
he said, “Ronnie, your father’s in town now, but when he comes back
tonight, you tell him I said he’s to let you have the keys to the Rorth
office building. You and this friend of yours take a good look around
inside and maybe you can find what this man is doing in there. And
maybe your keen, young eyes will find what I’ve failed to find all the
times I looked.”

“Sure, Gramps!” Ronnie’s eyes lit up with excitement. “You bet we’ll
find something to prove Great-great-grandfather Ezra didn’t harm Mr.
Williams. And maybe we’ll find the glassware--and the money too!”

Grandfather was looking down into the valley again. “Went through every
paper in the place,” he was saying, not waiting for Ronnie to finish
talking. “Hundreds of them. But not a clue. Not a single clue. Just old
bills and statements and records. Put them all back in the files, I
did, just the way I found them. But somewhere in that building there’s
an answer. I’m convinced of that.”

He drew himself up tall and breathed in deeply and squared his
shoulders. “We aren’t licked yet. No, sir, not by a long shot! Now,
boy, how about helping an old man back to the house?”




_Chapter 9_


“Now we’re officially in business!” Ronnie exclaimed. He stowed the
spade he had been carrying in the corner of their office and dropped
into a chair. His hair was wet with perspiration and beads of it were
rolling down his face and stomach. “That’s the hardest ground I’ve ever
had to dig a hole in,” he added, fanning himself with a newspaper.

The boys had just finished erecting the sign alongside the highway.
Layers of coarse gravel and heavy blue clay had made the job of digging
difficult. But, as Bill had said, they wanted the sign planted plenty
deep so the first heavy wind wouldn’t carry it away. “Who knows,” he
had added, “we may want it there a long, long time!”

On their way back from the highway, Ronnie had told Bill everything
that Grandfather had said about old Ezra Rorth. Bill said nothing
until they reached the office. “Ronnie,” he said then, “Ronnie, this
afternoon you bring the key to the padlocked building with you, you
hear? We’ve got business to attend to in there!”

“You bet we have,” Ronnie agreed. “Once we find out who this man is
who’s sneaking around the village--and _why_ too--maybe we’ll get to
the bottom of all these shenanigans.”

Bill nodded. “We’ll search the building from top to bottom, and maybe
we’ll have more luck than your grandfather did. Maybe we’ll clean up
this mess around your family name.”

“I _know_ my great-great-grandfather didn’t harm Jacob Williams or
steal anything, either. I just know it.”

“Sure, Ronnie, sure, but we’ve got to prove it. And that isn’t going
to be easy, not after all these years have passed. But we’ll do it.
Every minute we’ve got when we aren’t showing people around, we’ll use
to hunt for clues. And the first thing we do is search that old office
building, so don’t forget to bring the keys.”

Ronnie sprawled a little lower in his chair and watched a drop of
perspiration run down over a fold of skin on his stomach. Bill, he
knew, wanted to hunt for clues immediately, but it was just too hot
to move. It all seemed like such a tremendous, almost impossible job.
Hadn’t Grandfather tried and failed?

A moment later Phil sauntered into the building and plunked himself
down in the one remaining chair. “I don’t know why I killed myself
coming down here,” he sighed.

“I don’t see why you did either,” Ronnie commented with a smile. “All
you did was move from the hammock to that chair. You shouldn’t exert
yourself so much.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” said Phil.

A horsefly buzzed angrily across the ceiling and slammed into the wall.
It fell dizzily for a few feet and then regained its balance. Off it
went in the opposite direction and slammed into the other wall. “Crazy
critter,” Phil commented. “See how he’s exerting himself--and where
does it get him?”

Before Ronnie could think of an appropriate answer, there were
footsteps on the path and Mr. Caldwell popped his head in the door. He
entered and perched himself on the edge of the desk. “I’m going up to
your house this afternoon to take a look at those candlesticks,” he
told Ronnie. “From the description you gave me I’d say that the pair I
have at home are identical.”

The horsefly suddenly stopped buzzing and the office seemed strangely
quiet. Ronnie sat up and looked at Mr. Caldwell, his mouth hanging open
just a bit. “Did--did you say you--you had a pair of candlesticks like
Gramps’?”

“Yes.” Mr. Caldwell looked puzzled. “Is that so strange?”

Ronnie gulped and nodded. “Yes, sir. It is.”

“I don’t see why. There were probably quite a few pairs turned out
during the years the Glassworks was in operation.”

Ronnie opened his mouth to protest, and closed it again. There was
plenty of time to tell Mr. Caldwell what he knew. He decided to play
it safe for the time being. “Yes,” he answered, “yes, I suppose there
_could_ be quite a few around, if they haven’t been lost or destroyed.”

A car drew up in the improvised parking lot and came to a stop. Ronnie,
looking out the window, saw a man, woman, and two boys leave the car
and start toward the office. Ronnie and Bill went out to meet them.

“We’d like to take the tour. Are there guides?”

“Yes, sir,” Ronnie answered. “We’d be glad to take you about.”

The man looked first at Ronnie and then at Bill. He seemed a bit
skeptical. “Well, all right,” he said finally. “Where do we begin?”

Ronnie and Bill led them down the path to the cobblestone road. “This
is the original road that ran through the center of the village,” he
told them. “Some of the cobblestones have been replaced from time to
time, but mostly it’s just the way it used to be. Mules used to pull
cartloads of sand along this road to be used in making the glass.”

They swung off the cobblestone road and approached the two-story
building beside Goose Brook. Bill, slipping up beside Ronnie,
whispered: “Hey, you’re doing all right!”

“Now this was the gristmill where all the wheat from the surrounding
fields was ground into flour. That overshot water wheel you see there
was in running order when my grandfather was a boy. He says our family
still used it to grind the grain.”

They visited the main building where the glass had been made and blown.
From here they moved to the general store, the blacksmith shop, the
smith shop, the carriage buildings, and the workers’ cottages. This
brought them in a circle back to their office.

There, they found another car pulled into the parking area. Two men
were waiting inside the office. Before entering, Bill and Ronnie
collected their fees and said good-by to the first group. “We enjoyed
the tour very much,” the man told Ronnie and Bill. “It was well worth
the stop.”

“Thank you, sir!” Ronnie beamed. “Tell your friends about it.”

Mr. Caldwell was still in the office, chatting with the two men. He
introduced them to Ronnie and Bill. “This is Mr. Perkins, and this is
Mr. Brown.” Ronnie and Bill shook hands with the men.

“They’re interested in learning more about the business you’ve
started,” Caldwell went on to explain. “You see, they’re from the
Massena Sunday paper, and they’re thinking about writing a story for
next Sunday’s edition.”

“That’s right,” Brown broke in. “We feel that more people will take an
interest in the fate of this place if they’ve heard about what you two
boys are doing. Besides, it’ll help bring you business!”

“Gee, that’s swell of you!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Bill and I are awfully
anxious to do everything we can to save the village.”

Mr. Perkins pulled out a notebook and seated himself at the desk.
“Let’s make that our first question,” he said. “Just how do you expect
to save the old village by taking tourists through it?”

Ronnie explained how they hoped to raise some of the money to build a
dam across the narrow gap in the valley through which Goose Brook ran
down to the river. “My dad says it could be done,” Ronnie continued.
“’Course, we won’t get enough money ourselves to do it. But we’re
hoping maybe other people will get worked up enough to want to help
out.”

“People are beginning to wake up already,” Mr. Brown said. “I happen to
know that your father saw Steve Mercer the other day and put a bug in
his ear about the village. Steve wrote to the Seaway Authority, trying
to convince them to use your plan and save the village. He got some
kind of a letter back--but they didn’t commit themselves one way or
the other. It’ll take time, but I’m sure it can be done.”

Mr. Brown’s remark gave Ronnie some of the encouragement he needed.
Sure, he’d had his doubts, right from the beginning when he’d first
thought of opening the village to the public. They would need public
support, and perhaps more money too--unless the Seaway agreed to foot
the bill.

By the time the two men were ready to leave, Mr. Perkins had several
pages of notes, some of them on the history of the village itself. “I
think I’ll get a statement from the Seaway Authority, too,” Brown said
as he slid into the driver’s seat. He had an impish smile on his face.
“That will really put them on the spot! They know how the people around
here feel about the village, and if there’s a way to save it, they’ll
have a hard time explaining why not!”

After the car had driven off, Mr. Caldwell left to work on the notes
he had gathered in the Glassworks during the morning. Ronnie, Phil,
and Bill walked back toward their office. Ronnie had cooled off
considerably, and now he felt more like working again. There wasn’t
time before lunch for hunting for clues or cleaning out a building, but
he had an idea in mind for a sign to hang outside the office door. It
would read: “Tours from 9-12 and 1-5. OFFICE.”

He had found a suitable piece of wood the day before and now he set
to work sandpapering it down smooth. Bill sat opposite him, tipping
back in his chair again. Phil seemed restless, and a few minutes later
announced that he was going back to the house.

“You know,” Bill said thoughtfully as he watched Ronnie rubbing
vigorously with the sandpaper, “you know, Ronnie, there are two things
that bother me. Two questions I can’t answer.”

“Yes?” Ronnie asked looking up for a moment. “What are they?”

“Well, the first one is this: How is this fellow we’ve seen around here
getting in and out of the padlocked building?”

“That’s a question maybe we can answer this afternoon when I get the
key and we get a chance to look inside,” Ronnie said.

“Maybe. But I don’t see what we can see from the inside that we can’t
see from the outside.”

Ronnie ran his hand over the wood to see how smooth it was. “Oh, I
don’t know about that. Supposing he’s dug a tunnel? We couldn’t see
that from the outside. Anyway, what’s the other question?”

“This question’s a real stickler,” Bill said. “Remember what Mr.
Caldwell said before--that he has a pair of candlesticks like your
grandfather’s?”

“You mean, he _thinks_ he has. He hasn’t seen ours yet.”

“Well, let’s just say that he finds out this afternoon that he _has_.
And let’s say these candlesticks have come down through his family the
way he claims.”

“Get to the point, will you?” Ronnie was impatient.

“All right. My question’s this: Doesn’t that mean that Mr. Caldwell
owns half this land?”




_Chapter 10_


While Ronnie climbed the bluff and made his way through the orchard
on his way home to lunch, he did a great deal of thinking about the
question that Bill had raised. He knew why his friend had asked it. If
the candlesticks had come down through the Caldwell family--probably
on his mother’s side--then it would be pretty safe to assume that they
were the pair Jacob Williams had made for his bride. And if they were,
then Mr. Caldwell and his brother were direct descendants of Williams,
and would have a claim against the property.

But did Mr. Caldwell know about this? If he didn’t know now, would he
put two and two together and come up with an answer? That depended upon
how much he knew about the history of the candlesticks, Ronnie decided.
And from the way Caldwell had talked earlier that afternoon, the boy
doubted very much that he was aware of how the candlesticks had come
into his family.

Then probably he wouldn’t know anything about the hidden glassware or
the money either, which would cross him off the list of suspects for
the mysterious prowler--unless, of course, the prowler wasn’t hunting
for the money and glassware.

By the time Ronnie reached the house he had decided one thing only: it
was all very, very confusing!

Mrs. Butler served Ronnie, Phil, and the two men their lunch at the
kitchen table. Now that the hay was in the barn--Ronnie and Phil had
spent the previous day helping their father load the truck in the field
and hoist the hay to the loft--Mr. Rorth had turned his attention to
the orchard. The young fruit was ready for spraying. “The weather’s
going to hold for a few more days, I think,” Ronnie’s father told the
others, “so I think I’ll mix a batch of spray this afternoon. Phil, you
want to help me?”

“Oh, Dad! That stuff makes my eyes water and I cough and sneeze--”

“All right. You don’t _have_ to. I just thought maybe you were looking
for something to do. You’ll have the hammock worn through by the end of
the summer at the rate you’re using it.”

The telephone rang. Ronnie volunteered to answer it. He went into the
hall at the foot of the stairs and lifted the receiver.

It was Bill, calling to tell Ronnie that he had to work that afternoon.
“Pa’s mending some fences, and I got to help,” Bill said. “But Ronnie,
somebody should be at the office, in case we get any tourists.”

Ronnie agreed that this was so. “I’ll hang around,” he answered.

After lunch, Ronnie went to the cold cellar and selected two apples,
which he stuffed into his pockets. Then he went out to the barn to see
how his father was getting on with the job of mixing spray. “I’ll help
you, Dad,” he said, “if you really need help. Only I promised Bill I’d
stay down at the village in case we got tourists.”

“Thanks, son,” his father answered. “I’ll get along all right. This is
really a one-man job.”

Ronnie watched his father measure out the poison powder. “Dad? Gramps
said I could have the key to the locked-up building.”

Mr. Rorth stopped long enough in his work to look up at the boy. “Oh?”

“Really, Pa. I told him about how somebody’s been in the building. Bill
and I saw him again after I told you about it.”

“Well, if your grandfather said you could go in, it’s all right with
me. The key’s in the left-hand front drawer of my desk in the living
room.”

Ronnie went back into the house. Phil was seated at the desk putting
together a model airplane. “What’re you after?” he demanded, as Ronnie
pulled open the desk drawer.

“Nothing.” Ronnie was evasive. He found the key and pocketed it.

“Hey! That’s the key to the locked-up building!” Phil protested.

“I know it. Gramps said I could use it.”

“He did! Boy, you really rate with him, don’t you?”

“You can come along if you want to.”

Phil thought it over. “Naw, I’ll stay here and finish this up. It’s too
hot outside. Besides, there’s nothing in that building that isn’t in
all the rest. Just a lot of dust and dirt and a few rats’ nests.”

Ten minutes later Ronnie had the door of their office open and was
sitting on the doorsill waiting for customers. He had the key to the
locked-up building in his pocket, but somehow it didn’t seem quite fair
to Bill to go inside without him.

After a while Ronnie got tired just sitting and doing nothing, so he
went inside and finished up the sign he had been working on. Then he
found a rock and an old nail and using these, tacked the sign into
place over the top of the door.

He sat down on the doorsill again and waited. A porcupine was rattling
and thrashing on the thin, top branches of a maple tree. Ronnie watched
it for a while. The animal didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

The afternoon wore on, but no tourists appeared. Ronnie got up and
started slowly down the path. It wouldn’t hurt to take one quick trip
around the locked-up building and maybe steal a peek through the crack
in the shutter. Then he could climb up on the roof and sit there for a
time. He could see so much more from up there, and if a car came up the
dirt road, he’d know about it in time to get back to the office.

He circled around the old office building as he’d planned and then he
climbed up on the log and peered through the window. Everything looked
just about the same as the last time, except for some white objects
scattered about the floor. He couldn’t make out what they were because
of the darkness, but he decided they might be pieces of paper.

Well, he’d take one more quick look at the outside of the building
and then he’d get up on the roof and see if he could spot any river
boats on the St. Lawrence. But when he got around to the rear of
the building, something on the ground caught his eye. Nothing very
startling, but the thin layer of sawdust sprinkled on top of some of
the leaves set him wondering. Carpenter ants, maybe--or had someone
been sawing firewood? Mr. Caldwell, perhaps, the boy concluded.

But when he looked about for some sign of the white butt ends of the
discarded pieces of logs that would surely be left lying around, he
found none. His brow puckered in a frown.

He gathered a pinch of the sawdust and brought it up closer to his
face so he could examine it, rolling it around between his fingers to
get the feel of it. He couldn’t be sure, but it felt fresh. Maybe this
sawdust could help him find out how the stranger was getting into the
building.

He turned to inspect the rear wall of the building. At first glance
it looked just like all the other walls. But when he looked closer he
found a faint, irregular crack following the contour of the shingles.
Tracing it, he discovered that it formed a rough square. “I’ll bet
that whole section comes out!” he whispered. Apparently the shingles
had been removed first, then a hole cut through the boards between the
studs, and the shingles nailed cleverly back in place.

Ronnie remembered the tools that Bill’s father had found missing from
his barn. Someone, the boy thought, had gone to a great deal of trouble
to make sure that no one found his entranceway!

He’d have to try the trap door out, of course, to see how it worked. He
gripped the shingles from underneath and pushed up gently. The section
moved and then the bottom came free; and a minute later the entire
piece had come away from the wall.

Ronnie poked his head inside and looked around. The air smelled stale
and moldy. He heard the flutter of wings beating against the inside of
the chimney and knew that one of the swifts was entering the nest. In
the semidarkness he could make out some of the larger objects in the
room--the fireplace, an old-fashioned roll-top desk, a filing cabinet,
and several chairs.

He withdrew his head and slipped his feet through instead. Then,
twisting about with his back toward the inside, he pulled the upper
part of his body through.

For a minute he stood near the opening, not knowing quite what to do
next. He had a strange, uneasy feeling that somebody was watching him.
Perhaps it would be better if he put the trap door back into place.
Then if the man who made it should come by outside, he wouldn’t notice
anything different and he’d go away.

But after he had the trap door back in its place, he was a little sorry
that he’d done it. It was pitch-black in the room now. He felt in his
pocket and found a package of book matches. He tore one loose and
struck it. The flame seemed very feeble, but it gave him a few moments
to look around the room. He noticed the papers scattered about the
floor and saw that the filing cabinet near him had been emptied, and
the drawers left leaning against the wall.

It was clear to the boy that someone had been searching through the
papers of the old Rorth Glassworks.

When the match had burned out he wet his finger and cooled the hot end
and dropped the match to the floor. He lit another and moved toward
the fireplace. His foot brushed against something. Looking down, he
discovered the stub of a candle and he stooped to pick it up.

The light from the candle gave him a better view of the room. Now he
could see an old leather-upholstered chair, a brass spittoon, and a
metal coat rack. Raising the candle, he saw above the mantelpiece a
white-bearded man with a bald head, rimmed with tufts of fluffy hair.
The man looked down at him with sharp, piercing, brown eyes from a
massive oak picture frame.

Ronnie backed up a few steps and the eyes seemed to follow him as he
moved. “Great-great-grandfather?” he asked, but when he heard the sound
of his voice he grinned at his foolishness.

He lowered the candle hastily and thrust it inside the huge opening
of the fireplace. A partially decomposed mouse lay just beneath the
pair of beautifully molded andirons. Ronnie poked his head inside the
fireplace and looked up. The light from the candle reached almost
as high as the swifts’ nest. Sure, Ronnie told himself, a powerful
flashlight shining up the chimney flues could have made the weird light
they had seen several evenings before.

He heard the young swifts chirping in the nest overhead and saw a
single yellow beak protruding over the edge for a second or two. “I’m
not going to hurt you none,” he said, and then realized that the sound
of his voice would frighten the young birds even more than the light.

Ronnie backed out of the fireplace and stood for a moment or two near
the center of the room, undecided on what he would do next. He wished
that he hadn’t come through the trap door, but had come around and
opened the regular door with his key. Then he’d have more light and
could inspect the building and its furnishings more carefully. Well,
he’d have time to do that when Bill and he returned.

He started toward the rear wall, ready to leave. But he had taken no
more than a few steps when he froze in his tracks, his heart racing
wildly.

From outside, behind the building, he could hear the sound of
approaching footsteps in the dry leaves--the same quick footsteps he
had heard inside the building.




_Chapter 11_


Bill Beckney’s cat had cornered a mouse in the concrete manure pit one
afternoon the year before. The mouse ran from one side of the pit to
the other trying to avoid the cat’s claws.

Ronnie remembered the picture all too vividly now as he stood with his
feet frozen to the floor and his heart beating like a tom-tom, and the
sound of the footsteps coming closer and closer with each second. Only
now _he_ was the mouse!

He knew there wasn’t a chance that he could escape. The door was
padlocked on the other side, and even the key in his pocket couldn’t
help him. The opening in the wall through which he had come would place
him face to face with his opponent.

He had to hide, but where? Anywhere, just as long as he did it quickly!

His legs and feet came to life again. He swung about, holding up the
candle as he searched for a place large enough to hide. The flickering
light picked out the fireplace.

He started for it quickly. Behind him, small creaks and thumps told him
that the section of wall was being removed. Doubling over, he swung his
body into the fireplace. The acrid smell of stale, wet ashes struck
his nose. He straightened up and blew out the candle.

Suddenly light flooded the fireplace. The section of wall had been
completely removed. Looking down, he saw his feet and legs illuminated
as by a floodlight. He knew he couldn’t stay where he was if he wanted
to remain hidden.

Desperately reaching up his hands, he found a narrow ledge, and using
this as a support, he pulled his feet up until he was sure they were
out of sight. Then he moved them cautiously until he found a small
ledge where he could gain a toehold. Now he could ease the strain on
his hands and arms.

Whoever was in the room had evidently returned to continue his search.
A door came open with a jerk, and more papers fluttered to the floor
within the boy’s range of vision. “Please, _please_ don’t do any more
hunting in the fireplace,” Ronnie prayed.

The minutes dragged on. The muscles in the boy’s arms and legs and back
began to ache. Twice he thought of moving, but each time he decided
against it. Too risky. He couldn’t take the chance of slipping or
making a noise.

Now the intruder was tapping with some heavy object, first against the
floor boards in different parts of the room and then upon the bricks of
the fireplace. Now, Ronnie thought! Now would be a good chance to ease
his muscles. If he moved very carefully, the small sounds he might make
would be drowned out by the tapping. Shifting some of his weight to his
right leg, he began to slide his palm along the top of the ledge toward
the rear of the fireplace. He had moved no more than a few inches when
the side of his hand touched an object resting on the ledge. He knew it
wasn’t part of the brickwork because it moved along with his hand. It
might be--well, perhaps a book of some kind, he decided.

A book! Maybe, just maybe, this was the very thing that the intruder
was looking for! And just maybe it was the clue that Grandfather had
hunted for and never found! A tingle of excitement and anticipation ran
down Ronnie’s back. He just _had_ to get hold of the object and find
out for sure what it was.

And he could do it, too--with risk, of course, that he’d lose his
balance and fall from his perch. It was going to take a lot of good
balancing and some muscle testing, too! But Ronnie loved a challenge
such as this.

Summoning all his strength, he rested his entire weight on one small
part of his inner wrist. At the same time he curled his fingers up over
the object until they reached the flat surface at the top. Then with a
quick, sudden movement, he shifted his entire hand to where his fingers
had been.

Now his fingers could explore in all directions without fear of losing
his balance and falling from his perch. It took him only a few moments
to prove to himself that his first guess had been correct: he had
discovered a small, thick book!

Outside the fireplace, the sounds suddenly increased. Apparently the
intruder was losing patience, and had thrown caution away. Over went
the desk on its side with a loud crash. Out came the drawers, one after
another. Then the desk went over again. Papers flew over the floor in
every direction. “Confound it!” the man growled, “there’s got to be
something here _somewhere_! I’ll find it if I have to tear down the
whole confounded building.”

Ronnie grinned to himself in the darkness of his hiding place and
his fingers tightened on the book. If the man only knew how close he
had come to finding what he wanted those nights he had searched the
fireplace with his light!

But then Ronnie’s grin faded. The man’s words were still ringing in
his ears and there was something familiar about the sound of the
voice--something that made Ronnie think of Caldwell. And yet, there was
something to the voice that _wasn’t_ Caldwell’s.

The light at the bottom of the fireplace brightened and Ronnie heard
the footsteps approaching the fireplace. He drew in his breath and held
it. He flattened his body as close against the wall as he dared without
risking his balance.

The footsteps stopped near the hearth. The man coughed. The soles of
his shoes scraped against the hearthstone as he shifted his position.
Then Ronnie heard the scratch of a match and smelled cigarette smoke.

Ronnie frowned, puzzled. He’d never seen Caldwell smoke. Of course
that wouldn’t disprove positively that this man was Caldwell. But it
confused Ronnie more than ever.

At last the man turned and crossed the room, and the boy breathed more
freely again. The footsteps moved toward the rear wall. There they
stopped for a moment. Then Ronnie heard the section of wall being
removed, and a flood of light from outside filled the room.

Ronnie sighed long and deep. At last the man was leaving!

As soon as the wall section was back in place, Ronnie took a firm grip
on the book and dropped to the floor. A moment later he was out of the
fireplace and standing in the blackness of the room, trying to make up
his mind what to do next.

One thing he did want to do, and that was to catch a glimpse of the
intruder before he disappeared into the woods. He hurried across the
room, tripping over one of the desk drawers, but managing to catch his
balance just in time to save himself from a headlong fall. He reached
the wall, pushed open the section of wall a few inches from the top,
and peered out.

The brilliant light blinded him for a few seconds. Then he saw the man
disappearing into the trees a short distance from the building. But all
Ronnie could see was the back of his head and shoulders. The rest of
his body was hidden in the underbrush.

It was Caldwell, and then again it wasn’t Caldwell. Ronnie just
couldn’t be positive. “I reckon I’m never going to get a real close-up
look at this fellow,” he told himself.

He pulled the section of wall closed again. Better to wait a few
minutes until he was sure the man would not see him climbing from the
building.

“Ronnie! Oh, hey, Ronnie!” he heard Bill’s voice. It seemed to be
coming from the direction of their office. The suddenness of his
friend’s voice made Ronnie jump. He had seemed so far away from his
normal, everyday life during the past twenty minutes.

He found Bill wandering slowly up the cobbled road while he called
Ronnie’s name every few minutes. “Where in tarnation have you been?” he
demanded when Ronnie reached him. “I got through working, so I thought
I’d come join you.”

“Come on down to our office and I’ll tell you all about it!” Ronnie
exclaimed. “And, boy, will your eyes pop when you hear about it.”

Bill’s eyes didn’t pop when he had heard Ronnie’s story, but he
certainly was as excited about the find as his friend. “Golly, maybe
we’ve got something real important at last. Let’s see it, Ronnie.”

They sat down together at the desk, and Ronnie placed the old book
before them. It was old--very old. Its leather-bound cover was warped
from water and age. Heavy rains down through the years had found their
way to the book’s resting place, and drop by drop had soaked through
its pages.

Carefully Ronnie opened the book. The long columns of figures, page
after page of them, were still legible despite the water damage.
“Doesn’t look very exciting,” Bill said. “There’s nothing but numbers
and entries like a bank book.”

“But then why would it be hidden in the chimney?” Ronnie asked as he
continued to turn the pages. “That old office is full of papers just
like this.” His voice showed his disappointment.

He had almost reached the last page when he exclaimed, “Look! Writing!
It looks like a diary!”

“Oh, boy!” Bill exclaimed in excitement. “Now maybe we’re getting
somewhere.” He pulled the volume closer so he could see it better.
Ronnie began to read aloud while Bill followed the words with his eyes.

  “July 10, 1892. I am desperately ill with the typhoid, and sick at
  heart because now, when the evidence that would clear my name is at
  hand, I have not the strength to bring it from where it is hidden.
  All in this place have gone away, including my dear wife and son.
  There is none here to whom I can reveal my discovery. My strength
  is waning too fast for me to hope to reach town with what I now
  know. Therefore, I shall take these last moments to set down the
  facts that will clear my name and the name of those who will come
  after me.

  “But what if Jacob’s son should find this account and destroy it
  for the sake of his own good name? I must hide the ledger in the
  chimney, hoping that someone of my family will think to look on the
  secret shelf where I have hidden things before.

  “Here let it be known that it was Jacob’s own greed and deceit that
  caused his death, and not my hand, as so many have claimed. For
  years he stole from our company, and the proof lies with him below.
  To cover up his thefts of money, and to direct the guilt to me, he,
  from time to time, hid parts of various glass shipments, making
  it appear that they had been stolen from outside. He also entered
  large debit values in the books to cover his withdrawals of money.

  “As I write this, his body lies below, together with the evidence
  of his guilt. How he was trapped there will probably never be
  known. Rising waters may have caught him unawares. He did much
  planning for his crimes, but in the end he was trapped by his own
  foolishness and sent to a slow death. My strength fails. I must
  hide the ledger--”

Ronnie turned the page. The next one was blank. “I guess that’s all,”
he said quietly. It seemed to the boy as if his great-great-grandfather
had been in the room talking to him during those last few moments of
his life. He thought of the eyes watching him from the picture over
the fireplace in the padlocked building earlier that afternoon. Yes,
in spirit anyway, Ezra had come back again to make one last desperate
effort to save the Rorth name. Almost as if he knew there wasn’t much
time left to get it done, Ronnie thought.

He felt the pressure of Bill’s hand about his arm, and the movement
brought his thoughts racing back to the present. He looked up at
Bill. His friend’s face was turned toward the window. “Ronnie,” Bill
whispered to him, “somebody was watching us through that window!”




_Chapter 12_


Ronnie went directly to his room when he reached the house. Bill and he
had decided that this would be the best place to keep the old ledger
after what had happened at their office. And since Bill couldn’t be
sure whom he had seen at the window, they had to protect their new
possession against an unknown adversary. Anybody, really, could be
under suspicion. “I saw him out of the corner of my eyes,” Bill had
told Ronnie afterward. “When I swung my head around he was gone. All I
know for sure is that he was wearing something red. That’s what first
caught my attention.”

“I don’t remember Caldwell wearing red,” Ronnie had said.

They had searched the area outside their office as soon as the initial
surprise had worn off, but had failed to catch even a glimpse of the
man. And then the search had been interrupted by the arrival of two
cars, and by the time they’d taken the two groups around, it was too
late to continue hunting.

Now Ronnie stretched out on his bed with the old volume propped up
against his pillow. He wanted to reread his great-great-grandfather’s
notations and do some thinking about them.

A little while later he got up to find a pencil and a piece of paper.
He sat down on the edge of the bed with a magazine beneath the paper.
At the top of the paper he wrote: “THE IMPORTANT THINGS I’VE FOUND OUT
FROM READING GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S DIARY.”

Then underneath he began to jot down each important fact:

  1. Great-great-grandfather didn’t murder Mr. Jacob Williams the way
  people think.

  2. This Mr. Williams was the one who was stealing the glassware and
  money, not Great-great-grandfather. Williams tried to pin it on
  Great-great-grandfather.

  3. Great-great-grandfather, just before he wrote in this ledger,
  had found the glassware and money (and Jacob Williams’ body, too)
  somewhere “down below.”

  4. I guess Williams’ son knew about the stealing, and
  Great-great-grandfather was afraid he’d destroy the ledger if he
  found it so he could protect his father’s name.

  5. Just before he died, Great-great-grandfather hid the ledger in
  the fireplace because he couldn’t get to the house.

When Ronnie had finished, he stretched out on his back with his knees
up in the air and the paper resting against them. He read over what he
had written. Most of the ideas were interesting because they proved
Great-great-grandfather’s innocence. But only _Number Three_ seemed
to be any help at all in finding the hidden glassware and money. And
this one was so vague, Ronnie couldn’t see that it would be much help
either. “Down there” could be anywhere on the face of the earth! Well,
maybe not _that_ large an area, but anyway it could mean the whole
deserted village. And Ronnie couldn’t see Bill and himself digging up
the whole village to find the lost glassware and money.

Ronnie rested his head back against the bed and stared at the ceiling,
thinking. Surely Great-great-grandfather must have wanted his heirs to
find the lost articles, and if he did, he certainly would have given
adequate directions for finding them. “Why, ‘down there’ must mean
underneath the old office building,” Ronnie thought, “because that’s
where Great-great-grandfather was when he wrote this!”

It was a startling discovery, and its possibilities set the boy’s heart
racing. Wouldn’t Grandfather be surprised when Ronnie placed the diary
before him and announced, “There, Gramps, there’s the proof you wanted
about Great-great-grandfather Ezra!” Wouldn’t Gramps smile then!

But maybe it would be better to wait until he had the glassware and the
money. Then Gramps’ eyes would really open wide. Yes, that’s what he’d
do--throw the whole thing at Gramps all at one time!

Ronnie wanted to run from the house and down through the orchard to
the village and then tear every board loose from the floor of the
old, padlocked building until he knew for sure that he had figured
correctly. He got up from the bed and went to the window. The sun was
sinking fast. In another hour or two it would be dark, too late in the
day to start his search. Besides, he wanted Bill with him when he found
the glassware and money. He decided to make a trip to the kitchen to
see how Mrs. Butler was getting on with supper.

“Lands sake!” she exclaimed when he asked her how long it would be
before he could eat. “Land sakes, you’re getting as bad as your
brother--always thinking of filling your stomach.”

“Well, it’s the right time of the day to be thinking of that,” he told
her. “Say, where’s Phil, anyway?”

“I suppose he’s in the living room with your grandfather and that Mr.
Caldwell who came to see the candlesticks a while ago.”

“He _is_!” Now wasn’t that a fine kettle of fish, he thought. Here he
was missing out on a very important event while he dawdled around in
the kitchen talking with Mrs. Butler.

He hurried down the hall. The door to the living room was partially
closed. Ronnie poked his head through the opening. The two Rorth
candlesticks were standing on the desk. Mr. Caldwell was seated near
them and Grandfather directly across from him. Phil was lolling on the
couch, his bare feet resting on the wall and his head propped up with
a pillow. He seemed more interested in the comic magazine on his chest
than what was going on in the room.

Grandfather caught sight of Ronnie. “Come in, boy. Come in.”

Ronnie pushed the door open the rest of the way and came over to sit on
the floor near Grandfather’s chair.

“I have just finished explaining to Mr. Caldwell that if he really has
a pair of candlesticks like these,” Grandfather said to Ronnie, “and if
they have come down to him through the family, then I guess we can be
pretty sure he’s related in some way to the Jacob Williams who was a
partner of your great-great-grandfather.”

Ronnie gulped. Grandfather had told Mr. Caldwell all this? But, why?
_Why?_

His amazement must have shown in his face, for Grandfather gave him a
searching look and explained gently, “It’s got to be that way, Ronald.
There would be no advantage in keeping the information from him. You
see, the Seaway has learned of the unsettled title to the deserted
village land. At first I thought this would help me--I thought they
would be snarled up in such legal troubles that it would be better for
them to build the dam the way we want than to be held up for a year,
maybe more, fighting us in the courts. But it doesn’t work that way, I
learned. The Seaway just puts half the value of the property away in a
bank in trust, and if and when the person who’s got a claim on the land
shows up, why, the money’s there and waiting.”

“I see,” Ronnie said. Only he didn’t, not really.

“This way the whole affair’s settled, once and for all.” He looked
closely at Ronnie to see how the boy was taking what he had said.

“Confound it, Ronnie,” he went on, his face flushing slightly.
“Confound it, you don’t think I _like_ what’s going on, do you?
I’m still fighting, boy, fighting for the village. And saving the
village from being destroyed, that’s the important thing. Maybe with
Mr. Caldwell as a half-owner, we’ll add strength to our side of the
fighting. Seems to me this man’s kind of keen on saving the village,
too.”

Ronnie looked over at Caldwell. “Are you, Mr. Caldwell?” he asked.
He wasn’t seeing Caldwell, not really. He was seeing the man who had
slipped into the padlocked building that afternoon, the man who had
overturned furniture and thrown the family papers about on the floor.

“Very much so, Ronald,” Mr. Caldwell answered. He spoke with genuine
feeling. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to accuse him, Ronnie told himself. He
had never made a positive identification. And yet--yet there were so
many times that Ronnie had _almost_ been sure.

“This comes as such a complete surprise,” Mr. Caldwell was speaking
again. “I shall certainly have to look into the matter. I suppose there
are agencies that will trace a family tree?”

Grandfather nodded. “I’d get myself a good lawyer, if I were you. He’ll
tell you if you’ve got claim to the property.”

“My brother was the one who was interested in our family tree--and the
family history of the candlesticks. As a boy, he was always snooping
through old trunks and boxes in the attic.” Caldwell went over and
stood before the candlesticks, touching the glass crystals lightly
and lovingly with the tips of his fingers. “Beautiful, beautiful
workmanship,” he said.

“Why don’t you ask your brother?” Phil rolled over to a sitting
position. “Maybe he’s been holding out on you. Maybe he knows all about
the property.”

Mr. Caldwell did not look around. “I--I’m afraid that’s impossible,” he
answered finally. “He’s--away.”

Ronnie brought his knees up against his stomach and then wrapped his
arms about his legs to hold them close. He looked over at Caldwell. How
much did the man _really_ know? Was this all a put-up job--pretending
he had no knowledge of his relationship to Jacob Williams? Acting as
if he didn’t know a thing, so Ronnie would not connect him with his
mysterious prowlings about the village?

Ronnie sighed. It was all very puzzling. But somehow he couldn’t
believe that Mr. Caldwell was guilty of deceiving them. Ronnie had to
admit to himself that he liked the man.

The room had grown darker. Off in the distance Ronnie heard the low
rumble of thunder. The back door slammed shut and Mr. Rorth came down
the hallway and poked his head into the room. “Hi, everyone,” he said
cheerfully. “Mr. Caldwell, how are you? By the way, I dropped some
screen doors and windows off at your place, but I didn’t have time to
put them up. I left some nails and a hammer, though, and you can tack
them up temporarily.”

“Many thanks!” Caldwell said. “I can certainly use the screens! I never
knew there were so many insects in the world until I came here. Too bad
you left the hammer, though. I have one of my own.”

Whose hammer, Ronnie wondered? Caldwell’s--or was it the one that had
disappeared from Bill’s barn?

The room grew another shade darker. A brilliant flash of lightning
dispelled the darkness for a brief moment, and then the thunder broke.
The house vibrated from the sound.

Mr. Caldwell moved toward the door. “I’d best be going before the storm
breaks.”

“Come along,” Mr. Rorth offered, “and I’ll take you most of the way in
the truck. You’ll never make it before it rains.”

The truck was hardly out of sight when the rain fell in torrents.
Ronnie, at the living room window, watched the puddles grow deeper
and deeper. The rain turned to hail and beat against the pane like a
kettledrum solo. A streak of lightning split the black clouds and
pierced the earth. Almost immediately a crack of thunder seemed to
explode overhead. The rain fell heavier.

Ronnie turned from the window and let the curtains fall back into
place. Grandfather got up from his chair. “I might as well do a little
DXing while I wait on supper to be served up,” he announced. “Ronnie,
does that sound interesting to you?”

“I don’t think so, Gramps. Really, you shouldn’t DX during a
thunderstorm.”

“Fiddlesticks! Rubbish! If the lightning’s got your name written on
it, it’ll strike you no matter what! Besides, what’s there left for me
around here now?”

He stomped from the room as fast as his cane would permit. Phil turned
over heavily on the couch, bringing his magazine around with him.
Ronnie watched his brother for a moment, then turned and left the room.

He went upstairs to his bedroom because he could think of nothing
better to do. For a while he stood by his window watching the storm.
Below, he saw his father’s truck drive into the yard and come to a
quick stop. Mr. Rorth got out and ran for the back door.

And down in the deserted village Ronnie saw another figure running in
the rain. The figure appeared out of the trees and ran toward the rear
wall of the padlocked building. It disappeared from sight behind the
building. Ronnie waited for it to reappear, but the minutes passed
without another movement in the village.

The boy remembered Great-great-grandfather’s words in his diary: “His
body lies below, together with the evidence of his guilt.” There was
no doubt in the boy’s mind now what his great-great-grandfather had
meant. Down below the padlocked building, of course.

And Ronnie remembered, too, how savagely the stranger had attacked the
interior of the building that afternoon overturning furniture, pounding
on the walls, scattering the papers.

It wouldn’t be long, Ronnie realized, before the man would begin to rip
up the floor boards.

“Bill and I have _got_ to get there first!” he told himself.




_Chapter 13_


The thunderstorm did not roll away to bother other parts of the country
as thunderstorms usually do. Instead, it turned into a steady downpour
that showed no signs of letting up. The barnyard flooded and the water
ran down the driveway in small streams that washed away the gravel and
left gullies along the edges.

All night it rained, and when Ronnie awoke the next morning it was
still coming down. After breakfast the boy moved from one room to
the next, trying to decide what to do. He was worried about what the
intruder might have discovered during the night. Perhaps by now he had
found the money and glassware and had already left the village with his
loot.

Ronnie made up his mind. He went to the telephone and called Bill. He
told him about the figuring he had done, how he believed the money and
glassware were hidden somewhere beneath the padlocked building, and how
he was afraid the intruder might already have found it. “We’ve got to
work fast, Bill,” he said urgently.

“I’m with you, Ronnie,” Bill agreed. “I can get away, I think. Can
you?”

“I’ll wear boots and my raincoat and cape. My dad’ll say yes, for sure.”

“Then I’ll see you there! And bring the ledger book. I want to see the
part you’re talking about. Meet you in our office in twenty minutes.”

Ronnie went to find his father to get permission. “Now how in the world
would I know where he is?” Mrs. Butler protested. She had just arrived
and was removing her plastic raincoat and hat. “Go look in the barn. He
generally works there when the weather’s bad like this.”

Ronnie dashed across the yard and sailed through the open barn doors.
He found his father at his workbench cutting tomato poles from old
boards on his power saw.

“Sure, go ahead,” Mr. Rorth agreed. “A little rain’s not going to hurt
anybody.”

Ronnie ran back to the house. He went up to his room and got the
ledger. Then he got his boots, raincoat, and rubber raincape from the
hall closet. Phil appeared from the kitchen. “Where are you heading
for, Ronnie?” he asked.

“I’m meeting Bill down at the village. Want to come?”

Phil looked at Ronnie as if his brother had asked him to go to the
moon. “Are you kidding?” he laughed. “I wouldn’t go out in this weather
if the house was on fire.”

Ronnie slipped the ledger under his raincoat where it would be
protected from the weather. “Say,” Phil demanded, “what’s that?”

“Just a book,” Ronnie answered. He wasn’t going to take the time now to
explain. Besides, Phil knew so little about what had happened during
the past few days that Ronnie would have to start at the beginning if
his brother were to understand how important the book was.

“Yea, but what _kind_ of a book?” Phil persisted. Ronnie retreated
toward the door, but Phil followed him.

“Oh, an old book I found in the padlocked building,” Ronnie admitted
finally as he opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

“Say,” he heard Phil exclaim as the door closed on his words.
“Something’s going on around here--”

Ronnie splashed through the puddles in the driveway and entered the
orchard. The rain drummed down on his rubber hood. Little rivers
drained from his shoulders. He held the book tight as he plunged down
the soggy bluff and entered the trees at the bottom.

Down in the valley he breathed deep of the pungent odor of pine,
released by the long rain. Off to the right, partially hidden by the
ground fog that had been trapped beneath the heavy foliage when the
cooler rain touched the warm earth, Ronnie saw the old bakery building.
Its broken, crumbled walls and sections of rotting roof seemed
unusually deserted and lonely in the faint light.

Ronnie shivered suddenly and continued down the narrow path. Wet
branches snapped back against his raincoat and sprayed water into his
face. He stopped a moment to shift the ledger higher up under his arm.

And then suddenly there was a movement in the bushes at the side of the
path. Before the boy could turn, someone seized him from behind and,
grasping his arms, pinned them behind his back. Ronnie felt the ledger
slipping from his hold. It started to fall beneath his raincoat.

He struggled to free himself, but his assailant was strong. He tried,
too, to twist his head about so he could see who it was. But his
raincape blocked his vision on both sides.

“All right, kid!” A man’s voice growled close to the boy’s ear. “Let’s
have it!”

“H--have w--what?” Ronnie gasped.

“The book I saw you kids looking at yesterday in that shack of yours.”
The man tightened his grip on the boy’s arms, and Ronnie winced. And
just at that moment the ledger slipped to the ground.

“So you’ve got it with you, eh? Well, that’s so much the better!” The
man loosened his grip somewhat. Then he gave Ronnie a terrific shove
that sent the boy sprawling headlong into the wet leaves.

Ronnie was more angry than he was hurt. He had just one idea in his
mind--to get a close look at this man now that he had the opportunity.
No sooner had he struck the ground than he rolled over and pulled
himself up to a sitting position.

The man was bending over to pick up the ledger. But when he
straightened up he was facing directly toward the boy. Ronnie found
himself face to face with his opponent.

“Mr.--Mr. _Caldwell_!” Ronnie exclaimed. The man’s thin summer clothes
were soaked to the skin and his thick, straight hair was matted to his
head on top and hanging over his forehead in ropelike strands.

But Caldwell paid no attention to the boy’s remark. Book in hand, he
walked off down the path in the direction of the old bakery.

“Give me back my book!” Ronnie shouted after him. “Why, why--you--” He
took off after the man, leaping onto his back and clinging there with
all his strength.

But he was no match for Caldwell. With his free hand the man released
the boy’s grip from about his neck. Then, still holding Ronnie’s wrist,
he flung the boy from him. Ronnie sailed into the bushes, rolled over
several times and came to a stop. By the time he had pulled himself to
his feet Caldwell had disappeared.

Dejectedly the boy turned and made his way slowly toward their office
to tell Bill the disheartening news.

Bill had the door unlocked, but closed, to keep out the rain and chill.
Ronnie came inside, pulled off his raincape. He didn’t have to tell
Bill that something unpleasant had happened. His friend read it in
Ronnie’s face.

“You did everything you could have done,” Bill said to him after Ronnie
had told him the story. “Don’t feel bad about it.” Bill went over to
sit on the edge of the desk. “So it _has_ been Caldwell all along--and
him acting so sweet and nice. You sure, Ronnie?”

Ronnie nodded. “It was him all right. Of course, he looked a little
different because he was as wet as a drowned rat.”

“You mean he wasn’t wearing a raincoat--or anything like that?”

“Nope.” It did seem strange, now that Ronnie had time to think about
it. Certainly Caldwell would have brought enough clothing with him
for all kinds of weather. But hadn’t he _seen_ Caldwell face to face?
Raincoat or no raincoat, it _was_ Mr. Caldwell all right! “Well, _now_
what do we do?” he asked Bill.

“Why, just what we planned, of course!” Bill explained. “And maybe
we’ve got the jump on Caldwell after all! Because why would he take the
ledger from you if he had found the money and glassware, or knew where
it was?”

“I see what you mean!” Ronnie exclaimed. “He wouldn’t _need_ the ledger
if he was close to finding the money and glassware.”

“Right! He’s probably getting desperate. He saw us with the old book
and decided it might contain an answer to what he wanted to know. Maybe
he even heard us reading parts of it.”

Ronnie walked over to the window. Streams of water ran down from the
roof. The wind was lifting now and the trees were bending under its
force. Ronnie turned to face his friend. “Bill, if I hadn’t seen
Caldwell face to face, I don’t think I could believe he’s the man who’s
been doing all this snooping. And you know, even while he was grabbing
me back there on the path, I didn’t think it was him. He just didn’t
talk like Caldwell--or act like him either.”

“Well, you never do really know a man until you’ve been around him a
good long while--that’s what my pa says.” Bill pulled his raincape over
his head. “We’re just wasting time sitting here and talking. Let’s get
over to the padlocked building. I brought a flashlight. Did you bring
the key?”

Ronnie patted his trouser leg. “Right here in my pocket!” he exclaimed.

They closed the door to their office and started down the puddle-filled
path. The rain beat against their raincapes and coats, and overhead the
trees lashed wildly in the rising wind. A dead branch fell to the path
behind them.

When they reached the cobblestone road they saw Phil coming toward
them, huddled inside his raincoat and pushing against the wind. “I
figured something was up,” he said to Bill and Ronnie when he had
reached them. “Come on, out with it. What have you two got up your
sleeves--and where’s that old book you had, Ronnie?”

Ronnie glanced at his friend. Bill nodded that as far as he was
concerned he didn’t care if Phil was brought in on their venture. So
while they walked to the padlocked building, Bill and Ronnie supplied
Phil with whatever information he needed to bring him up to date.

When they arrived at the old Rorth Glassworks office building, Ronnie
brought the key from his pocket and inserted it in the rusty lock. He
tried to turn the key but it wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t turn for Bill
or Phil, either.

“We’ll have to use Caldwell’s secret trap door,” Ronnie said, and they
hurried around to the rear of the building.

Ronnie removed the wall section and the three climbed through. Bill lit
his flashlight. Then Ronnie closed the trap door again because, as he
explained to the others, “We don’t want Caldwell to know we’re in here.”

Bill was exploring the interior with the flashlight. He whistled. “Wow!
Caldwell sure turned this place upside down!”

Ronnie nodded. Hardly a square foot of the floor was bare of paper or
overturned filing cabinet and desk drawers. Even a few floor boards
here and there were torn loose.

“Looks just like my bedroom when Mrs. Butler yells at me,” Phil
commented.

“We’ll never find a way down below with all this clutter,” Ronnie
remarked. “Maybe we should clean up first.”

Bill agreed and the three set to work picking up the papers and
stuffing them back in the drawers. Next they moved all the furniture to
one side of the room and returned the drawers to their places in the
desk and filing cabinet. “Now we’ll give this cleared side of the room
a real going-over!” Bill said. “Then we’ll move everything to the other
side and search that part. Come on, Phil, let’s get with it.”

Phil was lighting matches and peering under the floor boards Caldwell
had loosened. “O.K.,” he mumbled.

They started in the corner and worked systematically back and forth
across the room, taking a few boards at a time. It was Bill’s idea that
Jacob Williams had made some sort of a secret trap door for himself,
and that if the boys searched carefully enough they could find it.
“Then we won’t have to tear up any more of the floor the way Mr.
Caldwell’s done,” he said.

Bill was working with his penknife at the rear of the building toward
the fireplace. He was jabbing into the wider cracks with the blade, and
then prying upward, hoping to dislodge any loose section. Suddenly he
let out a little cry of triumph.

Phil didn’t hear Bill because he was inside the fireplace lighting more
matches while he explored. But Ronnie heard him and came over to find
out what he had discovered. “Look, Ronnie,” he said. “I’ve got these
boards up a little way. But I need something stronger. My knife’ll snap
if I push any harder.”

“Hold everything!” Ronnie directed. During clean-up, Ronnie had seen
a pair of old fire tongs leaning against the fireplace. He found them
easily in the dark and brought them to Bill. Bill examined them by the
light of his flashlight. The ends were flattened like the ends of a
screwdriver. Just the implement they needed!

Bill inserted the flattened end of the tongs into the crack, removed
the penknife, and pushed down with all his weight. Then he pried the
tongs backward. A section of the flooring began to move upward. Ronnie
grabbed the loose end and pulled. An entire section of the floor came
free.

“Zowie!” Bill exclaimed. “We’ve found it!”




_Chapter 14_


Bill’s flashlight broke the inky blackness beneath the opening.

Three feet below the floor of the office building, Ronnie saw the dry,
hard, crusted earth on which the footings of the building rested. Into
this for a distance of some six feet beneath the trap door, old Jacob
Williams had dug a slanting hole that ran down to the top of an old
drainage culvert. The brick arch, which formed the roof of the culvert,
had been broken through. Below the break-through, the culvert ran in
both directions parallel to the side of the building.

“Wow!” Bill exclaimed, playing his light about. “A tunnel! And it’s
plenty high enough to walk through, too!”

“I’ll bet it used to carry drainage water from the village down to the
St. Lawrence,” Ronnie added.

“Just the kind of place Jacob Williams would want for hiding the
glassware!”

Phil, hearing the excitement, came over and crouched down beside the
others. He peered over the edge and looked down into the hole.

Ronnie was trying to estimate the distance to the bottom of the
culvert. He figured it in sections. From the floor of the building
to the ground level was a “crawl space” of about three feet. Then the
hole Jacob Williams had dug was another six feet. That added up to nine
feet. The culvert itself, at the highest point in the arch, was another
six or seven feet.

Fifteen feet. To Ronnie looking down into the blackness, it seemed more
like a hundred and fifteen!

“We aren’t thinking of going _down_ there, are we?” Phil asked. “I
suffer from claustrophobia, I’d like you both to know.”

Bill looked over at Phil. “And we suffer--just hearing you talk,” he
said, grinning a little. Then he looked at Ronnie. “Think we can get
down without a ladder or a rope?” he asked.

Ronnie studied the problem. “Yes, I think so,” he answered finally.
“We’ll take it in stages. You know--climb down there to the ground
first, then slide down the hole to the top of the culvert. There’s room
to stand there. Then we can swing ourselves down through the opening in
the brickwork.”

Phil gulped. “That sounds like an awful lot of work,” he said. “And
even harder to get _up_ again.”

“Nobody’s twisting your arm and making you go,” Bill said.

Ronnie went first, holding Bill’s flashlight. The others waited above
in the darkness, peering over the edge to watch Ronnie’s progress.
Ronnie had no trouble lowering himself to the ground level. Then he
sent the light from the flashlight down into the hole Williams had dug.

The remains of an old ladder lay in pieces along the sides of the hole.
Ronnie noticed, too, that steps had been made leading down to the
top of the culvert--pieces of split log hammered into the earth but
protruding far enough to provide a foothold.

The boy tried the first one. It sustained his weight. He tried
another--and another. He looked up at Bill and Phil and grinned. Things
were going just fine!

He smiled too soon. The fourth step broke under his weight. His feet
flew out from under him and his back struck the side of the hole. He
slid the rest of the way, carrying with him an avalanche of dirt and
pebbles.

Luckily, he managed to keep himself from plunging through the opening
in the brickwork and down into the culvert. “You all right?” he heard
Bill calling down.

“I’m O.K.,” he answered. His voice echoed back hollow and distant from
within the culvert.

He sat down with his legs hanging over the edge of the broken brickwork
and flashed the light down into the darkness. The bottom looked
sandy--silt carried there by the drainage water over many years. There
was no way to climb in. He’d have to drop.

He tucked the flashlight under his belt beneath his raincoat and began
to slip forward. Then, when he was on the very edge, he let his body
fall forward.

He struck bottom on his feet, but the momentum threw him forward and
he landed face first on a patch of slimy sand. Picking himself up,
he found his flashlight and pressed the button. Light bored through
the pitch-blackness. The brick walls were slimy and green, and water
dripped through the bricks and dropped to the floor. In places sand
and earth had seeped through the cracks in the masonry and had formed
mounds and valleys along the culvert floor.

He looked up and saw Bill and Phil peering down at him under the light
from his flashlight. “What’s it like down there?” Bill asked.

“Kind of--kind of spooky,” he answered. He heard his voice come back to
him from both ends of the culvert.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Bill called. “Shine the light along the
way.”

Five minutes later both Phil and Bill had joined Ronnie in the culvert.

“Nice place to hold a Halloween party,” Phil commented. “I’m kind of
glad now that I decided to come down to the village to see what you two
were cooking up!”

Bill retrieved his flashlight from Ronnie and began to explore the
culvert with it. “Wow!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Take a look over where
the light’s pointing.”

Ronnie saw a crude shelf supported by sapling logs which rested on the
culvert floor. The shelf ran for six to seven feet along the side of
the wall, and on it were a number of wooden crates. Protruding from the
excelsior with which the crates were packed, Ronnie could see a number
of glass cannisters, goblets, decanters, and flasks of different colors.

“Oh, boy!” Bill exploded. He ran forward and removed one of the
pieces, holding out a beautiful rose-tinted goblet of frail, delicate
glass. Around the belly of the piece ran a band of men and women in
eighteenth-century dress, etched into the surface like autumn frost.

The others had moved to the shelf, too. “Hey, pig,” Phil said to Bill,
“how about sharing some of that light so we can get a look at some of
this stuff, too!”

Bill laid the light on the shelf and pointed it so Ronnie and Phil
could use it, too. Ronnie lifted another of the crates to the floor.
One by one he removed a set of six wine-glasses and a decanter to match
and placed them on the floor in a nest of excelsior.

Phil, however, had his eye on something different. He was interested in
a small metal box at the end of the shelf. He took it down, brushed off
the flakes of rust and tried to open the lid. It was rusted fast.

Bill had reached the bottom of his crate, and now he was carefully
packing the contents back as he had found them. He turned to Ronnie.
“It’s not going to be easy getting these crates out of here,” he said.
“We don’t want to break any.”

Ronnie nodded. “I know. Yet we can’t leave them here for Caldwell to
claim. One of us will have to go for a rope.”

“There’s one in the Glassworks building that we were using to haul junk
outside. Maybe we can persuade Phil to go and get it.”

“Fat chance of doing that!”

A sudden squeal of surprise and wonderment from Phil interrupted their
discussion. Phil came over to them with the opened metal box in his
hands. “Boy, oh, boy!” he exclaimed. “Have _I_ hit real pay dirt. Just
focus your eyes on what’s inside this box!”

Ronnie peered inside while Phil held the box so the light from the
flashlight could reach the interior. “Th-the money!” Ronnie gasped.

“You bet it’s the money!” Phil echoed. He took out a roll of bills and
a handful of gold and silver coins. “And plenty of it, too!”

“Wow!” Bill exclaimed. “Now we can save the village. We can build the
dam! How much is there, Phil?”

The bills had been rolled and tied with a piece of cord. Phil opened
the roll easily. Bill got the flashlight from the shelf and they
crouched together in a group while, one by one, Phil laid the big
old-fashioned bills in a pile. There were mostly twenties and hundreds,
with a few fives and tens. Altogether, Phil counted over two thousand
dollars.

They examined the gold and silver coins next. With these their total
came to twenty-one hundred dollars.

“Put the money back in the box,” Ronnie directed. “We’ve got to work
fast. I sure feel uneasy about Mr. Caldwell coming back.”

“You two get the crates over underneath the opening,” Bill said, “and
I’ll run over to the glassworks and get the rope. We’ll have this stuff
out of here and locked up in our office before Caldwell even knows
what’s going on. Then I’ll ask Pa to come down with the truck and we’ll
take it up to your house, Ronnie.”

Bill had some trouble getting back up to the padlocked building, but
he finally made it. When he had gone, Ronnie set to work lifting the
crates from the shelf and carrying them over to the floor beneath the
opening. Phil seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of matches, and he
left Ronnie to explore up the culvert. By the time Ronnie had finished,
Phil was back. He had a sheepish look on his face, but he was a little
pale, too.

“What’s eating you?” Ronnie demanded.

“I--I just met up with Jacob Williams,” Phil answered. “I mean--what’s
left of him.”

“You mean--you mean his bones are down there?” Ronnie asked, motioning
in the direction Phil had just come from. It really shouldn’t surprise
him, of course, he told himself. Great-great-grandfather Ezra had
mentioned in his diary that he had found Jacob Williams’ body “down
below” and that he didn’t have the strength to get him up.

When Bill returned with the rope, the three set to work bringing the
crates up to the padlocked building. It was hard, exacting work. One
end of the rope was tied to a rafter in the building and the other
end fastened securely about one of the crates. Then it was a matter
of pulling from the top and guiding the box along the way so that it
didn’t crash against the sides at any time.

In all, there were six crates to be pulled up. The boys had removed
their raingear and cumbersome boots, but by the time they had finished,
they were dripping with perspiration and covered with dirt and grime.

But even Phil hadn’t complained. There they were at last--the six
crates and the metal box, piled together in the center of the padlocked
building. The rest seemed easy in comparison. Two trips for each of
them and the crates would be safely stored in their office, ready for
the truck to pick them up.

Ronnie was all smiles as he and the others stole a minute or two of
their precious time to sit down and catch their breaths. “Golly,” he
said, “I never once thought this would be such an exciting day when I
got up this morning.”

“Neither did I,” Bill agreed. “When I saw the rain pouring down, I
thought for sure I was in for a real boring day. The most I thought
we’d get done was to maybe clean up another building.”

“And when I got up,” Phil added, “I told myself to turn around and go
back to sleep.”

Bill looked over at Phil curiously. “How come you’re so lazy, Phil?”

Phil grinned back at him. “It just comes naturally, I guess.”

Ronnie got up. He was on pins and needles for fear something might
happen before they got the money and glassware safely stowed away. He
looked over at the crates. “Maybe we could each carry two of them,” he
suggested, “and make it all in one trip.”

“Not me!” Phil protested. “After hauling them up from below, you’re
lucky I’ll agree to carry _one_.”

“Phil’s right,” Bill agreed. “We wouldn’t want to drop and break
anything. This glassware is pretty valuable, I’ll bet.”

They put on their raingear and boots. Then each selected a crate and
moved it over to the trap door in the rear of the building. Ronnie set
his down so he could remove the section of wall.

He didn’t have to. The trap door suddenly opened as if by itself.

And there, framed in the opening, was Caldwell’s face and shoulders. He
had a gun in his hand.




_Chapter 15_


Ronnie’s heart began to tap-dance inside his chest. He knew, too, that
his mouth was open as wide as it would go and that he couldn’t do a
thing to close it.

Caldwell stepped inside, holding the gun loosely in his hand. He
brought a flashlight from his pocket.

“Take your light out of my eyes!” Caldwell commanded Bill.

“Y--yes, sir,” Bill managed to say. The light clicked off. Caldwell’s
took its place. It was focused, not on the boys, but on the pile of
crates left in the middle of the room.

“Now wasn’t that nice of you boys to find this stuff for me and to lug
it up, too. Of course you had a slight advantage over me, in that you
had the book longer than me. But I figured it out, too--and just in
time, it appears.”

Ronnie was looking at a different Caldwell now as the man stood framed
in the light from the rear trap door. This wasn’t the Caldwell he had
known during the past days. This was a cool, deliberate, scheming
Caldwell. This was the man he had tangled with on the path earlier in
the day.

Caldwell backed around toward the crates, keeping the gun and light
trained on the boys. With the gun in his right hand, and the flashlight
tucked under his left arm, he threw back the cover to the metal box.

“Well, now,” he said, “this is just what I need! This will cover my
traveling expenses very nicely--with plenty left over besides.” He
picked up the bills and pushed them into his pocket, and then came back
to scoop up the coins. “You boys have been very helpful. Very helpful.
And since you’ve gone to all the trouble of carting this heavy stuff
upstairs for me, I might as well take it along, too. There’s always
some sucker antique dealer along the road who will give me a few bucks
for it.”

Bill took a step forward, but stopped when Caldwell’s gun came up. “You
sure have had us fooled, Mr. Caldwell,” Bill said. “And we sure were
fools to have trusted you.”

“Yea, sure, kid.” Caldwell seemed a little puzzled by what Bill had
said. “Well, enough of this. It’ll take me an hour to get loaded and
hit the road.” He swung the light around, searching for something. It
stopped when he found the open trap door leading down to the culvert.

“O.K., you kids,” he ordered. “Supposing you climb back down into the
cellar.”

Ronnie’s eyes widened as he gathered the full intent of the order.
“You--you’re not going to lock us up down there?” he gasped.

“I sure am, kid. You don’t think I’m going to turn you loose so you can
bring the whole neighborhood after me, do you? I need plenty of time to
get this stuff out of here and to hit the road. Now get moving--all of
you.”

Ronnie stood his ground. “I won’t go,” he said stubbornly. “Why, we’d
never get out of there. Nobody would ever find us,” he added.

“Well, now, isn’t that too bad!” Caldwell sneered. “Now move before I
push you down--if that’s the way you want it.”

“We’d better go,” Bill said.

They filed dejectedly toward the opening in the floor. Bill went first
and Ronnie followed. Before taking his turn, Phil turned to Caldwell.
“How about paying us for bringing the stuff up anyway, huh?” he asked.

“Don’t get funny, kid.”

“My name’s Phil--or don’t you remember?”

“Look, kid, I don’t care one hoot what your name is. Now shake it up
before I help you.”

When Phil’s head was below the level of the floor, Caldwell dropped the
trap door into place. Ronnie and Bill stood together below the opening
watching Phil descend, Bill holding the light for Phil to see by.
Above, they heard Caldwell driving several nails into the trap door.
Each blow echoed down the long lengths of the tunnel with a hollow
boom. Then suddenly it was silent again, a deep silence that told them
how far away from escape they really were.

Ronnie shivered. Behind him he heard the steady, rhythmic dripping
of water against the culvert floor. He thought he heard Bill’s heart
beating too. Or was it his own?

“Anybody got a deck of cards?” Phil asked suddenly and Bill and
Ronnie laughed. For the first time in his life Ronnie appreciated his
brother’s wisecracking.

They decided then that the first thing they should do was to explore
the entire culvert in hopes that there might be some other way out
beside the trap door. Before they left, however, Ronnie climbed to
test the strength of the trap door, hoping that perhaps Caldwell’s
nails had not been well placed. It was an idle hope. The trap door was
as solid as the rest of the floor.

Their explorations revealed that one end of the culvert ended in a
cave-in. The other end, sloping rapidly, ran to the river and was
flooded. “And that water’s rising, too,” Bill said to Ronnie as they
made their way back. “All this rain is flooding the river. And the
higher the river gets, the higher the water backs up in here.”

Ronnie was almost afraid to ask the question that had come to his mind.
“Do you suppose--could the whole culvert get flooded?”

Bill took Ronnie and Phil over to the wall and showed them several
lines of dried slime which had impregnated the brick. “Each one of
those lines,” he told them, “I’d guess was a water level mark. That
means the water has risen pretty high. One thing we can be sure
of, though, is that the water has never reached to the top of the
archway--not _yet_ anyway.”

“How come you know that?” Phil asked.

“Because if it had, Caldwell wouldn’t be walking off with that roll of
money. It would have fallen apart.”

“I wish it _was_ falling apart,” Phil grumbled.

They reached that section of the culvert below the building. Here they
selected a drier area of floor and sat down with their backs against
the wall. Bill turned off the flashlight to save the batteries. “O.K.,”
he said to the others. “So here we are--trapped. The only way of escape
is nailed shut. The water’s rising. How far we don’t know yet. Now,
what do we do?”

Phil’s voice came out of the blackness. “Just go to sleep and wait
until somebody finds us.”

“You’ll sleep until doomsday,” Ronnie told his brother. “Because
nobody’s ever going to find us here. Except for us, the only one who
knows about this--this dungeon is Mr. Caldwell and it doesn’t look as
if he’s going to tell anyone.”

“That’s right, Ronnie,” Bill agreed. “And with the padlock still on the
door, who’s going to think of looking inside?”

“And nobody’ll hear us shouting unless they _do_ come inside,” Phil
added. “I--Yipes!”

“What’s the matter?” Bill demanded and switched on his flashlight. He
picked Phil out of the darkness. Phil was rubbing at the back of his
neck.

“A--a drop of cold water went down my back.”

“Is _that_ all?” Bill grumbled disgustedly. “Well for pity’s sake, put
up your raincoat collar so you don’t scare me like that again. And
don’t yell out again unless it’s something serious.”

“That’s serious. I could catch pneumonia--or something.”

“Cut it out, Phil,” Ronnie protested. “We’ve got to _think_. Can’t you
get it through your thick skull that we’re in serious trouble?”

“Sure I can. I just want to die smiling. I think Jacob’s skeleton was
smiling.”

Ronnie was tired of Phil’s chatter, and he was tired of staring into
the blackness and seeing nothing, too. So he closed his eyes and rested
his head back against the hard, uneven brick. He wanted to think.
But he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was all alone, a
thousand miles down in the bowels of the earth. He put his hand out
and found Bill’s shoulder and left it there because he felt some
comfort in knowing that his friend was so close. Bill shifted his
position closer to Ronnie. “Keep your chin up, Ronnie,” he heard Bill
whisper. “I’ve got an idea. It might just work.”

Bill leaned over closer to Ronnie so his mouth was only a few inches
from his friend’s ear. “Here’s the pitch,” he said. “Remember the first
end of the culvert we visited--not the one by the river?”

Ronnie nodded. “Yea,” he said, remembering Bill couldn’t see him.

“And remember how it was all cave-in, just a big mess of broken brick
and dirt that had fallen in with it?”

“Yea,” Ronnie said again.

“Well, when I was flashing the light about, I noticed one place big
enough to crawl up into. It looked as if it went quite a way toward the
surface. Now, I was thinking maybe we could dig through to the surface
from there.”

“Hey, Bill, that’s a cool idea! Let’s try it! But what’ll we dig with?”

“I can jab away with my penknife. The dirt’ll keep falling down into
the culvert.”

“Let’s go!” Ronnie exclaimed. He was tired of sitting. He wanted to do
something to help them escape--_anything_.

Bill turned on his light. Phil was stretched out on the floor with his
eyes closed. “Come on,” Ronnie nudged him. “We’ve got things to do.”

Bill explained his plan to Phil as they moved down the culvert. Phil
agreed that it was worth the try.

They reached the end of the culvert. Bill played the beam of his
flashlight about among the giant slabs of concrete and brick that had
tumbled to the floor of the culvert. Inky black crevices ran upward
between the pieces of rubble, and as Bill moved the flashlight about
looking for the crevice he had in mind, the jutting ends of the masonry
cast weird shadows upon the walls and floor.

“There it is!” Bill said suddenly, holding his light steady. “That’s
the one. See how far up it goes?”

Ronnie saw a twisting passage, which gradually grew smaller toward the
top. Halfway up, a giant slab almost sealed the crevice into two parts,
but Ronnie judged that there would possibly be room for Bill to squeeze
past.

Bill removed his raingear and handed Ronnie the flashlight. “Keep the
light where I need it,” he instructed. Then he boosted himself into the
opening and began to worm his way upward. Protruding edges of brick
and mortar gave him support for his feet or a hold for his hands. Soon
Ronnie saw him enter the narrow aperture.

Bill continued to edge forward, forcing his shoulders and arms between
the two giant slabs. Then he stopped and began to struggle. Ronnie
could see that he was wedged tightly between the two slabs.

“H--help! I--I’m caught,” Ronnie heard Bill’s muffled voice.

Ronnie slipped out of his raincoat and boots and handed the light to
Phil. Then he grasped the ledge of the lowest block of masonry and
pulled himself up into the mouth of the crevice. From here he worked
his way upward until his outstretched hands found Bill’s shoes. He took
a firm grip about his friend’s ankles--and pulled. Bill’s body did not
budge. Ronnie might just as well have tried to move the rubble.

“It’s no use, Ronnie,” Bill said in a whimper.

“Keep your chin up, pal,” Ronnie answered. “I’ll think of a way. Just
don’t struggle or you’ll swell up and then it’ll be even harder to get
you free.”

Ronnie lay back against the cold stone and tried to catch his
breath--and _think_. He _had_ to find a way to free Bill. With help so
far away it was up to him to save his friend.

A section of brick was jabbing into his back just under the shoulder
blades. He shifted his position to ease the discomfort. His shoulders
rubbed against a section of smooth, slimy moss--and an idea came to
him. He’d read stories of how the bodies of trapped men had been
greased, and then had slipped out quite easily. The nearest grease
bucket was in the barn, but wouldn’t wet slime do just as well?

He twisted his body about so he could call down to Phil. “Get me a
good, big handful of that slime down at the other end of the culvert.
And hurry.”

Phil nodded that he understood. He turned quickly and started for the
river end of the culvert, leaving Ronnie in the pitch-black. Ronnie
lay back against the rock and rested. Above him he heard Bill’s forced
breathing and an occasional groan. He heard the gentle dripping of
water, too, and felt something crawling down the back of his shirt.

It seemed an eternity before Phil returned with both hands loaded with
slime, the flashlight tucked under his arm.

Ronnie had to come down a way before the slime could be transferred to
his own hands. And now he’d have to work his way up again to where Bill
was caught, and he’d have to do it without the use of his hands. It
wasn’t going to be easy. With both hands cupping the precious stuff, he
had no way of holding on.

He managed it, however, using only his feet and elbows. Now his head
was alongside Bill’s knees and he could reach up and force the slime
between the rubble and his friend’s shoulders. Bill understood what
Ronnie was attempting to do, for he worked his body about to spread the
application. Inch by inch Bill squirmed his way backward--and suddenly
he was free.

Then something happened that _Ronnie_ hadn’t foreseen. Bill’s shoulders
came free so unexpectedly that before either Bill or Ronnie could check
the momentum, Bill had lost his balance. His body slipped backward,
struck the side of a concrete slab and landed on the culvert floor with
one leg doubled under him.

Phil was already kneeling beside Bill’s body by the time Ronnie had
climbed down. The light from the flashlight was on Bill’s face.
“My leg. Oh, Ronnie, my leg!” Bill groaned and grimaced from the
pain. Sweat broke out on his forehead in large drops. His lips were
purple-blue and his face was as white as the sweat shirt he was wearing.

“Ronnie,” Bill whispered, “Ronnie, _please_. Do something for me.
Please, _do_ something.”




_Chapter 16_


Ronnie stooped down beside his friend and wiped the perspiration from
his forehead. “Sure, Bill, we’ll have you fixed up in no time,” he said.

He took Bill’s raincoat and covered him with it, wrapping it around
underneath as far as he dared without moving the injured leg. Then
he set to work massaging Bill’s wrists and limbs to restore the
circulation. And all the while he worked, he was glad for those hours
of practice and study that he’d given to learning first aid at Scout
meetings and at home. His first-aid merit badge was proving its worth!

He looked up at Phil. “Down the culvert I saw some boards that must
have washed in one time or another. I’ll need a couple of splints. Go
get them.”

Phil nodded. Ronnie handed him the flashlight, and his brother moved
off down the culvert. Ronnie continued chafing Bill’s wrists in the
dark. He could feel the rapid pulse and knew that his friend was in
slight shock. He’d have to treat that first. The leg could wait. He
continued to massage Bill’s limbs and arms.

Phil returned with an armful of boards. Ronnie signaled for him to drop
them and to take over the job that he had been doing. The flashlight
showed that the color was beginning to return to Bill’s face. His
pulse was slowing down to normal now, too.

Ronnie got up and came around to kneel by Bill’s feet. He swallowed
hard. This was going to be a real tricky job--straightening out Bill’s
leg without compounding the fracture. Ronnie had done it plenty of
times in practice, but then there had been no broken bones that could
jab through the flesh if he made a wrong move.

He reached in under the raincoat and felt his way forward until he
could get a hold on Bill’s shoe. When he was ready, he instructed Phil
to grasp Bill around the armpits and to lift him gradually. As the
weight of Bill’s body was removed from the leg, Ronnie took a firm grip
about Bill’s ankle and began the slow, tedious task of straightening
the leg. All the time he moved the leg out from under his friend’s
body, he applied a steady forward tension to keep the broken bone from
working into the flesh. Several times Bill cried out in pain.

Now the leg was ready for splinting. Ronnie selected several of the
longer boards. He ripped sections from his own shirt and placed these
against Bill’s leg and laid the boards gently on top. Then he tore
strips of cloth and bound them about the boards and the leg until the
splints were firmly in place.

Only then did he realize that he was soaking wet from perspiration and
that he was shivering from nervous tension. “There,” he said to Bill,
“I guess that’ll hold you until we get rescued.”

Bill smiled weakly. “Thanks, pal,” he said.

Ronnie turned to his brother. “Think we can carry him back to the spot
where we came in?”

“We probably can,” Phil answered, “but I don’t think we ought to. You
see, the river’s risen since you were there, and that part of the
tunnel’s under a foot of water now.”

Ronnie tried desperately not to let Bill know how frightened he was.
“Then--then we’ll put Bill up on that shelf where the crates of
glassware used to be.”

“O.K.,” Phil answered. “That sounds like a good idea, because it isn’t
going to be long before the whole culvert’s covered with water. It’s
coming in fast!”

Ronnie wished his brother could see his face so Phil would know what he
was thinking. Of all the stupid things to let Bill hear! It would be
simple for Ronnie and Phil to climb to a safe level in the crawl space
beneath the building, but never in a million years could they get Bill
up there. And Bill wouldn’t know, of course, that Ronnie would never
leave him behind--no matter how high the water rose.

They brought Bill down the culvert without too much difficulty and
lifted him up onto the shelf where he could lie down. There was room
for Phil and Ronnie to sit, too, and although they had their boots on,
they preferred this to standing in the water.

Now that Bill had been taken care of, Ronnie had time to think about
plans for their escape. He sat on the edge of the shelf with his feet
dangling over the edge and watched the water swirl in from the river.
He could go back and continue the plan that Bill had been attempting
before his accident. But somehow Ronnie doubted the wisdom of this.
There must be a better way.

He looked over at Phil. “Got any ideas?” he asked.

“Ideas about what?”

“Ideas about getting out of here, of course!”

“Not right offhand,” Phil answered. “But I’ll think on it.”

Ronnie didn’t want to count too heavily on that! Phil had never been
one for finding a way out of a scrape. Phil had always relied upon
his brother for an answer--or he had just simply evaded the issue
completely if that were possible.

Bill raised his head a few inches and placed his arm underneath to
support himself. “Don’t try my idea,” he said, “it just won’t work.
Nobody but the thin man from the circus could get through that opening.”

“I don’t intend to,” Ronnie answered. “Except maybe as a last resort.”

“Yea,” Phil said. “And by that time you’ll be thin enough to squeeze
through.”

Ronnie smiled a little at Phil’s remark. He turned off the flashlight
to save the batteries. “We’ve certainly made a mess of everything,
haven’t we?” Bill’s voice reached Ronnie from out of the darkness. “Let
the glassware and money slip right out of our hands. Got ourselves
trapped down here. Me with a busted leg. And I guess we’re about as far
from saving the village as we ever were. Well, my pa says it’s always
darkest before the dawn. Maybe things will get better from here on.”

The silence closed in again, except for the steady dripping of water
against the flooded floor. It sounded to Ronnie as if a hundred distant
bells of different pitch were all ringing at the same time. It was hard
sitting here in the darkness, waiting ... wondering if they’d ever get
out again.

“Ronnie?” Bill asked. “You suppose our folks are out looking for us
now?”

“Maybe. Depending on how late it is. I’ve lost all idea of the time.”

“Nobody’ll ever find us down here,” Bill continued. “They won’t even
look inside the padlocked building because they’ll see that the lock’s
still on the door. I wish we could attract their attention somehow.”

“I’ve got plenty of matches left,” Phil announced. “Want me to burn
down the building? Nobody could miss seeing _that_!”

Ronnie wasn’t sure if Phil was being serious, or if this was another of
his attempts at humor. Whichever it was, Ronnie couldn’t go along with
his brother’s suggestion. With the building on fire, the culvert was
sure to fill with smoke and fumes, perhaps to the point where it might
suffocate them. “No, Phil,” he told his brother, “that’s too risky.”

“Then how about just burning through the trap door?” Phil added. “How
about that?”

Ronnie found himself shaking his head. “No, Phil. It would never stop
with the trap door. Besides, I don’t think we’ve got enough kindling to
get it started. No, we’ve got to think of a better way.”

“Then how about _you_ putting out with a few?” Phil demanded of his
brother.

“Maybe I can if you’ll keep quiet for a few minutes.”

Ronnie rested his chin on his palm and braced his elbow on top of his
leg. He stared into the blackness. There was some merit to Phil’s idea.
Not fire, of course. That was too dangerous. But some kind of a signal
that could be seen at a distance.

He thought over all the different ways of signaling he’d ever heard
of. There were whistles and bells and horns. There were lights and
radio beams, flags, hands, smoke.... The Indians had used smoke signals!

Ronnie stiffened, straightening up. He let out a little high-pitched
sound of approval. “Ronnie?” Bill asked. “You all right, Ronnie?”

“Sure I’m all right! I just had an idea that might work. I guess I
surprised myself with it!”

“You sounded like something bit you,” Phil grumbled.

“Let’s hear your idea, Ronnie,” Bill said.

“Well, remember right after Caldwell nailed the trap door shut I went
up to test how strong it was? While I was there I saw a little metal
door in the base of the fireplace. You know, a door to an ash box.”

“Sure, Ronnie, sure,” Bill said excitedly. “We’ve got one in our
fireplace--down in the cellar.”

“Well, my idea is to build a real smoky fire in the box. It’ll travel
up to the fireplace and then on up the chimney--I hope!”

“That’s a great idea!” Bill exclaimed. “I sure wish I could help you
with it.”

“We’ll need kindling,” Ronnie went on. “There’s more of that where Phil
got your splints. But the real problem is finding something that’ll
give a lot of thick smoke and won’t burn up too quickly.”

“Like rubber,” Phil said.

“Say, Phil, you’re really using your brains at last!” Ronnie exclaimed.
“And rubber’s something we’ve got plenty of! Three raincoats, three
pairs of boots, and the soles off our shoes, too, if we need them.”

“I’ve got a penknife,” Bill said, his enthusiasm mounting as the pain
in his leg subsided. “You can cut the rubber into chunks and then feed
them into the fire. Why, with the supply we’ve got we can keep a signal
fire going for hours and hours!”

They set to work immediately. Bill found he could help, too, after
he had pulled himself up to a sitting position. He used the knife to
cut up the heavier pieces of boots. Phil and Ronnie worked at the
raincoats, ripping the fabric, first into strips and then into smaller
pieces. Soon they had a large pile between them in the middle of the
shelf.

Phil waded down the culvert to gather kindling. In the meantime Ronnie
took off his torn shirt and, tying a knot about the neck end, used the
piece of clothing as a sack to carry the chunks of rubber while he
climbed to the crawl-space above.

Phil joined him in front of the ash box a few minutes later. “All I
could find was wet wood,” he told Ronnie. “The floodwater has picked it
all up. We’ll need something dry to get the fire started.”

Ronnie inspected the wood Phil had brought. “Yes, I guess you’re right.
We’ll have to take part of the shelf. Suppose you go down and rip off a
few boards. You take the flashlight. I think I can manage in the dark.”

It wasn’t easy breaking up the wood in the darkness. He was continually
hitting his head on the low floor beams. But by the time Phil returned
with the flashlight and several pieces of dry wood, Ronnie had most of
the work done.

Then suddenly there were sounds overhead--footsteps creaking across the
floor, a muffled murmur of voices. Ronnie drew a deep breath and let it
all out in a shout. “Dad! Dad! We’re down here!”

“Bust a hole in the floor if you can’t find the trap door!” yelled Phil.

Ronnie’s heart beat wildly as he heard the screech of nails being
pulled from the wood. The trap door was lifted. Phil uttered a soft
groan of relief. And then an all-too-familiar voice said harshly,
“O.K.! Down you go!”

For a moment the two boys stood frozen. Then, with a swiftness amazing
for him, Phil pointed the flashlight at the trap door. Caldwell was
standing near the opening, motioning with his gun to someone in the
shadows behind him.

As the light struck him, Caldwell made a low, snarling sound and
whirled around to level his gun at the boys below. “Put out that
light!” he commanded.

Phil obeyed hastily, but in the split second it had taken him to find
the switch, a second man had stepped into the light. Ronnie gasped.
He knew, from Phil’s simultaneous gasp, that he had not been dreaming.
There were _two_ Mr. Caldwells!




_Chapter 17_


Huddled together in the dark, the two boys and the man heard the thud
of the trap door as it was dropped, the ring of a hammer against
the nails being driven back into the wood. Nobody spoke. Ronnie was
conscious of the heavy breathing of the man who had joined them in
their prison, of Phil’s shoulder pressing against his as though for
reassurance.

In the building above there were footsteps again, an occasional thump
and scrape as though something were being dragged across the floor
toward the opening in the wall. For several moments there would be
silence; then the sounds would begin again.

“The glass!” said Ronnie at last. “He’s taking the glass away.”

“And he’s got the money,” Phil moaned.

Suddenly Ronnie was angry. He grabbed the flashlight from Phil
and turned it full on their companion. “Who are you?” he demanded
furiously. “And who’s that guy upstairs?”

Caldwell winced, then put his hand firmly on the flashlight and lowered
it so that the beam would not blind him. “One minute,” he said softly.
“Losing our heads won’t help. You know me. The man upstairs is my twin
brother; the black sheep of the family, I guess you’d call him.”

“Oh,” said Ronnie and Phil together. Ronnie saw the whole picture now.
He had felt all along that the man who had attacked him on the trail
and stolen the ledger couldn’t be the Caldwell he knew. He’d felt the
difference at the time, but what was he to think? The two men were
identical in appearance.

“Larry arrived the same time I did,” Caldwell went on. The sounds above
had ceased and the cut-out piece of wall had been put back into place.
“But until today I had no idea that he was here. He appeared at my
cottage late this morning and demanded the keys to the station wagon.
When I refused, he threatened me with a gun.”

“Your own brother pulled a gun on you?” Ronnie asked in amazement.

“Something went wrong with Larry,” Caldwell answered seriously. “He’s
been in trouble all his life. In fact, he escaped from the state
penitentiary last week.”

“He _did_!” Phil exclaimed. “Golly, a convict right here in the
village, and we never even guessed!”

“But why did he hide out here?” asked Ronnie.

“I figure he had two things in mind,” said Caldwell. “First, since the
deserted village has been opened to tourists, nobody would think of
looking here for an escaped convict. If he saw anybody coming, there
would be plenty of buildings to hide in. Second, Larry was obsessed
all his life by that old story about the stolen Rorth glassware and
the money and the murder. He said he knew the glass must be hidden
somewhere, because it had never showed up on the market.”

“Well,” said Ronnie glumly. “He was right. He’s got it now, and the
money, too, and the old diary that proves Great-great-grandfather
didn’t murder his partner.”

Mr. Caldwell wasn’t interested in the murder or the money. “Glass!” he
exclaimed. “Rorth glassware! You mean Larry found some here?”

“Crates of it,” said Phil. “Only Ronnie and Bill and I found it. That’s
how come we’re down here, so we can’t tell on him.”

“Rorth glass!” moaned Caldwell. “And here we are where it won’t even
do us a bit of good to think about it. I guess that’s why Larry put me
down here, too. He knew I’d move heaven and earth to get it out of his
hands.”

“He’s probably miles away in your station wagon by now,” said Ronnie.

The mild-mannered Caldwell suddenly turned and gripped Ronnie by the
shoulders. “Look!” he said fiercely. “We’ve _got_ to get out of here.
It was nearly midnight when Larry brought me here. He had me driving
him around for hours looking for a road he could use to get through the
police road blocks. Then, after we found an old abandoned logging road,
he had me drive back here so he could pick up the loot and put me down
here where I couldn’t contact the police. It will be daylight soon.
Folks will be up and about before long. Isn’t there any way we can let
them know we’re here? If we all yelled at once, do you think they’d
hear us?”

“The smoke signal!” Ronnie exclaimed, and at once began to break up the
dry wood Phil had brought. At the same time he explained their plan to
Caldwell, who thought it a good idea. “They won’t miss it,” he said.
“The whole town’s been looking for you kids since yesterday afternoon.
They’ve scoured the village for you twice, to my knowledge, but, of
course, nobody thought to look underground.”

Ronnie grinned, despite his anxiety. “Boy!” he said, “will we have a
story to tell!” Then he sobered. “If only that guy hadn’t gotten away
with the glass and the money!”

“I’ve a feeling he won’t get far,” said Caldwell. “There’s been an
alarm out for him ever since he escaped. The police don’t fool around
in cases like this. My main concern is how we get out of this place.
What can I do to help?”

“Nothing, frankly,” said Ronnie. “Phil and I will tend to the smoke
signals. There’s nothing else to do, unless you want to go back and
keep Bill company.” He explained what had happened to Bill’s leg, and
Caldwell was only too glad to do what he could to cheer the boy.

“Tell him,” said Ronnie, “we’ll be out of here before he knows it.”

Phil held the flashlight while Ronnie showed Caldwell the best way down
to the culvert. Then the two boys turned back to their work. Phil held
the flashlight against the ash box while Ronnie inspected it. The iron
door was rusted, but not enough to prevent Ronnie from swinging it
open. It squealed and protested and showers of rust flakes fell to the
ground.

Ronnie poked the light inside and held his face to the opening.
“There’s an opening at the top,” he said to Phil. “It must go all the
way up into the fireplace, or else how did the ashes get down to the
box?”

Using Bill’s knife, Ronnie shaved some of the kindling wood into
tiny splinters. He placed these in the ash box first, arranging them
carefully so there was sufficient air space between each piece. Over
these, in tepee style, he placed the larger pieces of dry wood. “All
ready for the match,” he told Phil, reaching for one.

“Let me do it,” Phil insisted. “They’re my matches, and where would we
be now if I hadn’t grabbed a pocketful this morning?”

Ronnie didn’t argue the point. He watched his brother apply the flame
to the kindling and saw the fire creep upward into the larger pieces.

“So far, so good!” Ronnie exclaimed. The orange light from the fire was
reflected in Phil’s face. “Let’s put all the dry wood on first and get
as hot a fire as we can. Then we’ll use the wet stuff.”

Soon they had quite a blaze going in the ash box. It crackled and
sputtered, and the metal banged every once in a while as it expanded
from the heat. The wet wood dampened the fire considerably after it was
applied, but as the pieces dried out from the heat, they too caught and
burned fiercely.

“Now we’re ready for the rubber!” Ronnie announced later. He tossed the
first piece into the fire. It sputtered for a moment, melting about the
edges. A thick cloud of inky-black smoke filled the ash box and crowded
into the opening at the top.

Ronnie threw in a few more pieces and then slammed the door shut to
keep the smoke inside. “Now all we can do is wait,” Ronnie said to his
brother.

“And throw on more rubber,” Phil added.

“--and maybe pray a little,” Ronnie said. If this didn’t work, what
else was there left for them to try?

“Ronnie?” Phil asked softly.

“Yes?”

“How long can people live without food and water?”

Phil must have been reading his mind, Ronnie thought. He’d been asking
himself the same question. “Seems to me I read that people live longer
without food than they can without water.”

“That’s good, because we have plenty of water.” Phil switched off the
flashlight. Some light leaked through the cracks around the door of the
ash box.

“Seems to me we ought to purify the water before we drink it,” Ronnie
said. He opened the door a bit to peer inside at the fire. The rubber
was burning slowly and the pieces that were now in the fire should last
for quite a while.

“The heck with all that trouble,” Phil answered. “In an emergency like
this we can drink the water the way it is.”

“It should be sterilized--if we can find a way to do it,” Ronnie
insisted.

“Well, I’m dying of thirst right now,” Phil said. He panted like a dog
to illustrate to Ronnie how much he needed a drink. “Think I’ll go down
and get one.”

“Try to hold off for a while, huh, Phil?” Ronnie asked him. “Maybe we
can boil some water over this fire.”

“Sure!” Phil growled. “I’ll hold it in my cupped hands while it heats
up! Be sensible, Ronnie. You know we’ve got nothing to heat it in.”

But despite his arguing, Phil apparently decided to follow Ronnie’s
advice. He made no move to go below. Instead he switched the flashlight
on again, and picking up Bill’s penknife, began to jab at the floor
boards over his head. “Who knows,” he said, “maybe I can cut a hole
through and we can climb out.”

But after five minutes of jabbing and poking and scraping Phil had
made a hole no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, and hardly as deep.
“Darnedest wood I ever cut into,” he complained.

“Oak maybe--or chestnut,” Ronnie answered. He opened the door to the
ash box and threw in another piece of rubber. “Lumber was cheap in
those days, Phil. They didn’t skimp on buildings the way Dad says they
do today. I’ll bet those boards are an inch and a half thick. And you’d
need a hole a foot across before we could slip through.”

“_I’d_ need one a foot and a half!” Phil grinned. He went on working
with the knife, doubling his efforts by jabbing at the wood from a
greater distance and with more speed.

“Now I went and did it!” he said disgustedly. The knife blade had
snapped near the hinge. He threw the broken piece of blade on the hard,
dry earth and stomped on it in anger. “Why the heck did I have to try
so hard?” he asked. “I’m always messing things up.”

Ronnie wanted to scold his brother for being so careless with the
knife, but he bit his lip and kept quiet. They still had the small
blade, if as a last resort they needed a knife. And the way things were
going, it looked as if they were going to have to think of some other
way to free themselves. At least an hour had passed since Ronnie had
thrown on the first piece of rubber and the black smoke had rolled up
the chimney. Why hadn’t someone come? Was the smoke finding a way to
the top of the flues, or was it rolling out into the room overhead?

They decided then that they’d take turns at keeping the fire fed. They
drew splinters of wood to see which of them would go first. Phil drew
the short one. “You’ll need more kindling from time to time,” Ronnie
told Phil as he prepared to go below and stretch out a bit on the shelf
and maybe talk to Bill or get some sleep. “Want me to bring some up?”

“I’ll get it when I need it,” Phil replied. “There’s still some of this
wet stuff left. Say, who gets the flashlight?”

“I’ll need it to get down below,” Ronnie said.

“So I’ll light your way for you from here. Look, Ronnie, if I don’t get
the light, I don’t tend the fire. Then when you take over, you’ll get
the light.”

“O.K.,” Ronnie agreed. “See you later.”

The long hours dragged by. With each one that passed, Ronnie’s faith
in the smoke signals he had devised grew less and less. Twice he
relieved Phil. More wood had to be taken from the shelf, and now there
was barely room enough for Bill to sit upright. The water pouring in
from the St. Lawrence had risen another three feet. Soon the top of
the shelf would be awash. And still worse, their supply of rubber was
getting low. “Soon we’ll have to cut up the soles of our shoes,” Ronnie
said. “Why doesn’t someone come?”

“I think it’s probably still dark out,” Phil said, “and no one can see
the smoke unless they’re close by.”

Ronnie had lost all sense of time, and no one among them had a watch.
He’d slept a few times when he wasn’t tending the fire, short naps
during which he was more awake than asleep.

Sometime later they used the small blade of Bill’s knife to cut the
heels and rubber soles from their shoes. Phil went up with Ronnie to
feed some of it into the fire. They lay on their sides before the ash
box. Phil picked up some of the soft, powdery earth and watched it
sift through his fingers. “I wish I could eat this stuff,” he said. “I
wish I could eat _something_.”

Ronnie nodded. “I’m hungry too,” he admitted. “It seems like days and
days that we’ve been down here.”

Ronnie dropped off to sleep for a while, waking only long enough to
place another piece or two of the rubber into the fire. Soon the last
piece was gone. “That’s it,” he said to Phil. “That’s all there is.”

But Phil didn’t hear him. He was asleep. Ronnie sat up, and opening
the door of the ash box, watched the last piece of rubber burn away to
nothing. Soon nothing remained within the box but a few black, cold
cinders.

Now what, he asked himself? What was there left to try? If only he had
a tool of some kind--a pick or a shovel. With the pick he could smash a
way through the stout floor boards. With the shovel he could dig to the
surface. But he _didn’t_ have a pick or a shovel. All he had was Bill’s
broken penknife. The little blade was left, of course, but it wasn’t
strong enough for such a giant job as cutting through the trap door or
the floor.

But perhaps it would be better than doing nothing, better than just
waiting and hoping. It would take a long, long time. One little
splinter of wood after another. Minute after minute. Hour after hour.
Being very careful not to get angry as Phil had done and break another
blade.

Eventually he might get through--if his strength lasted.

He chose a spot where there were no knots and the wood looked softest.
Chip after chip he removed, each no longer or thicker than a needle.
“I’ll never get through,” he thought. “Not ever.”

And then, like something in a dream, he heard voices overhead, muffled
and indistinct. Then he heard a louder sound--the crash of an ax
breaking through one of the walls. A section of the siding gave way
and crashed to the floor. The voices were louder now, and Ronnie heard
footsteps, too, crossing the room.

“That was a smoke signal we saw from the chimney.” It was his father’s
voice speaking! “As sure as I’m standing here, it was a signal.”

A wide grin broadened Ronnie’s face and lit up his eyes. The sound of
his father’s voice was the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard in his
life. “Dad! Dad!” he called. “We’re down here.”

Then Ronnie turned and gently shook his brother. “You can wake up now,
Phil. Dad’s here,” he said.




_Chapter 18_


A burning, August sun scorched the long stretches of the St. Lawrence
River Valley. For two weeks it had blazed down from a cloudless sky,
evaporating the last remaining moisture from the soil. Ronnie came out
of the house and crossed the barnyard, his bare feet stirring dust
clouds that hung behind him and marked his path. The powder-dry dust
felt as soft as talcum against the soles of his feet.

Ronnie made his way toward the orchard. Here it was cooler, for the
earth was wet from days of irrigation.

Ronnie spied his father’s blue overalls and white T shirt among the
peach trees to the right. “Pa?” he called.

“Yes, Ronnie?” Mr. Rorth was reeling out a section of rubber hose, a
feeder line to connect to the main metal pipe that ran to the brook.

“I got a call from Mr. Mercer just a while ago. You know him--he’s the
president of the historical society in town. He wants Bill and me to
come to a meeting tonight. He says the Seaway people will have a big
official there to discuss the village.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“Dad, will you drive us in?” Ronnie asked.

“Tonight?” Mr. Rorth thought it over. “I think so. In fact, I’d kind of
like to sit in on that meeting myself. Maybe Gramps would like to go,
too.”

“The heat’s got him bad,” Ronnie reminded his father.

“Yes, I know. But when it comes to the village, Gramps would go from
here to Timbuktu in the hottest weather.”

Ronnie grinned. “Yes, I know.”

He left his father then and swung off toward the village. He’d been
there only a few minutes when he saw two men approaching. One of them
was carrying a transit. They set up the transit on a level spot at the
top of the east side of the gap. One man stayed with the instrument,
while the other climbed to the other side of the stream and held up
a long measured stick. Ronnie went over to him. “What’re you doing,
mister?”

“Surveying.”

“I mean, how come you’re surveying?”

“Because the boss sent me here, that’s why.” He looked over at the boy
and saw that Ronnie was more than just idly curious. “Well, it seems
there’s going to be a meeting tonight and the boss wants some figures
about whether it’s possible to build a cofferdam across this gap,” he
added.

“Do you think it _can_ be built?” Ronnie asked--and held his breath
while he waited for the answer.

The man looked about him, examining the narrow valley with its steep,
tree-filled slopes. “Sure,” he answered. “Of course, that’s only _my_
opinion. Now beat it, kid. You’re taking my mind off the job.”

Despite the heat, Ronnie began to run. He felt light all over. His feet
hardly seemed to touch the ground. The dam _could_ be built. Now, if
_only_ the Seaway would agree to have it done. If the meeting tonight
was a success, he vowed, then there would be nothing more he could ask
for.

He broke out of a thick clump of hemlock saplings and came out on the
riverbank just as his brother swung himself off the fallen tree trunk
on the end of their “ducking” rope. Phil arched out over the water with
his legs curled up against his body and then, letting go, dropped like
a bullet. He came up sputtering and spitting water and brushing his
hair from his eyes.

“Come on in, Ron!” he yelled.

Ronnie undressed quickly and soon he was in the water beside his
brother. Bill appeared minutes later. His leg was still in a cast.
“Darn old doctor!” he grumbled good-naturedly. “I sure wish he’d let me
go in.”

However, Ronnie had devised a way by which Bill could at least get
cooled off. After Bill had undressed, Ronnie and Phil bound his cast
with a strip of canvas they had on hand for this purpose. Then the two
bombarded Bill with bucketful after bucketful of water. “O.K.! O.K.!”
Bill called for mercy. “Enough!”

The three lay down on a moss bank to dry, while Ronnie described his
meeting with the surveyors. “And, Bill,” he went on, “we’ve been asked
to a meeting tonight with the historical society, and Dad says he’ll
drive us into town.”

Bill grinned. “It’s really beginning to look as though we might save
the village after all!” he exclaimed. “We made over a hundred dollars
exhibiting the glassware. Altogether, counting the money we found down
in the culvert, and what we earned during the past two months taking
tourists around the village, and what we got from selling the gold and
silver coins to a collector, plus the exhibition money--why, we’ve got
over three thousand dollars!”

Exhibiting the glassware had been Ronnie’s idea, but it was Mr.
Caldwell who had done a great deal to make it a success. He had sent
announcements to antique dealers throughout the vicinity, and many of
them had come. Curious townspeople had come, too, and each visitor had
been charged an admission fee of fifty cents.

“I wonder when Mr. Caldwell will be back,” Bill said as he struggled to
get his pants over the cast and metal support. “He’s been gone almost
two weeks now.”

“I guess it takes time to work out all those legal matters,” Ronnie
answered.

Ronnie thought about Mr. Caldwell as he and Phil started for home. The
day after Mr. Caldwell and the boys had been rescued from the culvert,
Caldwell had paid a call on Grandfather. “I want to get a lawyer to
make out papers that will relinquish all Jacob Williams’ claims to
the deserted village,” he had announced. “Then I’ll go up to the
penitentiary and have my brother sign them, too.”

“Supposing he refuses?” Grandfather had asked.

Caldwell had smiled. “I don’t think he will. He’s got ten years of his
old sentence to finish--plus whatever he gets for escaping. I think if
I offer him a small amount of money, he’ll see my way!”

“Well, now,” Grandfather had said, “that’s very decent of you, Mr.
Caldwell. But why should you go to all this trouble and expense?”

“I was hoping, sir,” Caldwell had answered, “that you and Ronnie might
consider letting me select a few pieces of the Rorth glassware. That
would more than repay me.”

Caldwell left a week later with the papers the lawyer had drawn up.
He promised to return as soon as he’d visited his brother. “I’ve got
plenty of work left on my book,” he had told Ronnie, “so keep my place
cleaned and ready for me!”

When Ronnie and Phil reached the house, supper was already on the
table. Grandfather was dressed in his best summer suit with a white
shirt and necktie. “How come, Grandpa?” Phil asked.

“How come? Why, you don’t think for one minute I’m going to miss that
meeting tonight. Thunderation, they won’t get anywhere unless I’m there
to lend a hand.”

Grandfather did lend his hand that night--and his voice, too! But it
was Ronnie’s plea, perhaps, which did the most toward convincing the
Seaway official that the village had to be saved. “Mister,” Ronnie told
him, sitting on one side of the long conference table, “every building
down in the village has got a story to tell about its past. Gramps told
me all of them when I was a boy, and I’ve never forgotten a one. Lots
of these stories I’ve told to the tourists who have come to see the
village. And do you know what so many of them have said to me when they
left? They said they’d never been anywhere that helped them so much
to understand how people lived and worked back in the last century.
And if the village can be saved, you know what we can do? Well, we’ve
got enough of the old furnishings left from the general store, for
instance, to fit it out just like it was a hundred years ago. And
Gramps says that with some fixing up we can do the same thing for the
gristmill, the smith shop, and even the main glassworks. Can’t we,
Gramps?” Ronnie asked, smiling across at his grandfather.

“Why, you bet we can, boy! That village is just chuck-full of history.”

After the meeting Mr. Mercer, Ronnie’s grandfather and father, a lawyer
whom the historical society had hired, and the official from the Seaway
went into a smaller room in the back of the building and closed the
door. Ronnie, Phil, and Bill waited in the car. It was almost an hour
later before Gramps and Dad joined them.

Grandfather was smiling. “Well, we did it, lad!” he said to Ronnie
and the others. “We’ve got ourselves a proposition that’ll save the
village.”

During the ride home Gramps did most of the talking. “You’ve got to
put in the money you boys have earned and the money you found,” he
explained the terms of the agreement. “The historical society will lend
another three thousand--you’ve got to pay that back, Ronnie, from money
you get showing people around the village. The Seaway will pay the rest
of the bill, build the dam, and maintain it.”

“Yipee!” Ronnie exclaimed.

“I’m right proud of you, Ronnie--proud of all you boys,” Grandfather
added. “That Seaway fellow told me that it was what you boys have done
this summer that convinced him. He said any youngsters who would put
their hearts and souls and time into something worthwhile like this,
why, they deserved to get what they were working for.”

Late that night a thunderstorm broke. Thunder boomed incessantly, and
the lightning was so vivid that Ronnie’s room was as bright as noonday.
But twenty minutes later the storm had stopped and when Ronnie opened
his window again a cool breeze blew through.

When Grandfather came into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning
he was as full of life and pep as a puppy. “Prayed for this cool
weather, I did!” he exclaimed. “Prayed for cool weather and I prayed
for the village, too. Seems like I got both my wishes.”

After breakfast Ronnie and Grandfather took a walk. “I want to see the
village again,” Grandfather said. “I want to see it again knowing that
it’ll be here after I’m gone, and even after you’re gone, Ronnie.” He
stepped along briskly as if suddenly he’d found a new pair of legs.

They stood at the top of the bluff near a large bull hickory tree.
Below, the village lay peaceful and quiet in the early morning light.
The red brick of the glassworks caught the sunlight and reflected it,
glowing like molten lava.

“I’m proud of you, lad.” Grandfather was talking again. “I’m proud of
you for helping to save the village and bringing back honor and respect
to the Rorth name. And you know, boy, you took to yourself a little
bit of what we Rorths stand for, just from the working and fighting
you’ve been doing. Folks become what they believe in and fight for. You
understand what I’m trying to say to you, boy?”

Ronnie blushed. “No, sir, I don’t,” he answered.

“Well, you will some day. Yes, sir, boy,” he said, “we’ve had
everything pretty much the way we wanted it, haven’t we? Everything _I_
wanted anyway. All but one thing, that is.”

“What’s that, Gramps?”

“Well, darned if I didn’t lose the chess game to that old fox Donavon!
But then, guess I can’t hog the whole barrel of apples, can I?”




Transcriber’s Note:

The table of contents was added by the transcriber.

Variations in hyphenated words have been retained as published in the
original publication. The following has been changed:

  Page 41
    jabbed the tongs of his fork _changed to_
    jabbed the tines of his fork

  Page 42
    that had been handled _changed to_
    that had been handed



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