University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXV.
THE TELL-TALE COINS.

"TELL him, Josh, what you was agivin' us; and if it don't make Rod sit up and take notice, I miss my guess," Hanky Panky started in to say, nudging the other chum as he spoke.

"So, it's Josh who's made some sort of discovery, is it?" asked Rod; "when we left on our walk he was head over ears in fixing his engine. Has any meddler been bothering with our machines; is that it, Josh?"

The other made a gesture of disdain.

"Not much," he observed, as though that in itself would have been a mere trifle in comparison with the momentous news he had to communicate; "somethin' bigger'n cripplin' our motorcycles, believe me, Rod."

"Well, get busy then, and tell us; this is no time to draw a story out just for the sake of making the rest of us show that we can be impatient as well as you generally are. Go ahead, Josh!" urged Rod.

"Well, it's this way," began the other, thus appealed to; "I'd just finished tellin' Hanky and

Rooster here, when we sighted you two acomin'. But then, believe me, it'll bear repeatin'. You see, I got all through fixin' my engine, and not wantin' to go indoors and bother wakin' up the sleepers," with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of Rooster and Hanky Panky, "why, I just thought I'd take a stroll around the grounds, which looked kind of cool an' invitin'.

"I happened to be over among the trees not far away from that right wing of the house, when I noticed that a wagon had come in from the road. Now, I didn't mean to be nosey, I give you my word, Rod; and sitting there I was watchin' idly, when I saw the colonel come hurryin' out of the house, and say somethin' in an excited way to the driver, that made him jerk the lines, and stir his horse to movin' again.

"He came right along toward me, and then turned in close to that wing of the house. I begun to get a little curious by that time, and watched what was agoin' on. And say, the more I saw of his actions the more I felt that he was hurryin' things for fear somebody'd glimpse him; because, you see he'd step back, and look all 'round first, and then go to the old wagon, lift somethin' up, and carry the same down into the cellar under that wing of the house.

"Course 'twas none of my business if the colonel chose to keep his supplies in such a queer place; but

all the same, knowing what I did, I just couldn't help thinking I'd give somethin' to peek into one of them same packages, and see what sort of stuff they contained. And believe me, they seemed some heavy, too, because that man when he shouldered the same, just staggered along."

"And," broke in Hanky Panky, when Josh paused for breath, "he said as how he was even a thinkin' of sneakin' up and takin' a look one time, when the feller who drove the wagon was down below; but his nerve failed him."

"Aw! what makes you say that, Hanky?" exclaimed Josh, indignantly; "it wasn't so much a question of nerve, as that I thought what a fool I'll feel like if that old fierce lookin' colonel happened to come along just then, and caught me snoopin' in his private business. Yes, and I was thinkin' of Elmer here, too, and how it might play hob with his little game if I got nabbed. Nobody that I know of ain't never accused me of being afraid. I guess, now, it's generally the other way; and I'm more apt to break up a game by bein' in too big a hurry."

"Right you are, Josh," said Elmer, laying a hand on the arm of the speaker; "and it was mighty nice of you to think of me at such a time. I can understand, suh, the temptation you had to fight against, and believe me, I surely appreciate it."

"Yes, and when you resisted that inclination to take a peep, Josh," remarked Rod, warmly, "you

were winning a splendid victory, even though it might seem a very little thing in the eyes of Rooster or Hanky Panky here. But go on, and tell us more, because you've got both of us worked up to near fever-pitch already."

"So I just kept quiet, and took it all out in lookin'," Josh went on to say, while he flashed a look of triumph toward the one who had questioned his bravery. "After the man, he had carried the three packages down there, he came out, looked around once more in that suspicious way, and started back for the gate. I saw the colonel meet him out here, and he handed a wad of bills over. Say, I guess, now, there must a been all of a hundred dollars in that lot, if there was one. Whatever she was that fellow brought, it cost high. Then the colonel he came back here, and looked all around; but I lay low, and he never thought I was there in them bushes."

"Then you escaped being discovered, did you?" asked Rod, as Josh paused.

"Well, I did, but it was ony through the closest shave you ever heard tell of; and this was the way it happened," Josh went on, with a wide grin, as though he felt that he had really done something to be proud of. "You see, I happened to be in a pocket, and there was only one way in and out. After the colonel he'd taken himself off, I was thinkin' I'd just better get away, when who should

I see acomin' right along that path but old Silas."

"You mean Mr. Goober, the lawyer, don't you?" Rod asked.

"Sure, that same old slick article; and just like he always does, he was turnin' them sharp eyes of his to the right and to the left as he walked. He made me think that he was one of them mountain feud men that's everlastingly expectin' somebody to take a pot-shot at him from the bushes. But believe me, I was some worked up when I saw Silas. 'Cause why -- as I was telling you, there was only one path in and out of that pocket, an' he was awalkin' straight along the same!"

"Wow! that was some exciting, let me tell you!" Hanky Panky found a chance to interject, before Josh could catch his breath so as to continue.

"I saw that he was agoin' to run slap onto me if he kept acomin'; and that it was up to me to shunt him off on a side track in a hurry if I wanted to save my bacon. And let me tell you there was mighty little time left for me to do much high thinkin'.

"Then all of a sudden somebody seemed to call out away back yonder, just so it came stealin' to the ears of Mr. Goober: 'Silas! Silas, come here!' And say, he perked up his head, twisted his neck around, and then turnin' in his tracks, hurried away again."

"Just in the nick of time for you, eh, Josh?"

remarked Rod, although he more than half guessed the secret.

"I never made that little accomplishment of sending my voice to a distance pay me bigger results than right then and there, believe me?" Josh hastened to remark, with a trace of pardonable pride in his tones.

"Good for you!" exclaimed Elmer, reaching out and grasping the other's hand, which he shook vigorously, in his warm Southern fashion.

"Then of course you found your chance to get away?" questioned Rod.

"Well, you just ought to have seen me slide, that's all. I've stolen lots of bases in my time, but I never made better time than when I found my chance to get out of that trap. That's the extent of my story, boys. Perhaps there ain't anything much to it, you'll think; but if you could have seen how worried the colonel looked when he came hurrying out to meet that man, you'd say he was mighty much afraid one of us'd pop up, and keep tabs on what he was doing. Why would he act that way if it was only some provisions the fellow was bringin' him? A guilty conscience was workin' over-time there, take my word for it."

"And he says, Josh does," Rooster went on to remark, not wanting to be entirely left out of the conversation, "that they wasn't barrels or demi- johns that the man was carryin' into the cellar,

either. I asked him that the first thing, because I thought they'd want such things, if so be they was makin' moonshine stuff here."

"Oh! we've talked all that over," Rod hastened to observe, "and come to the conclusion that there's really nothing in it. Colonel Pepper wouldn't bother dabbling in such a picayune business. If he was going in for anything at all, he'd strike for bigger stakes."

"As how, Rod?" instantly demanded the shrewd Josh; "because, if you two have been talking it all over, chances are you've struck pay dirt."

But the other only shook his head in the negative, while Elmer went on to say:

"We haven't come to any conclusion yet, in the matter, boys; although we know that those two strange men who stopped at our camp on the side of the road, and asked us a lot of what seemed like silly questions, are watching this house, because we discovered them on a hilltop with a pair of field glasses focused this way."

"You don't say so?" ejaculated Josh; while Rooster and Hanky Panky, who had fallen back a little, seemed to be disputing over some matter that must have been occupying their attention at the very moment Josh beckoned to them to follow him out to the gate, so that he could impart his stirring news without a chance of being overheard.

"Don't care," Hanky was heard to say, "I found

that place first. I was silly to tell you about it; might a known you'd have all the luck, like you nearly always do."

"How many'd you get?" Rooster asked, straight out; and the other shrugged his shoulders dolefully as he replied:

"Never another after that first one; but I saw you pick up a couple; or else you make out to be doin' it, just to make me feel bad."

"I got three!" exclaimed Rooster, triumphantly.

"Then show up, and prove it, else I'll think you're only yarnin'," Hanky Panky went on to say, belligerently.

"Hey! don't b'lieve what I say,-- then just watch that, and that, and there's the third one, all as bright as anything, and as good as any you ever saw. That's the time I got one on you, Hanky. Sure it's worth crowin' over;" and before Rod could stop him, Rooster had slapped both hands down along his thighs, and given vent to a vociferous clarion call that would have made any barnyard champion of the flock come running, ready to do battle.

Rod, however, was instantly on the alert. He realized that possibly here was another happening that might prove to have a bearing on the mystery by which they found themselves surrounded.

"What is it you're both talking about?" he asked, turning on the disputants. "Let's see what you found, Rooster!"

"Sure I will, Rod," replied the other, as he again dove a hand into his pocket; "but there's no use huntin' around that place in hopes of pickin' up any more of the same blessed things; because me'n Hanky just combed it over and over."

But Rod hardly heard what the other was saying, for his startled eyes were riveted on the three shining discs that lay in the extended palm of Rooster -- all of them gleaming with newness, and undoubtedy silver half- dollars!