ardon, grew pale and clenched his fist.

"That's it," he cried. "There _are_ some other papers, don't you
suppose? Lawyer Estes said there might be; but they couldn't find them,
though they hunted through the mill. I just know there are some. Witham
knew it, too. That's what he was after. Tim, you've found out something
big, I tell you. We've just got to get into that mill again and go
through it. Don't you say a word to anybody, Tim."

Tim's eyes opened wide with astonishment--but he promised.

All through the work of striking and packing the two tents, and stowing
the stuff into the wagon, Henry Burns and John Ellison discussed this
new discovery; what it might mean and what use could be made of it. And
all the way home, on the long, dusty road, they talked it over. They
were late getting started, and it was eight o'clock when they turned in
at the Ellison farm.

The mill had ceased grinding for two hours, and night had settled down.
But, as they got out of the wagon, John Ellison called to Henry Burns
and pointed over the hill toward the mill.

"Do you see?" he said softly, but in excited tones. "Do you see? That's
what I see night after night, sometimes as late as nine o'clock."

There was somebody in the old mill, evidently, for the light as from a
lantern was discernible now and again through one of the old, cobwebbed
windows; a light that flickered fitfully first from one floor, then from
another.

"It's Witham," said John Ellison. "He's always in the mill now, early
and late. I'll bet he's hunted through it a hundred times since he's had
it. It gets on his mind, I guess; for I've seen him come back down the
road many a night, after the day's work was over, and he'd had supper,
and go through the rooms with the lantern."

"Well," said Henry Burns, quietly, "we'll go through them, too. We'll do
it, some way."

CHAPTER XV

A HUNT THROUGH THE MILL

"Say, Henry, guess what I'm going to do," said John Ellison, as he met
Henry Burns in the road leading from Benton, a few days following the
return from camp.

Henry Burns, leaning on the paddle he was carrying, looked at his friend
for a moment and then answered, with surprising assurance, "You're going
to work for Witham."

John Ellison stared at his friend in amazement.

"You ought to be a fortune-teller," he exclaimed. "You can't have heard
about it, because I haven't told anybody--not even the folks at home.
How'd you know?"

"I didn't," r