eplied Henry Burns, smiling at the other's evident
surprise. "I only guessed. I knew by the way you looked that it was
something unusual; and I know what you're thinking of all the time; it's
about those papers. So I've been thinking what I'd do, if I wanted a
chance to look for them, and I said to myself that I'd try to go to work
in the mill, and keep my eyes open."

"Well, you've hit it," responded John Ellison. "I know he needs a man,
and I'm big enough to do the work. Say, come on in with me to-morrow,
will you? I hate to go ask Old Witham for work. You don't mind. Come in
and see what he says."

"I'll do it," replied Henry Burns. "I'll meet you at the foot of the
hill to-morrow forenoon at ten o'clock. Perhaps he'll hire me, too."

"You! you don't have to work," exclaimed John Ellison.

"No, but I will, if he'll take me," said Henry Burns. "I'll stay until I
get one good chance to go through the mill, and then I'll leave."

"You're a brick," said John Ellison. "I'm going to tell mother about the
scheme now. She won't like it, either. She'd feel bad to have me go to
work there for somebody else, when we ought to be running it ourselves.
Where are you going--canoeing?"

"Yes; come along?" replied Henry Burns. But John Ellison was too full of
his plan to admit of sport, and they separated, with the agreement to
meet on the following day.

John Ellison was correct in his surmise that Mrs. Ellison would oppose
his intention to work for Colonel Witham. Indeed, Mrs. Ellison wouldn't
hear of it at all, at first. It seemed to her a disgrace, almost, to ask
favour at the hands of one who, she firmly believed, had somehow tricked
them out of their own. But John Ellison was firm.

It would be only for a little time, at most; only that he might, at
opportune moments, look about in hope of making some discovery.

"But what can it possibly accomplish?" urged Mrs. Ellison. "Lawyer Estes
has had the mill searched a dozen times, and there has been nothing
found. How can you expect to find anything? Colonel Witham wouldn't give
you the chance, anyway. He's always around the mill now, and he's been
over it a hundred times, himself, I dare say. Remember how we've seen
his light there night after night?"

But John Ellison was not to be convinced nor thwarted. "I want to hunt
for myself," he insisted. "You kept it from me, before, when the lawyers
had the searches made."

"I know it," sighed Mrs. Ellison. "I hated to tell yo