"What are you going to do with that old thing?" asked Harvey. "This
isn't Fourth of July."

"That's my fiddle," replied Henry Burns, coolly. "I've got the string in
my pocket."

With which reply, he took hold of one handle of the wash-boiler and John
Ellison the other; and they proceeded up the bank. The others followed,
grinning.

"Play us a tune," suggested young Tim.

"Not unless I have to," replied Henry Burns. "You may hear it, and
perhaps you won't."

All was desolate and deserted, as they made a circuit of the
surroundings of the mill. It certainly offered no attractions to
visitors, after nightfall. The crazy old structure, unpainted and
blackened with age, made a dark, dismal picture against the dull sky.
The water fell with a monotonous roar over the dam; the cold dripping of
water sounded within the shell of the mill. The wind, by fits and
starts, rattled loose boards and set stray shingles tattooing here and
there. Dust blew down from the roadway.

"He'll not be out to-night," remarked Harvey, as they looked up the road
in the direction of the Half Way House.

"You can't tell," replied John Ellison. "We've seen the light in here
some nights that were as bad as this. What say, shall we go in?"

They followed his lead, around by the way Henry Burns and Harvey had
once before entered, and, one by one, went in through the window. Then
they paused, huddled on a plank, while John Ellison scratched a match
and lighted a sputtering lantern, the wick of which had become dampened.
Across the planking they picked their way, and entered the main room on
the first floor.

Then Henry Burns and John Ellison made another trip and brought in Henry
Burns's "fiddle," greatly to the amusement of the others.

"That goes on the top floor," said Henry Burns, and they ascended the
two flights of stairs with it, depositing it upside down, in a corner of
the garret that was boarded up as a separate room, or large closet. Then
Henry Burns, producing from his pocket a piece of closely woven cotton
rope, skilfully tossed one end over a beam above his head; seized the
end as it fell, quickly tied a running knot and hauled it snug. The
rope, made fast thus at one end to the beam, drew taut as he pulled down
on it.

"That's the fiddle-string, eh Jack?" laughed Henry Burns. "We've made a
horse-fiddle before now, haven't we? that rope's got so much resin on it
that it squeaks if you just look at it."

He passed the free end