forth into safety.

* * * * *

What they found in this box, a half-hour later, when it was opened
before all, in the Ellison dining-room, fairly took their breaths away;
fairly made the old house creak with the whoops that filled it; made
Mrs. Ellison weep a flood of joyous tears; nearly set John and James
Ellison clear out of their wits.

The old mill--wrecked to be sure, but valuable still, and easily to be
restored, with the rebuilding of the dam--the old mill was theirs. There
was the deed from Colonel Witham back to James Ellison, to prove it.
There were the deeds to the lands--all theirs now; no longer Colonel
Witham's. And more, and greater still the surprise. The old inn, the
Half Way House, was not Colonel Witham's, at all. It had been James
Ellison's, and there were the papers to show that. It was theirs now,
and all the land for acres around it. They were no longer poor. James
Ellison's bank had been found at last. The old mill's secret had been
torn from hiding by the freshet.

Some days later, following a protracted visit on the part of Lawyer
Estes to the Half Way House, there emerged from the doorway of the same,
at evening, a portly person that could not be mistaken. He brought out
the horse from the barn, harnessed it to a carriage, and drove away down
the road at a furious pace.

The next day, Colonel Witham was missing from the inn and from Benton.

"Have him arrested?" responded John Ellison, in answer to his brother's
query; "I don't care about that. He's gone, and good riddance. Hello,
there come Henry Burns and Jack Harvey. Let's all go down and take a
look at what's left of the mill."

"Poor gran'," said Bess to Mrs. Ellison, half timidly, "what will become
of her now?"

"We'll bring her up here, dear," said that motherly woman, "and take
care of her during the little life she has left. We can't leave her all
alone down there." And Bess danced gaily away to join the boys, her last
trouble gone and nothing but joy ahead.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE***

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