ome.

Toward this he now pushed. He wondered if he would find the door
fastened in any way. One touch told him it was not.

And so, without hesitation, Elmer strode across the threshold into what
had once been the happy home of a contented miller, until trouble came,
and tragedy ended it all.

Like the mill itself the house was fast falling into a state of decay.

It was only a cottage of some four rooms, all on the one floor. The boys
passed from one apartment to another until presently they had been over
all the territory comprised within those four walls, so far as they
could see.

Both Chatz and Lil Artha uttered exclamations that breathed their
disappointment.

Because each of them had failed to discover that upon which he had set
his mind he failed to see anything else.

Not so Elmer, who carried out the principle which he was forever holding
up before the others as a cardinal virtue which should govern a true
scout always.

He noted a number of things that the other two might have passed by,
simply because they refused to let their minds work outside of a certain
groove.

A frown came upon Elmer's face also, as though he did not wholly like
the looks of things.

"Well, he ain't here, that's sure," remarked Lil Artha, shrugging his
shoulders in disgust.

"He certainly isn't," muttered Chatz, who, however, was thinking of an
entirely different object than the one the tall boy referred to.

"Suppose we give him a shout, and see if there's any result?" suggested
Lil Artha.

"Do so, if you like," replied Elmer, in a tone that did not seem to
promise much faith in the outcome of this plan.

So the tall boy raised his voice and shouted in his loudest key. A few
stray bats that had taken up lodgings in various dark corners of the
four rooms went flapping through a broken sash. But beyond that nothing
came to pass.

"This sure beats the Dutch," remarked Lil Artha, using his bandana again
to wipe off the perspiration that had gathered in beads upon his
forehead.

Elmer was looking around again.

"Wonder if there can be a cellar under here?" he remarked, presently.

"I should say yes," replied the tall boy.

"Then there ought to be a trapdoor in the floor somewhere about. Look
around and see if you can find it, boys," Elmer continued, himself
stepping into the kitchen.

Chatz and the tall boy had hardly gotten well started in their search
than they heard Elmer calling.

"He's found it, sure!" o