The same light
showed Winn to be surrounded by a number of similar packages.

The expression of complete bewilderment that appeared on the boy's face
as he saw these was so ludicrous that, as the match went out, a shout
of laughter rang through the "shanty."

"As long as they are so plenty, I guess we might as well burn them,
after all," said Billy Brackett, quietly. With this he struck another
match, relighted the little bundle of bills in his hand, and again
thrust it into the stove.

For a moment the others believed him to have lost his senses. Winn
made a wild dash at the stove door, but Billy Brackett caught his arm.

"It's all right, and I'm not half so big a fool as I may appear," he
said, laughing. "Do you remember our late friends the 'river-traders'?
And that they were counterfeiters? And that they occupied this very
'shanty' for several weeks? And that, after losing it, they made
desperate attempts to regain its possession? And that we wondered why
they had ceiled this room; also, what had become of their stock in
trade?"

To each of these questions Winn gave an affirmative answer.

"Well," continued Billy Brackett, "the mystery is a mystery no longer.
They ceiled this room to provide a safe and very ingenious hiding-place
for their goods; they wished to regain possession of the raft, that
they might recover them. They failed, and so lost them. Now, by the
merest accident, we have found them."

"Do you mean--" began Winn, slowly.

"I mean," said Billy Bracket, "that while we are apparently possessed
of abundant wealth, it is but the shadow of the substance. In other
words, every one of those bills is a counterfeit, and the sooner they
are destroyed the better."

In spite of this disappointing announcement, the desire of the
raftmates to discover the full extent of the "river-traders'" secret
hoard was so great that, having found a candle, they proceeded by its
light to tear off the whole of the interior sheathing of the room.
They found a quantity of the counterfeit money, which Billy Brackett,
sustained by Mr. Manton, insisted upon burning then and there. They
also found, carefully hidden by itself, a package containing exactly
one hundred genuine one-hundred-dollar bills.

"Enough," said Billy Brackett, quietly, "to refund the hundred they got
from Glen and Binney, to repay Major Caspar for the wheat they dumped
overboard, and to make good the loss of the _Whatnot_, which so nearly
b