oman replied; "and that is why I
think it must have been all a fraud. If I had been able to spare the
money I would have taken a trip to Florida and looked into the matter
myself, but I never felt that I could afford it."

[Illustration: The three girls bent eagerly over Mrs. Bragley as she
opened one paper after another. (_See page 65_)]

"It is too bad you couldn't have gone," said Rhoda thoughtfully; "for if
there was fraud you would then at least have found it out and could have
had somebody punished. It looks to me that, knowing you were a widow and
without means to look into things, they have deliberately held back any
money that might have been coming to you and cheated you out of your
rights."

The girls had been so interested in the papers and the story that went
with them that they had thought of nothing else. Now Nan, suddenly
glancing up, noticed that the old face looked white and tired. She rose
at once.

"I'm afraid we've stayed too long," she said penitently. "We ought to
have remembered that Mrs. Bragley isn't strong."

She replaced the papers in the drawer, smoothed the bed covers, and gave
the injured woman a comforting pat on the shoulders.

"I hope you will be well again very soon," she said, "and then perhaps
some way will be found to look into this matter."

"Anyway, we're going to try to do something about it," promised Rhoda as
they took their leave.

The girls found when they got outside that it had begun to snow.

"Looks to me as if we were in for another storm," was Rhoda's comment,
as they trudged along.

"Who cares?" cried Bess, catching up a handful of the snow and making a
snowball.

"You can't hit anything," scoffed Nan. "Try it."

"All right, here goes for the blacksmith shop," answered Bess gaily, for
they were almost directly in front of the little smithy.

"Gracious! Going to try to hit the whole building?" queried the girl
from Rose Ranch.

"A blind man could do that," added Nan.

"I'm going to hit the door--the very middle of the door," answered Bess.

"Oh, Bess! if the man is inside, what will he think?" said Nan.

"I don't care what he thinks," was the quick reply. "Here goes!"

Away flew the snowball, and it must be admitted that Bess's aim was
decidedly good, for the snowball sailed directly for the center of the
door of the smithy.

But as the girl launched the snowball the door of the blacksmith shop
opened and a man came forth.

Spat! the snowball la