ked the old desk in a fury.

"Oh! that's too bad!" gasped Mrs. Harrison. "I _did_ want the old thing."

Spink grinned at them. "I'll make you both sicker than you be!" he
snarled. "Out o' the way!"

He banged the desk two or three more clips--and out fell a secret panel
in the back of it.

"By cracky! money--real money!" yelled Lucas Pritchett. "Oh, Mr. Harris!
we done it now!"

For from the shallow opening behind the panel there were scattered upon
the ground several packets of apparently brand-new, if somewhat discolored
banknotes.

Professor Spink dropped the axe and picked up the packages eagerly. Others
crowded around. They ran them over quickly.

"Five thousand dollars--if there's a cent!" gasped somebody, in an awed
whisper.

"An' she sold it for fifty dollars," said Lucas, almost in tears.

CHAPTER XXIV

PROFESSOR SPINK'S BOTTLES

But Professor Lemuel Judson Spink did not look happy--not at all!

While the neighbors were crowding around, emitting "ohs" and "ahs" over
his find in the broken old desk, the proprietor of "the breakfast for the
million" began to look pretty sick.

"Five thousand dollars! My mercy!" gasped the Widow Harrison. "Then Bob
_didn't_ lie about bringing home that fortune when he came from the army."

"It's a shame, Widder!" cried one man. "That five thousand ought to belong
to you."

"Dad got it right; didn't he?" said Lucas, shaking his head sadly. "He
allus said Harrison was trying to tell him where it was hid when he had
his last stroke."

Harris Colesworth spoke for the first time since the packages of notes
were discovered:

"Mr. Harrison told Cyrus Pritchett that he had hid away 'that that would
be wuth five thousand.' It's plain what he had in his mind--and a whole
lot of other foolish people had it in their minds just after the Civil
War."

"What do you mean, Mr. Colesworth?" cried Lyddy, who was clinging to the
widow's hand and patting it soothingly.

"Why," chuckled Harris, "there were folks who believed--and they believed
it for years after the Civil War--that some day the Federal Government was
going to redeem all the paper money printed by the Confederate States----"

"_What?_" bawled Lucas, fairly springing off the ground.

"Confederate money?" repeated the crowd in chorus.

No wonder Professor Spink looked sick. He broke through the group,
flinging the neat packages of bills behind him as he strode away.

"How about the desk, Professor?" s