isn't any snake--it's a mouse nest. There are four baby mice--I can
feel them. I'm going to put them in my pocket."

The children were so excited over the mice that they left the papers to
Dick Harding.

He carried them to the window and ran through them hastily.

"Pshaw, nothing but old newspapers--wartime papers most of them, with
long lists of men killed and wounded. Ugh--they certainly are gruesome!"

Dick dropped the pile and turned to have a look at the mice.

"Say," he added a moment later, staring at the minute heap of paper and
its tiny occupants which Chicken Little had deposited on a chair,
"there's writing on some of those scraps! They aren't all newspapers.
Are you sure you found everything there was, Chicken Little?"

Jane wasn't sure, so Sherm took the lantern and went back to look. He
found nothing, however, except a few scraps of paper.

In the meantime Dick Harding was running over the newspapers more
carefully, taking them one at a time to see if any letters or documents
could have been tucked away among them. He straightened up with a sigh
of disappointment as he finished.

"Another fond hope blasted," he complained. "I never loved a bug or
flower but what 'twas first to fade away."

The children looked at him in astonishment.

"No," he replied to their look of inquiry. "I'm not crazed with the
heat, but I was just dead sure we should find something. Let's tackle
the other two closets."

The exploring party moved on and made a thorough search of the other
closet ends, and the open spaces under the eaves, but without result.
One empty and extremely dirty pasteboard box was all they got for their
pains.

"There's no other place about the house where anything could be hidden,
is there?" asked Dick Harding of Mrs. Morton.

"I have never heard of any secret cupboards, Mr. Harding. The people who
lived here before we bought the house might have found letters and
destroyed them. But Alice said her mother, at the time of her father's
death, searched every place where business letters or papers could
possibly be concealed."

"Well, I suppose I'll have to give up," said Dick. "The worst of it is
I'm afraid Alice can't hold the stock without further evidence."

"I am glad Alice has her Uncle Joseph to protect her," said Mrs.
Morton. "But what black faces and hands, children! Go wash up
immediately."

The party did seem a little the worse for wear. It was a warm day and
trickles of perspirati