ite and was apparently much concerned that his fellow townsmen
should have been inconvenienced by any neglect of his. He would write to
his attorneys at once, so he said.

"He said a whole lot more, too," added Higgins. "Said he had never been
better served than by the folks in this town, and that I kept a fine
store, and so on and so forth. But I haven't got any money yet. Anybody
else had any better luck?"

No one had, although several had had similar interviews with the master
of "Silverleaf Hall."

"Obed looks as if he knew somethin'," remarked Weeks. "What is it,
Obed?"

Mr. Gott scornfully waved his hand.

"You fellers make me laugh," he said. "You talk and talk, but you don't
do nothin'. I b'lieve in doin', myself. When I went home t'other night,
thinks I: 'There's one man that might know somethin' 'bout old Hardee,
and that's Godfrey, the hotel man.' So I wrote to Godfrey up to Boston
and I got a letter from him. Here 'tis."

He read the letter aloud. Mr. Godfrey wrote that he knew nothing about
Major Hardee further than that he had been able to get nothing from him
in payment for his board.

"So I seized his trunk," the letter concluded. "There was nothing in it
worth mentioning, but I took it on principle. The Major told me a
lot about writing to his attorneys for money, but I didn't pay much
attention to that. I'm afraid he's an old fraud, but I can't help liking
him, and if I had kept on running my hotel I guess he would have got
away scot-free."

"There!" exclaimed the triumphant Obed, with a sneer, "I guess that
settles it, don't it? Maybe you'd be willin' to turn your bills over to
Squire Baker now."

But they were not willing. Higgins argued, and justly, that although the
Major was in all probability a fraud, not even a lawyer could get water
out of a stone, and that when a man had nothing, suing him was a waste
of time and cash.

"Besides," he said, "there's just a chance that he may have attorneys
and property somewheres else. Let's write him a letter and every one of
us sign it, tellin' him that we'll call on him Tuesday night expectin'
to be paid in full. If we call and don't get any satisfaction, why,
we ain't any worse off, and then we can--well, run him out of town, if
nothin' more."

So the letter was written and signed by every man there. It was a long
list of signatures and an alarming total of indebtedness. The letter was
posted that night.

The days that followed seemed long