Part 30 (1/2)

”Yes; come along?” replied Henry Burns. But John Ellison was too full of his plan to admit of sport, and they separated, with the agreement to meet on the following day.

John Ellison was correct in his surmise that Mrs. Ellison would oppose his intention to work for Colonel Witham. Indeed, Mrs. Ellison wouldn't hear of it at all, at first. It seemed to her a disgrace, almost, to ask favour at the hands of one who, she firmly believed, had somehow tricked them out of their own. But John Ellison was firm.

It would be only for a little time, at most; only that he might, at opportune moments, look about in hope of making some discovery.

”But what can it possibly accomplish?” urged Mrs. Ellison. ”Lawyer Estes has had the mill searched a dozen times, and there has been nothing found. How can you expect to find anything? Colonel Witham wouldn't give you the chance, anyway. He's always around the mill now, and he's been over it a hundred times, himself, I dare say. Remember how we've seen his light there night after night?”

But John Ellison was not to be convinced nor thwarted. ”I want to hunt for myself,” he insisted. ”You kept it from me, before, when the lawyers had the searches made.”

”I know it,” sighed Mrs. Ellison. ”I hated to tell you that we were in danger of losing the mill.”

”Well, I'm going,” declared John Ellison, and Mrs. Ellison gave reluctant consent.

Still, she might have saved herself the trouble of objecting, and let Colonel Witham settle the matter--which he did, summarily.

It was warm, and miller Witham, uncomfortable at all times in summer sultriness, was doubly so in the hot, dusty atmosphere of the mill. The dust from the meal settled on his perspiring face and distressed him; the dull grinding of the huge stones and the whirr of the shaftings and drums somehow did not sound in his ears so agreeably as he had once fancied they would. There was something oppressive about the place--or something in the air that caused him an unexplainable uneasiness--and he stood in the doorway, looking unhappy and out of sorts.

He saw two boys come briskly down the road from the Ellison farm and turn up the main road in the direction of the mill. As they approached, he recognized them, and retired within the doorway. To his surprise, they entered.

”Well, what is it?” he demanded shortly as John Ellison and Henry Burns stood confronting him. ”What do you want? I won't have boys around the mill, you know. Always in the way, and I'm busy here.”

”Why, you see,” replied John Ellison, turning colour a bit but speaking firmly, ”we don't want to bother you nor get in the way; but I--I want to get some work to do. I'm big enough and strong enough to work, now, and I heard you wanted a man. I came to see if you wouldn't hire me.”

Colonel Witham's face was a study. Taken all by surprise, he seemed to know scarcely what to say. He s.h.i.+fted uneasily and the drops of perspiration rolled from his forehead. He mopped his face with a big, red handkerchief, and looked s.h.i.+ftily from one boyish face to the other.

”Why, I did say I wanted help,” he admitted; ”but,”--and he glanced at the youth who had spoken,--”I didn't say I wanted a boy. No, you won't do.”

”Why, I'm big enough to do the haying,” urged John Ellison. ”You've got the mill now. You might give me a job, I think.”

Possibly some thought of this kind might have found fleeting lodgment in the colonel's brain; of Jim Ellison, who used to sit at the desk in the corner; of the son that now asked him for work. Then a crafty, suspicious light came into his eyes, and he glanced quickly at John Ellison's companion.

”What do you want here, Henry Burns?” he demanded. ”I had you in my hotel at Samoset Bay once, and you brought me bad luck. You get out. I don't want you around here. Get out, I say.”

He moved threateningly toward Henry Burns, and the boy, seeing it was useless to try to remain, stepped outside.

”No, I don't want you, either,” said Colonel Witham, turning abruptly now to John Ellison. ”No boys around this mill. I don't care if your father did own it. You can't work here. I've no place for you.”

Despite his bl.u.s.tering and almost threatening manner, however, Colonel Witham did not offer to thrust John Ellison from the mill. He seemed on the point of doing it, but something stopped him. He couldn't have told what. But he merely repeated his refusal, and turned away.

It was only boyish impulse on John Ellison's part, and an innocent purchaser of the mill would have laughed at him; but he stepped nearer to Colonel Witham and said, earnestly, ”You'll have to let me in here some day, Colonel Witham. The mill isn't yours, and you know it.” And he added, quickly, as the thought occurred to him, ”Perhaps the fortune-teller you saw at the circus will tell me more than she told you. Perhaps she'll tell me where the papers are.”

For a moment Colonel Witham's heavy face turned deathly pale, and he leaned for support against one of the beams of the mill. Then the colour came back into his face with a rush, and he stamped angrily on the floor.

”Confound you!” he cried. ”You clear out, too. I don't know anything about your fortune-tellers, and I don't care. I've got no time to fool away with boys. Now get out.”

John Ellison walked slowly to the door, leaving the colonel mopping his face and turning alternately white and red; and as he stepped outside Colonel Witham dropped into a chair.

Then, as the boys went on together up the hill to the Ellison farm, Colonel Witham, recovering in a measure from the shock he had received, arose from his chair, somewhat unsteady on his legs, and began, for the hundredth and more time, a weary, fruitless search of the old mill, from the garret to the very surface of the water flowing under it.

And as Colonel Witham groped here and there, in dusty corners, he muttered, ”What on earth did he mean? The fortune-teller--how could he know of that? There's witchcraft at work somewhere. But there aren't any papers in this mill. I know it. I know it. I know it.”