"The hundred dollars would have been nice in the bank account, wouldn't it?" Margy suggested, with a little sigh.
Now, Margy was not the only one who had had that idea, and Mrs. Williamson had talked to Fred about it at some length while they waited for the bus. Fred was club treasurer and very proud of the bank account opened in the name of the Riddle Club. Mrs. Williamson had been afraid that he would regret the hundred dollars Margy might have taken for finding the ring.
"Mother said," Fred reported, "that she hopes we'll never take money when we haven't done anything to earn it. She said it is all right to offer rewards and to accept them, if we really do something. If Margy had heard about the ring being lost and she had gone out and hunted and walked miles and worked her head off and then found it, it wouldn't be so bad to take the money. But Mother says all she did was to put her hand down in the crack and pull out the ring. If she kept it, that would be stealing. But if she took it back and took the hundred dollars that would be almost like paying her for not stealing. You have to really earn a reward."
"But we'll not ever have a chance to get a hundred dollar reward again," sighed Jess.
"How do you know?" Polly challenged. "I'm going to have good fortune all my life—my hand says so. Maybe I'll get a hundred dollars reward for doing something wonderful."
"Will you put it in the club fund?" asked Jess, and Polly promised that the money should go in the bank and be credited to the Riddle Club.
All were tired after their strenuous day, and there were no protests when Mrs. Marley suggested that every one go to bed at eight o'clock. Waking up at his usual hour the next morning, Fred discovered that Artie was not in the room.
"He's dressed and gone out," said Fred in surprise, noting that Artie's shoes were not under the chair where he always left them and that his clothes had disappeared.
Fred made haste to get downstairs and found that Artie was not in the house. The sound of hammering drew him to the barn. There was only one car in it now, of course, since one was in River Bend whither it had carried the three fathers.
"What do you call it you're doing?" asked Fred, peering in at the door.