“Yes, we’ll do that. But first we must find Allan and Syd. And we don’t seem to be making any headway. Do you think that Sally knows where the boys are?”
But Sally knew nothing about Allan and Syd. She had suspected when she saw Bud Hyslop and Jim Heron with their heads together that they were hatching a plot, but she could not find out what it was.
“I wish I could help you,” said Sally anxiously. “Then I’d know that you would help me with my problem.”
“We’ll help you anyway, Sally, and since you’re an American you’d have no trouble in getting back to your own country. Only how are we going to prove that?”
“I can prove it,” said Sally. “I have a little box of my mother’s things and my birth certificate is among them. I was born in Boston.”
“Then everything is fine. And as soon as we get the boys safely home, we’ll come up here and get you. Let me see your birth certificate,” said Terry.
“I can’t now, Terry. It’s hidden so Mrs. Heron can’t find it. Now that I bring her my wages she wants to keep me. And she thinks if she could destroy my birth certificate, I could never go back to the States. That isn’t true, is it?”
“Of course it isn’t,” said Terry. “But I’d like to see that paper just the same. It might help us find your uncle.”
“All right, Terry, I’ll go and get it now.” The girls watched from the tiny window as Sally slipped out of the door, stood for a moment and talked to Jim Heron, then started down the trail toward the Cove. But once out of sight she took the opposite course, climbing up the hill behind the town and over to the next low ridge. Burrowed into the hillside was an old abandoned mine tunnel. Sally entered the passage timidly. Far in the black depths she pried with her fingers in a deep crevice and brought forth a small copper box. Clasping it tightly in her hand she ran from the tunnel as if pursued. The tunnel was the safest place she knew about. It ran into the hill for fifty feet or more and was said to be haunted. Sally didn’t believe in ghosts but still she never felt quite comfortable in that long dark burrow in the hill.
As Sally emerged into the daylight she heard a familiar whistle.