While Anne and Patsy were coursing the bees, Dick was on his way to the Old Sterling Mine. He had been there several times lately, looking about jealously to see if Mr. Smith were investigating the mine. He had not seen any one there again, and he had about decided that Mr. Smith was looking over the timber in the Big Woods and had merely stopped to see the old mine as a curiosity.
And so, on this pleasant autumn afternoon, Dick went up the hill from the creek, carefree and whistling merrily. Suddenly his tune changed to a sharp, dismayed exclamation, and he stopped to gaze at the ground; yes, there were footprints; and the tracks led—he followed swiftly and anxiously—to the mine opening.
“They’ve been here! They’ve been back to my mine!� he exclaimed.
Instead of pulling his improvised ladder from its hiding place beside the fence, he went to the mine hole and looked in. An old dead pine branch was hanging on the edge; it might have been tossed there by a gust of wind. Dick pulled it aside. It covered a ladder made of rough timber. Some one had been in the mine; might be there now!
Dick stood very still for several minutes, listening intently and looking sharply around. Then he descended the ladder, with a shivery feeling that some one might tumble a rock or send a shot on him from above or drag him down by the legs or thrust a knife through him from below. Nothing happened. He descended safely, and the tunnel ahead of him was black and silent. He lighted his candle and went to the main room. The odor of stale tobacco smoke hung about the place and there were a few scraps of torn newspaper here and there.
He went on toward the lower tunnel. At a sudden little noise, he jumped and put out his candle and stood on the alert. There was no glimmer in the murky darkness. All was still. The noise—if he had really heard any noise—was probably outside, the fall of a dead bough or the cawing of a crow.
He relighted his candle and went on and set to work, but his spade made a horribly loud noise. He felt as if some one were listening; creeping down the tunnel; slipping behind him. Cold chills ran over him; he peered into the darkness outside his little circle of light; he dropped his spade and crouched behind a projecting rock.
Oh, it was useless to try to work! He put his tools under a pile of old timbers and went back. Just as he was starting up the ladder, he noticed a pile of leaves between the foot of the ladder and the wall. It was not there the last time he was in the mine. He kicked the leaves aside. Under them was an old iron mortar and pestle.
Something in the mortar glittered in the candlelight. Silver; silver, of course! Dick picked up some of the particles to examine. There was a little sharp pain and his finger began to bleed. Why, those particles were glass! And there were bottles and pieces of bottles. What on earth was any one doing here with a mortar and pestle, breaking up glass? It was the strangest, silliest, most absurd thing! Why, what—— Oh, the glass in the flour at Larkland mill! Had Germans, who put that glass in the flour, been hiding in the mine? Suppose they should come back and find him here!
He hastily pushed the leaves over the mortar and climbed out. It never entered his head then to question how German strangers would know of this deserted place almost forgotten by the community. He sped down the path, through the woods, took the path to Larkland, and hurried to the hayfield where he saw Mr. Osborne at work.