“I’ll tell you,” answered Bert Field earnestly. “Jabez Trask has a fortune in his keeping. He pretends that it belongs to him, but I think it belongs to me.”
CHAPTER XXVI
A STORY OF INTEREST
The cadets listened with much interest to what Bert Field had to say. Here indeed was a mystery—yet more of a mystery was to follow.
“I won’t go into all the details of the case,” went on the strange youth, “for it would take too long. As I said, Jabez Trask sent me to boarding school. He also went into court and had himself appointed my guardian. My folks left a little money and this he handled to suit himself.”
“I believe he is equal to it—he looked like a miser,” was Pepper’s comment.
“In a roundabout way I heard about the Robertson mill and the Robertson fortune. My mother and the Robertsons were related and I heard that when William Robertson died he had expected to leave his property to my mother’s side of the family and not to the Trask side. I wrote to Jabez Trask about this and he came to see me. He was furious and said the fortune belonged to him. He admitted that William Robertson’s will was missing. Nobody knew what had become of the paper.”
“This sounds like a story book,” said Dale, as Bert Field paused.
“Perhaps, but I am telling you only facts. Well, time slipped by and I was treated worse and worse at the boarding school. Then, one day I got a letter from an old woman who had once been a servant in the Robertson family. She said she was dying, but before she died she wished to tell me something. She said she was sure that William Robertson had made a will leaving his property to my mother and her heirs. She said she thought he had gone to the old mill with it, and that maybe the will was hidden in the mill. She added that Jabez Trask knew about this will and was looking for it and probably wanted to destroy it, so that he could keep possession of the Robertson fortune. That letter set me to thinking, and one day I up and ran away from the school.”
“To find the will, I suppose,” said Andy.
“Yes. But first I had to locate the old mill—and also locate Jabez Trask, who had moved, as I told you. You must remember that I was a stranger in this part of the country and had never known much about the Robertsons or the old mill. When I found the old mill I learned that it had the reputation of being haunted.”