CHAPTER VII
A WAR OF WORDS
No words of mine can express the feeling that came over me as I read the superscription written on the envelope I had picked up in the old tool house.
Was it possible that this envelope contained the solution of the mystery that had taken away our good name and sent my father to prison? The very thought made me tremble.
The packet was not a thick one. In fact, it was so thin that for an instant I imagined the envelope was empty. But a hasty examination proved my fears groundless.
In nervous excitement I put the lantern down on the top of a barrel, and then drew from the envelope the single shoot of foolscap that it contained. A glance showed me that the pages were closely written in a cramped hand extremely difficult to read.
For the moment I forgot everything else—forgot that the Widow Canby's house had been robbed and that I was on the track of the robber—and drawing close to the feeble light the lantern afforded, strove with straining eyes and palpitating heart to decipher the contents of the written pages.
"I, Nicholas Weaver, being on the point of death from pneumonia, do make this my last statement, which I hereby swear is true in every particular."
This was the beginning of the document which I hoped would in some way free my father's character from the stain that now rested on it.
Exactly who Nicholas Weaver was I did not know, though it ran in my mind that I had heard this name mentioned by my father during the trial.