The bills had been rolled and tied with a piece of cord. Phil opened the roll easily. Bill got the flashlight from the shelf and they crouched together in a group while, one by one, Phil laid the big old-fashioned bills in a pile. There were mostly twenties and hundreds, with a few fives and tens. Altogether, Phil counted over two thousand dollars.
They examined the gold and silver coins next. With these their total came to twenty-one hundred dollars.
“Put the money back in the box,” Ronnie directed. “We’ve got to work fast. I sure feel uneasy about Mr. Caldwell coming back.”
“You two get the crates over underneath the opening,” Bill said, “and I’ll run over to the glassworks and get the rope. We’ll have this stuff out of here and locked up in our office before Caldwell even knows what’s going on. Then I’ll ask Pa to come down with the truck and we’ll take it up to your house, Ronnie.”
Bill had some trouble getting back up to the padlocked building, but he finally made it. When he had gone, Ronnie set to work lifting the crates from the shelf and carrying them over to the floor beneath the opening. Phil seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of matches, and he left Ronnie to explore up the culvert. By the time Ronnie had finished, Phil was back. He had a sheepish look on his face, but he was a little pale, too.
“What’s eating you?” Ronnie demanded.
“I—I just met up with Jacob Williams,” Phil answered. “I mean—what’s left of him.”
“You mean—you mean his bones are down there?” Ronnie asked, motioning in the direction Phil had just come from. It really shouldn’t surprise him, of course, he told himself. Great-great-grandfather Ezra had mentioned in his diary that he had found Jacob Williams’ body “down below” and that he didn’t have the strength to get him up.
When Bill returned with the rope, the three set to work bringing the crates up to the padlocked building. It was hard, exacting work. One end of the rope was tied to a rafter in the building and the other end fastened securely about one of the crates. Then it was a matter of pulling from the top and guiding the box along the way so that it didn’t crash against the sides at any time.
In all, there were six crates to be pulled up. The boys had removed their raingear and cumbersome boots, but by the time they had finished, they were dripping with perspiration and covered with dirt and grime.