"No, I'll go back to my cabin," was the hermit's answer. "I'm going to pack up and go back to the mainland to live, now that my medical spring is safe."
"Then the rest of us will go," suggested the young man.
They left the little glade where the hot spring made grass grow in the middle of Winter, and soon reached the hermit's cabin again. He went in there, while Sammy and his chums, with Mr. Jessup and Mr. Houghton, kept on to the deserted mansion, telling the hermit they would soon be back to look after him. The doctor, whom Mr. Jessup had brought, had gone back to the mainland in his cutter.
"Shall we go right in?" asked Sammy, when Mr. Houghton and the others reached the old house, and prepared to enter.
"Of course—why not?" inquired the young man, with a smile.
"Well, I was thinking that the counterfeiters——"
Mr. Houghton laughed.
"I'll explain all that," he said.
The place of the secret room was soon reached. It was just as when Sammy and his chums had rushed away from it after the explosion that had so frightened them. The sliding door was still wedged back with the piece of shutter.
Mr. Houghton went over to the table on which was piled the strange apparatus. He moved some of the wires and springs.