"Oh! my father is that easy-going, nearly anybody could pull the wool over his eyes. He believed the yarn this pretended professor told him, I've no doubt, and thought it next door to nothing to let him keep the boxes in the mill for a short time. You know, my father is the best-hearted man in Stanhope, barring none. But I agree with the rest of you that this time he must have got stung. The professor is sure a bad egg. I must put my dad wise as soon as I get half a chance."
"Perhaps it's already too late to save him from getting stuck with a lot of the stuff they manufacture?" suggested Tom Betts.
"Oh! that could hardly be so," Jack replied, cheerfully. "When these bogus money-makers want to get rid of some of their stock they always have go-betweens do the job for them. It would be too easy tracing things if they passed the stuff themselves. So I guess my dad hasn't taken in any great amount of the counterfeits."
Bobolink was down on his knees. He even crawled into one of the overturned boxes, as though trying hard to ascertain from sundry marks what could have been contained under that wooden cover.
He came out, shaking his head, as though his efforts had not been attended by success.
"Looks like machinery of some kind, that's all I c'n tell," he admitted. "But of course, they'd need a press of some sort to work off the paper money on. Now, chances are, it's bein' put up right in that long shed yonder, that we c'n see. Question is, how're we goin' to get close enough to peek through a crack, and find out what's goin' on in there?"
Again did most of the boys look uneasily at each other. Paul believed that, now the great test had arrived, they were beginning to weaken a little. No doubt it did not seem so glorious a thing when you got close up, this spying on a band of lawless men, who would be apt to deal harshly with eavesdroppers, if caught in the act.
Still, he would not give the order to retreat unless they asked for it.
They had been allowed to settle that matter when they voted; it was up to
Bobolink, Tom, Bluff or Andy to start the ball rolling, if they began to
reconsider their hasty conclusion of a while back.
Bobolink looked toward the low, long shed, now plainly seen, in something of a rocky opening, with glimpses of water beyond which told how close to the shore it had been built. But he did not act as though as anxious to rush matters as before.
"Why d'ye believe they ever landed those boxes where they did, and toted 'em all the way up here, heavy as they were, when there's the water close by?" asked Jack.