“He does?” cried Sammy, with wide-open eyes.
“Yes!” went on Tess, with a wise shake of her head. “Now you listen to me, both of you, and don’t you breathe it to a soul!”
This was more exciting than any imaginary happening Sammy had ever brought up, not excepting his dramatic one about the Russian wolves.
“There’s ten thousand dollars in our cellar,” declared Tess. “Those funny men who came pretending to fix a water pipe were after it, but Uncle Rufus scared them away. Hop Wong knows where it is, but he’s scared, too.”
“Where ’bouts you s’pose it is?” asked Sammy in a whisper.
“I don’t know exactly,” answered Tess. “But it’s in our cellar and we’re going to find it. Come on! We’ll go get it now!”
She started toward the slanting, open cellar door. For a moment Sammy and Dot watched her and then, fired by the spirit of what they had heard, the other two children started down into the dark depths, intent on making some explorations.
CHAPTER XVI
THE STORM
Rather scary it was, this venturing into the seldom-visited regions beneath Corner House. In fact Tess and Dot never remembered having gone there before unaccompanied by their older sisters. But they were driven by a powerful motive—two motives, in fact.
One was curiosity, than which there is no stronger for a child or animal. The other was the desire to “show off” before the older folks—Ruth, Agnes and the boys.