“My idea is that it’s either buried or they got rid of it,” said Penhallow, promptly. It had suddenly occurred to him that Mendoza was a poor chaperon for a good-looking widower—not old—and a pretty girl engaged to Marc Scott. It was a disturbing idea, for Sam was of a conventional turn of mind. “If he’s buried it, we’ll have to dig all over the place, and I take it none of us is much on the dig.”
“Wait a minute, I’ve got an idea myself,” said Polly, with dignity. “You look in the chicken-house and I’ll take a peep into the shed in the corral.”
Sam shrugged his shoulders and started for the chicken-house.
“Scott’s gettin’ his match all right,” he muttered, rebelliously. “Goin’ to make him toe the chalk line, that girl.”
“Mr. Penhallow, come here!” Polly’s voice was shrill and excited. “Come here!”
“Comin’, lady. Did you find it?”
“Look here.” Polly was at the side of an old cart, peering and poking through the sticks of wood and bits of old straw which filled it. “See, down there—doesn’t that look to you like something?”
Sam Penhallow felt a sudden thrill; a thrill he had not known the like of since he led the posse across the border after the kidnapping bandit. He bent an excited gray eye over the hole indicated.
“Sure does look like there was somethin’ besides wood in there—somethin’ bulky, and there’s some sacking.—Hi, Mendoza, come here and lend a hand!”
In the meantime he and Polly began throwing the wood out of the wagon.