But fast on the heels of that shock came another. The worker paused in his exertions to wipe the perspiration from his brow, and stood where the light of the lantern shone full in his face. Sahwah’s heart gave a great leap when she recognized Abner Smalley. Abner Smalley in the hidden sub-cellar of Onoway House, digging a hole in the wall! Sahwah forgot her own plight in curiosity as to what he was doing. She lay and watched him fascinated while he resumed his pounding. So he was the mysterious intruder who had wrought such terror among them! This, then, was the well digger’s ghost! What could he be searching for in the cellar of his neighbor’s house? Sahwah dug her feet into the soft sawdust as she watched the pick rise and fall. She had no idea of the flight of time. She thought it was only a few minutes since she had fallen into the sub-cellar. She lay thinking of the expressions on the faces of the girls when she would tell them her discovery. To think that she had been the one to solve the mystery! She felt a little disappointed that the mysterious intruder should have turned out to be someone they knew. It would have been more in keeping with her idea of romance to have found a prince shut up in the cellar.
While she was thinking these thoughts the light suddenly vanished and she heard the bang of a door shutting. She was in darkness once more. In a moment she heard footsteps retreating and dying away in the distance. All was silent again. It took her some moments to collect her thoughts sufficiently to realize a new and significant fact. Abner Smalley had not gone out by the door into the fruit cellar. There must be, then, another way of egress from the sub-cellar. Instantly Sahwah made up her mind to follow him and see how he had gotten out at the other end. Her feet were imbedded deeply in the sawdust and she became aware of the fact that her shoeless foot was resting against something with a sharp edge. She drew it away and then carefully felt with her hands for the object. She could not see it when she had it but it felt like a metal box of some kind, possibly tin. She carried it with her and moved toward the place where she now knew there was a door. She found the handle easily and opened it. This was the side of the wall toward which she had moved when she had run into the bin before, and so she did not discover it. A strong breath of air struck her as she advanced into this chamber. It was scarcely more than a passage, for by reaching out her arms she could touch the wall on both sides. She moved cautiously, fearing to fall again in the dark. She felt the place in the wall where Abner Smalley had made an indentation with his pick. She was wondering where this passage led and wishing it would come to an end soon, when she struck the already sore foot against what must have been the pickaxe set against the wall and fell on her nose once more. The tin box she carried was rammed into the pit of her stomach and knocked the breath out of her, but this time she had not hit her head.
She lay still for a moment trying to get her breath back. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the inky darkness by this time. She looked down and saw a stone floor beneath her. She turned her head to one side and saw a stone wall beside her. She turned over altogether and looked up—and saw the constellation Cassiopea flashing down at her from the sky. For a moment she could not believe her senses. Of all the strange sights she had seen nothing had affected her so powerfully as the sight of that familiar group of stars. What she had expected to see she could not tell, stone perhaps, but anything except the open sky. She sat up in a hurry and began to investigate where she was. The wall around her seemed to be circular and all of a sudden Sahwah had the answer. She was in the cistern—the old unused cistern which was not a great distance from the house. This, then, was the opening of the sub-cellar, the way in which Mr. Smalley had made his escape. There was usually a covering over the cistern, but he had evidently been in a hurry and left it off.
The fact that there were stars out took Sahwah’s breath away. It was night then; had she been in that cellar all day? It was inconceivable, yet it was undoubtedly true. By the faint glimmer of the stars she could make out that there were hollows in the stone side of the cistern by which a person could easily climb out. She lost no time in climbing when she made this discovery. What a joy it was to be coming up into God’s outdoors again! As she emerged from the cistern she saw Migwan standing in the garden beside the back porch. The moon shone full on her as she stepped out of the hole in the ground and just then Migwan caught sight of her. The apparition was too much for Migwan and she screamed one terrified scream after another until the girls came running from all over to see what fresh calamity had happened. Only seeing Sahwah standing in their midst and not having seen her appear magically out of the depths of the ground, they could not understand Migwan’s terror.
“Stop screaming, Migwan,” said Sahwah, and when Migwan heard her voice and saw that it was really she, she quieted down and listened while Sahwah told her tale of adventure since going down into the cellar to hide. The day had passed so quickly for Sahwah, she having lain unconscious until late in the afternoon, that she, of course, knew nothing of their frantic search for her and so could not comprehend why they made such a fuss over her return. They laughed and cried all at once and hugged her until she finally protested.
“What have you brought along as a souvenir of your trip?” asked Nyoda, who had regained her light-hearted manner now that Sahwah was safely back.
Sahwah looked down at the box she held in her hand. “I found it in the bin of sawdust,” she said. “It was just like playing ‘Fish-pond’ at the children’s parties. You put your hand in a box of sawdust and draw out a handsome prize.” And Sahwah laughed, her familiar long drawn-out giggle, that they had despaired of ever hearing again. She laid the box on the table. It was of tin, about nine inches long by three inches wide by three high, with a closely fitting cover. “Shall I open it, Nyoda?” she asked.
“I don’t see any harm in doing so,” said Nyoda. Sahwah took off the cover. There was nothing in the box but a folded piece of paper. She took it and spread it before them on the table.
“What is it?” they all cried, crowding around. The first thing that caught their eye was a slanting line drawn across the paper in heavy ink. There was some writing beside it, but this was so faded that it took some studying to make it out. Finally they got it. It read:
“Supposed extension of gas vein.” The upper end of the line was marked “36 feet west of cistern.” There was a cross at that point also, and this was marked, “Place where gas was struck at 300 feet.”