“What the dickens?...” says Poppy, looking back at the house from the dirt road. “Do you suppose she’s got a prisoner down there?—or that some one is hiding in the house?”
“Maybe it was the old river pirate,” I joked.
“Who?”
“Old Peg-leg Weir.” Then remembering that he wasn’t posted on the strange history of the old place, I explained: “He’s the man who built the house in the first place. Didn’t you notice how queer it is?”
“I saw that it has unusually thick walls.”
“Yes,” says I, “and the farther down the walls go the thicker they get.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” I countered, “if you were a river pirate, and liable to be surprised any minute by a posse, wouldn’t you like to have plenty of secret doors to jump through?”
“Do you mean to say that there are secret doors in the cellar walls?”
“That’s the story.”