“Well, don’t be gone too long,” cautioned the widow. “You must remember that I am, in a way, responsible for you girls.”
“Oh, we’ll be careful,” Cora promised. “We’d take Freda with us, but perhaps she had better stay with you.”
“Yes, I think so. Besides, she is so nervous after what nearly happened last night, that I’d rather she wouldn’t go out. Oh, if only things were settled! If only we were sure we could get that property back, and not have to worry about it being taken away from us!”
“Have they been annoying you of late?” asked Cora, thinking perhaps there had been some developments of which she was unaware.
“No, nothing special, since that horrid woman. But it is a constant worry to me.”
“It must be,” returned Cora, sympathetically. “Well, we will hope for the best.”
Cora did not say so—even to her chums, but she had great hopes that something might develop from the events of this night. If the unscrupulous men could only be caught in some wrong-doing a hold might be obtained over them that would enable them to be defeated in court. Thus their claim to the property—which claim Cora felt sure was a false one—might be disproved.
That there were papers in existence which would show the widow and her daughter to be the rightful owners Cora did not doubt. Freda’s grandfather, from all accounts, was a careful business man, if eccentric in some ways. He would not have come into possession of property without having the papers to prove his claim. And he was not a man to put them in some safe deposit vault and leave no memorandum as to finding the key.
Perhaps they were concealed in some nook or cranny in the widow’s home. Cora made up her mind to have a search made after this night was over.
Then, too, Denny might be able to come upon them. Eccentric in some ways, as Freda’s grandfather had been, he might have hidden the papers in Denny’s cabin.