“They must be around here. He ought to have kept ’em in the bank, or in a strong box; but he was always like that. Hidin’ his things away in curious places. He even did it with his tobaccy. A strange man!
“But I’ll wager the papers aren’t far from the land. That would be his way—to keep the papers near the land. ‘A place for everything and everything in its place,’ he used to say. What more natural than that he’d have the papers near the land?
“I wonder, though, did he stick ’em anywhere around me cabin? He come over here often enough to sit and chat. Ah, many’s the good old talk we used to have—a talk of the old days. Often I’d come in from me boat, and find him here. He might have brought the papers an’ hid ’em here when I was out. I wonder if he did?”
Denny looked around his simple cabin. He laid the oar down gently, as a thing revered. He walked about the room, looking in various places.
“No, the papers wouldn’t be here,” he mused. “I’d have found them before this. And those fellows, who came and upset my place when I wasn’t home—they’d have found ’em if they was here. I wonder what Grandfather Lewis did with them papers?”
It was a puzzle that others than Denny Shane would have given much to solve.
Cora and her chums looked at one another in the moonlight outside Denny’s cabin. His talk had revealed something to them, but there was no clue to the missing papers which could prove the title of Mrs. Lewis to the valuable land.
“Well, there’s one thing sure, Denny hasn’t been attacked as yet,” whispered Bess. “And the boys haven’t been here to warn him, or he’d show some signs of it.”
“I think you’re right,” agreed Cora. “What had we better do? Tell him ourselves?”
“That’s what I say—let’s warn him,” suggested Belle.