Say, I gasped out loud when he said that like that, for I remembered that I’d had my New Testament out of my pocket when I was on the porch of the old cabin John Till was in, and had been holding it in my hand while I was looking out across the very pretty terribly stormy lake.
“You mean you haven’t looked at it since then?” Poetry asked me, astonished, and I said, “No.” I was astonished even at myself, but then of course we’d all decided not to tell the rest of the gang but to keep it secret for a while, so that explained why I hadn’t taken it out of my pocket. Eagle Eye hadn’t asked us to read any verses out of the Bible, so I hadn’t even thought of opening my New Testament. If I had, I would no doubt have noticed that the envelope was missing.
“O.K., come on,” Poetry said. “Let’s get going,” which we did, swishing as fast as we could through the wet grass and along the path that was bordered by the still wettish bushes, although the late afternoon sun had dried things off quite a bit.
Down the shore we went, past the boathouse, up the steep hill and along the sandy road, shining our flashlights on and off as we went. I carried with me a stout stick, just in case we ran onto anything or anybody that might need to be socked in order to save our lives. As we swished along in the moonlight, using our flashlights, I was glad there weren’t supposed to be any bears up here, and that where we were camping there weren’t supposed to be any wild animals except deer, polecats, raccoons, chipmunks and maybe a few other more or less friendly wild animals, all of which would be half scared to death if they saw us hurrying past carrying flashlights.
When we came to the place where we had found the little Ostberg girl, we flashed our lights all around and on the tree Circus had climbed, and all around where my acrobatic goat’s fire-cracker had started the little fire which we had put out in a hurry. I even went over and picked up the empty prune can which the cannibals had left, and which the goats hadn’t eaten, and looked inside, knowing, of course, that the envelope wasn’t there.
“We’d better follow the trail of broken twigs down to John Till’s cabin,” Poetry said. “Maybe it fell out of your pocket down there some place.”
Say, I was scared to get anywhere near John Till, remembering his big hunting knife, but I kept thinking all the time what I had been thinking before, which was, “What if John Till has found the map, and has gone to dig for the treasure? If the police find him, with it in his possession, the newspapers’ll print all the story, and the Sugar Creek Gang will get a black eye all over the country. On top of that, Little Tom Till will be ashamed to come to Sunday school or even to school; besides, if we can save Old hook-nosed John Till from having to go to jail, he might not ever have to go again.” But I knew that IF he had to go once more, having been in jail a good many times in his life, he’d maybe have to stay in ten or fifteen years this time. So if we could stop him from finding the ransom money, it’d be a good idea. Besides, the money was supposed to be used for a hospital on a foreign missionary field, which made it seem important that we find it ourselves.
When we came to the first broken twig, even as scared as Poetry and I were we zipped on, using our flashlights till we came to the next, and the next. In a little while, we were at the top of the hill looking down at the moonlight on the lake. Between us and the lake was the cabin where we had had all our excitement in the afternoon.
“Hey, look!” Poetry said to me. “There’s smoke coming out of the chimney!” And sure enough there was. We could see it in the moonlight, rising slowly from the brick chimney top and spreading itself out into a large lazy cloud just like the one Little Jim had whispered to me about, that was hanging above our heads and that had reminded him of the one that had been above the camp of the people in the Bible, which meant that God was right there looking after them and loving them and protecting them.
For a minute, right in the middle of all that excitement I got a warm feeling in my heart that God was right there with Poetry and me and that He loved us and was looking after us, and also we were doing the right thing.