"Twice he whipped me because he said I was withholding something that belonged to him, and once he even demanded what I had done with this locket; but if he killed me I would not have told him, because you see it contains the picture of my own dear dead mother!"
He opened the locket, and they saw the face of a sweet woman, who had evidently known what it was to suffer before she went to another world.
"Where did you get this?" asked Frank, after he had passed it around so that all his chums could see.
"She put it in my hands as she was dying. She said it might be of value to me some day, and never to let it pass out of my possession. It is of great value to me, but only because it holds her precious face," replied the boy, sighing, as the tears ran down his cheeks.
Frank examined the locket again, and shook his head.
"She did not tell you how it would be valuable?" he asked.
The lad managed to restrain his feelings so that he could reply.
"I have often thought she intended to do so, but had been overcome before she could speak more, and I never knew."
"But evidently, in some way, it has to do with your future, and Cal Dobson knows, or suspects, the secret, too. How did you happen to be bound out to him in the first place, Jed?" Frank went on, anxious to know more of this strange thing.
"Why, you see, he is my mother's first cousin, and he applied to have me bound out to him, as the next of kin. No one else wanted me, and so they handed me over to him to bring to Centerville," replied the boy readily.