“Dear Chot:
“I am sending the mining stock as you request. Do as you wish with it. As I told you before, the matter is entirely in your hands. I know that whatever you do will be right. Have been staying with my aunt since leaving Mortonville. Hope to see you again before the fall term of school opens. I shall be at Professor Pinchum’s Academy as usual.”
There were several other things in the letter which Chot did not read aloud to Tom and Fleet. But he saw the wink that passed between them, and seizing a couple of the sofa pillows from a couch in his den, sent them hurtling at the heads of his chums.
The certificate was shown to Mr. Duncan and Mr. Kenby, a check was made out for one thousand dollars in favor of Lucy, and another in favor of Luther Pendleton. In case the mine never amounted to anything, Lucy would have her thousand. Mr. Kenby insisted on this, and the boys knew that his generous heart was overflowing with kindness toward the girl who had been placed in such an unfortunate position.
“Someday we shall perhaps be able to do more for her,” said he.
“If the mine pans out, you three boys and Lucy shall divide your three-fifths share among you, and something seems to tell me that Pendleton is not fooling his time away out there for nothing,” said Mr. Duncan.
So with that the matter was allowed to rest, and the time was now approaching when the boys would go back to Winton. They could not foresee the incidents to be recorded in “Winton Hall Cadets,” the next book of this series, and went enthusiastically about the preparations for their leave taking.
The opening date for the fall term was September 7, and three days before they left they received a letter from Pod, another from Truem Wright, and still another from Bert Creighton, telling the days they were starting for school. The day before leaving letters came from Wilkes Davis, Randy Denton and Dan Kirlicks, with the information that they, too, were leaving at once for Winton.
“Looks like it’s going to be a grand reunion,” said Fleet, “and I’ll bet you fellows won’t jolly me any more about not being a poet.”
As he spoke he held up triumphantly a letter he had just received from a New York publishing house. Then the truth of Fleet’s secret work in his den dawned upon Chot and Tom.
“They accepted the manuscript I sent them, and will use one of my nature poems,” Fleet continued. “Now congratulate me, you lobsters, and I’ll forgive what you said to me on the trip that night.”