“Al—alright, I will.” With considerable effort Jeanne pulled herself together. She was all atremble, as who would not be if he had succeeded in unscrewing the fastenings of an ancient churn, lost half a century, to find inside, as it seemed, a message from the dead?
“I, Josiah Grier,” she read in a low, tense voice, “am obliged to leave this cabin on the island. It is the dead of winter. I have but a small boat. However, because wild creatures have consumed my supplies, I must endeavor to reach the mainland. In this churn will be found a sample of such copper as abounds on this island. Be it known to any who open this churn that there is on the island some considerable treasure. It is to be found on the Greenstone Ridge at the far side, in a grotto which may be found by lining up the outstanding rocks off shore with the highest point of the ridge.”
“Some considerable treasure!” Violet breathed softly. “Jewels and gold hidden there by lake pirates perhaps.”
“Or old silver plate smuggled here from Canada,” Jeanne suggested. She loved ancient dishes and silver.
“Probably it’s nothing you’d ever dream of,” said practical Vivian. “A curious sort of treasure I’d guess, for this Josiah Grier, if I guess right, was a queer sort of chap. Think of hiding a piece of copper worth about two dollars and a half in an old churn!”
“What time do you suppose he could have belonged to?” Violet asked thoughtfully. “Was he a trader when the Indians owned the island, or a white copper miner of a later time?”
“Must have had a cow,” Vivian suggested. “Churns go with cows. There were cows here in the copper days. Plenty of grass was planted for them. There is timothy and clover growing wild today, everywhere.”
Needless to say the minds of the three girls were rife with speculation. There in the chilly seclusion of the museum they pledged one another to complete secrecy regarding the whole matter.
They screwed the churn’s top back and replaced everything, leaving the place just as Jeanne had found it that morning when she had gone in to work with kerosene on the rusty fastenings of the old churn.
“We’ll surprise ’em,” Violet whispered.