Colonel Witham staggered again. The hand that held his pipe shook. Then his eyes twinkled craftily.
"Well, you're right smart boys," he said. "Keep the money, if you want it, or give it to John Ellison. Yes, it was Jim Ellison's—the money was. But the papers are mine. Have you got them? Give me the papers, and keep the money. I don't claim the money."
"Yes, I've got the papers," replied Henry Burns. "Here they are. There's all there were."
He handed the package to Colonel Witham, who took it with trembling hand. Then Henry Burns and his friends made a hurried departure. By the time the colonel had made an examination of the papers, and had turned, white with anger, to vent his rage upon them, they were spinning down the road.
"Tim," said Henry Burns, as they rode along, "you get the money."
It was a day or two later, on a sultry afternoon, and Bess Thornton stood in the doorway of the old house where she and Granny Thornton lived, looking forth at the sky. A passing shower was sprinkling the doorsteps with a few big drops, and the girl drew back with a look of disappointment on her face.
"It always rains when you don't want it to," she said. "Wish there was somebody to play with. It's pokey here, with gran' gone to Witham's. I don't know what to do."
Something suggested itself to her mind, however, for presently she opened the door leading to the attic and went up the stairs. It was dark and silent in the attic, but she threw open a window at either end, unfastened the blinds, and the daylight entered. It disclosed a clutter of old household stuff: some strings of pop-corn and dried apples and herbs hanging from the rafters, and a lot of faded garments, suspended from nails.
She tried on an old-fashioned poke-bonnet, looked at herself in a bit of cracked mirror that leaned against a wash-stand, and laughed at the odd picture she made. Then, by turns, she arrayed herself in some of the antiquated garments. She rummaged here and there, until she came to the old bureau.
"Gran' always keeps that locked," she said. "I guess nobody'd want to steal anything from this old place, though. She needn't be so particular. I wonder where she keeps the key."