“Indians?”
“Of course! There was quite a powerful tribe here. Dominie Pike was great friends with them, and there are lots of stories about that part of the town’s history—trouble prevented by the Dominie, you know. No doubt they’re all in the diary, but nobody knows what happened to the diary. Folks have found many references to it in old letters, showing that people knew about it, and had read it, or parts of it, anyway. Then it seemed to disappear. The Historical Society has hunted for it high and low, but never has got a trace of it.”
Orkney whistled softly. “My! But I wish we could come across it! It would just fill the bill.”
“It would,” said Sam drily, and left Orkney to meditate ways and means of accomplishing what so far the town had found to be impossible in the matter of tracing the lost diary of the old minister.
Their talk, however, had given Sam food for thought. It would be a fine thing for the club to score in the competition. But, also, it would be pleasing to find a way to square the account with Varley. Sam, casting about, hit upon a plan or two, which failed to work out satisfactorily. His mother listened willingly enough to hints that he would like to have a party, but showed an inclination to make it a general entertainment for the girls and boys of his acquaintance, which by no means met his approval. Sam’s notion of the proper thing was a small and strictly masculine gathering, at which Varley could be the guest of honor.
Of Varley, as it happened, he was seeing very little. Paul was regularly attending school, but he was formally enrolled as a Senior, and thus seemed to gravitate naturally into association with the boys of the last year. When he encountered Sam or any of the other members of the Safety First Club, he appeared to be quite at ease and untroubled by any thought of the breach he had unwittingly made in their rules; but Sam noticed—or thought he noticed—a disposition on Varley’s part not to seek his society, even if there was no effort to avoid it. He had no doubt that the Shark’s frankness had enlightened Varley about the club’s ban on uninvited guests; and his respect grew for a fellow who could “carry it off so well”—as he phrased it—a situation which Sam himself found most embarrassing.
Poke, meanwhile, was getting a deal of enjoyment out of his mysterious secret, which, at last, he seemed to have shared with his especial crony, Step; for the latter, of a sudden, became as excited as Poke himself. The pair had conferences and conferences, with much chuckling and whispering and rib-nudging. And then, one day, both came to Sam to make an amazing announcement.
Poke was in funds. Fortune had made him affluent. He proposed to bid his friends share his prosperity. Also he proposed to even the score with Paul Varley.
Sam was practical. Where had the money come from?
Poke explained gleefully. An elderly and well-to-do aunt had made him a present of twenty-five dollars. By certain miracles of good behavior he had won parental permission to spend the windfall as he pleased.