"How's that, my lad?"

"Why, on the day of the funeral the keys disappeared. I could never imagine what became of them. But I did not care to look in the cupboard a second time, so the loss did not matter."

Mr. Merrick seemed thoughtful.

"I suppose I own that cupboard now," he remarked.

"Of course," said Joe. "But without the keys it is not serviceable. If you drill through the steel doors you destroy their security."

"True; but I may decide to do that."

"If you do, sir, I'd like you to clear out the rubbish and papers and send them to me. They are family matters, and I did not intend to sell them with the place."

"You shall have them, Joe."

"Just underneath the left end of the lower shelf you will find the sliding steel plate. It slides toward the front. In the drawer you will find the worthless stock and a picture of my mother. I'd like to keep the picture."

"You shall, Joseph. How are you getting on?"

"Why, I'm a new man, Mr. Merrick, and today I'm feeling as strong as a buffalo--thanks to your kind guardianship."

"Don't overdo, sir. Take it easy. There's a young lady coming to see you today."

"Ethel!" the boy exclaimed, his face turning crimson.

"Yes," returned Uncle John, tersely. "You've treated that girl shamefully, Joseph Wegg. Try to make proper amends."

"I never could understand," said Joe, slowly, "why Ethel refused to answer the letter I wrote her when I went away. It explained everything, yet--"

"I'll bet the farm against your lame shoulder she never got your letter," declared Uncle John. "She thought you left her without a word."

"I gave it to Mc.n.u.tt to deliver after I was gone. But you say she's coming today?"

"That is her intention, sir."

Joe said nothing more, but his expressive face was smiling and eager.

Uncle John pressed the boy's hand and left him, promising to call again soon.

"Now, then," muttered the little millionaire, as he walked down the street, "to beard the lion in his den."

The den proved to be the hardware store, and the lion none other than Robert West. Mr. Merrick found the merchant seated at his desk in the otherwise deserted store, and, with a nod, helped himself to the only other chair the little office contained.

"Sir," said he, "I am here to demand an explanation."

"Of what?" asked West, coldly.

"Of your action in the matter of the Almaquo Timber Tract Company. I believe that you falsely a.s.serted to Captain Wegg and Mr. Thompson that the timber had burned and their investment was therefore worthless. The news of the disaster killed one of your confiding friends and drove the other mad; but that was a consequence that I am sure you did not intend when you planned the fraud. The most serious thing I can accuse you of is holding the earnings of the Wegg and Thompson stock--and big earnings they are, too--for your own benefit, and defrauding the heirs of your a.s.sociates of their money."

West carefully balanced a penholder across his fingers, and eyed it with close attention.

"You are a queer man, Mr. Merrick," he said, quietly. "I can only excuse your insults on the grounds of ignorance, or the fact that you have been misinformed. Here is the newspaper report of the Almaquo fire, which I showed my friends the night of Captain Wegg's sudden death." He took a clipping from a drawer of the desk and handed it to Uncle John, who read it carefully.

"As a matter of fact," continued West, "you are not cutting that portion of the Almaquo tract which this fire refers to, and which Thompson and Wegg were interested in, but the north half of the tract, which they had never acquired any t.i.tle to."

"I suppose the stock will show that," suggested Mr. Merrick.

"Of course, sir."

"I will look it up."

West smiled.

"You will have some trouble doing that," he said.

"Why?"

"Wegg and Thompson had transferred their entire stock to me before one died and the other went mad," was the quiet reply.

"Oh, I see." The lie was so evident that Uncle John did not try to refute it.

"I am rather busy, Mr. Merrick. Anything more, sir?"

"Not today. Bye and bye, Mr. West."

He marched out again and climbed into his buggy to drive home. The interview with Bob West had made him uneasy, for the merchant's cold, crafty nature rendered him an opponent who would stick at nothing to protect his ill-gotten gains. Uncle John had thought it an easy matter to force him to disgorge, but West was the one inhabitant of Millville who had no simplicity in his character. He was as thoroughly imbued with worldly subtlety and cunning as if he had lived amid the grille of a city all his life; and Mr. Merrick was by no means sure of his own ability to unmask the man and force him to make rest.i.tution.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE COURT'N OF SKIM CLARK.

By this time the summer was well advanced, and the rich people at the Wegg farm had ceased to be objects of wonder to the Millville folk. The girls were still regarded with curious looks when they wandered into the village on an errand, and Mr. Merrick and Major Doyle inspired a certain amount of awe; but time had dulled the edge of marvelous invasion and the city people were now accepted as a matter of course.

Peggy Mc.n.u.tt was still bothering his head over schemes to fleece the strangers, in blissful ignorance of the fact that one of his neighbors was planning to get ahead of him.

The Widow Clark was a shrewd woman. She had proven this by becoming one of the merchants of Millville after her husband's death. The poor man had left an insurance of five hundred dollars and the little frame building wherein he had conducted a harness shop. Mrs. Clark couldn't make and repair harness; so she cleared the straps and sc.r.a.ps and wax-ends out of the place, painted the interior of the shop bright yellow, with a blue ceiling, erected some shelves and a counter and turned part of the insurance money into candy, cigars, stationery, and a meager stock of paper-covered novels.

Skim, her small son, helped her as far as he was able, and between them they managed things so frugally that at the end of eight years the widow still had her five hundred dollars capital, and the little store had paid her living expenses.

Skim was named after his uncle, Peter Skimbley, who owned a farm near Watertown. The widow's hopeful was now a lank, pale-faced youth of eighteen, whose most imposing features were his big hands and a long nose that ended in a sharp point. The shop had ruined him for manual labor, for he sat hunched up by the stove in winter, and in summer hung around Cotting's store and listened to the gossip of the loungers. He was a boy of small conversational powers, but his mother declared that Skim "done a heap o' thinkin' that n.o.body suspected."

The widow was a good gossip herself, and knew all the happenings in the little town. She had a habit of reading all her stock of paper-covered novels before she sold them, and her mind was stocked with the ma.s.s of romance and adventure she had thus absorbed. "What I loves more'n eat'n'

or sleep'n'," she often said, "is a rattlin' good love story. There don't seem to be much love in real life, so a poor lone crittur like me has to calm her hankerin's by a-readin' novels."

No one had been more interested in the advent of the millionaire at the Wegg farm than the widow Clark. She had helped "fix up" the house for the new owner and her appreciative soul had been duly impressed by the display of wealth demonstrated by the fine furniture sent down from the city. She had watched the arrival of the party and noticed with eager eyes the group of three pretty and stylishly dressed nieces who accompanied their rich uncle. Once or twice since the young ladies had entered her establishment to purchase pens or stationery, and on such occasions the widow was quite overcome by their condescension.

All this set her thinking to some purpose. One day she walked over to the farm and made her way quietly to the back door. By good fortune she found blind Nora hemming napkins and in a mood to converse. Nora was an especially neat seamstress, but required some one to thread her needles.

Mary the cook had been doing this, but now Mrs. Clark sat down beside Nora to "hev a little talk" and keep the needles supplied with thread.