A candle was brought. Then while Marion sat on the chair, Florence climbed the back of it and thrust her head and shoulders through the hole.

"See anything?" Marion asked breathlessly.

"No, not a-yes, there's something, a black bulk over there in the corner.

It's a-"

"A chest, of course!" Marion was quite beside herself with excitement.

Without thinking she sprang to her feet. The next instant the chair toppled over and Florence, lighted candle and all, came crashing down upon it.

"Wha-what did you do that for?" she demanded, once she had regained the breath that had been knocked from her by the fall.

"I-I forgot!" said Marion. "Truly I'm sorry. Let's try again."

"Not that way," said Florence, rubbing her bruises. "The bed will be better. Come on, let's push it over."

The bed was soon under the hole and a moment later the two girls, closely followed by an agile old man, were creeping from beam to beam toward the bulk in the dark.

"I know it's the chest of gold," whispered Marion.

"I-I-someway it don't look right."

"Phoo-ee!" chuckled Uncle Billie. "That ain't no chest. That's a poundin'

mill. What hit's doin' stored up here is more'n I know."

"A pounding mill? What's that?" demanded Florence as she held her candle above a great cylindrical block of wood on which there rested a similar block of smaller dimensions.

"A poundin' mill's used for poundin' out corn meal. They ain't used now on account o' water wheels, but they was a powerful help in their day.

You all never seed 'em work? Well, hit's this way."

Uncle Billie lifted the smaller cylinder and dropped it into a hole in the larger block, which was some three feet high and four feet across.

"You put your corn in that there holler, then you tie this block to a saplin' to help you teeter hit up an' down, an' you pound your corn until it are meal. That's all there are to hit."

"That's a powerful heavy block!" he exclaimed, trying to tip it. "Must be made out o' first growth hickory, as sizeable as. .h.i.t is."

"But where's our gold?" asked Marion. Her voice dropped off into a little disappointed wail.

"Peers to me like we'd been barkin' up the wrong tree," said Uncle Billie with a sad shake of his head.

"Might be hidden around somewhere among the rafters," said Florence.

"Let's have a good look."

They explored the attic thoroughly. Not a pile of dust but was disturbed that day. Their only reward was a rusty Civil War canteen that, as Uncle Billie expressed it, was "as empty as a bear after a winter's sleep."

Just as they were preparing to descend, Marion made an interesting find.

Having noticed a circular spot on the dust covered boards that might have been a knot, she put out a hand to pick up a circular disk.

"What's this?" she exclaimed excitedly. "How heavy it is! It-why, it must be gold!"

"Hit sh.o.r.e are!" exclaimed Uncle Billie, taking it from her and rubbing it clean on his ragged trousers' leg. "Hit sure are. Hit's one of them are pieces of Confederate gold."

"But it doesn't say Confederate," whispered Florence after examining it closely. "It says on one side 'Georgia gold', and on the other-let's see." With a trembling finger she rubbed away the last vestige of dust.

"It says: 'T-e-m-p-l-e R-e-i-d. Temple Reid, Ten Dollars'."

"Georgia Gold. Temple Reid. Ten Dollars!" exclaimed Marion. "What nonsense! How could a man coin money? Money is made by nations, not by men."

"But that's what it says," insisted Florence.

"Well, anyway, it isn't Confederate gold," said Marion, disappointment creeping into her tone. There had been a glamor of romance in her hope of finding some coins struck by that long since dissolved government.

"You can't most always tell," said Uncle Billie with a wise shake of his head. "That ar's Georgia gold. But hit's jest one. There were a hundred, mebby four-five hundred. Stands to reason some was Confederate, fer hadn't Jeff Middelton come from right down thar whar that sort of money were made?"

Uncle Billie's logic seemed weak, but, that they might not hurt the feelings of the good old man, the girls let it pa.s.s. They all adjourned to the rooms below. Dust and dirt were scrubbed off, the hole was nailed up, and there the matter stood, closed for the time being.

One thing was decided upon. The strange gold piece was to be sent to a curator of Field Museum, who was a friend of Marion. He would be able to tell them the origin of the piece, and its value.

"That one coin may be of considerable value," said Marion. "There are coins worth hundreds of dollars."

"Yes, and it may be worth just exactly its weight in gold," laughed Florence. "But send it along. It will do no harm."

That night the bit of gold went North in the registered mail pouch, and the girls, forgetting their disappointment as quickly as possible, set about two important tasks that lay just before them; the winning of the school election and preparation for Florence's trial.

It was five days later. It was evening, but there was no sunset. Dull, gray clouds had hung low on the mountains all day. Dull clouds of disappointment and defeat hung heavily on Florence's spirits. She had taken a long, long walk up Laurel Branch. Her hopes that this walk would revive her drooping spirits had proven vain. Each leaden mile had found her head drooping more and more.

"It's lost!" she murmured as she marched stolidly on.

It was true; at least Ransom Turner had a.s.sured her it was. The school election was lost. Each side had begun work early. The canva.s.s had been taken; the line-up, in so far as anyone could tell, was completed, and at the present Black Blevens and his choice for teacher, Al Finely, were eight votes ahead.

"Eight votes!" she had said to Ransom. "How can we overcome that?"

"Hit can't be done," Ransom had said. "Hit's a fact. That Black Blevens is the election fightenest man I most ever seed. We're jest as good as licked right now."

"And yet," Florence said to herself as, undecided whether to pause for rest or to wander aimlessly on, she paused beside a great flat rock, "it does seem that there is a way to win if only we knew it."

Just as if in answer to her worrying problem, the fog lifted, revealing before her in startling clearness the natural gateway that led to the horseshoe valley at the head of Laurel Branch.

"The gate," she breathed. "The gateway to that mysterious valley where strange people live without visiting the outside world, the valley from which men do not return!" Her heart was all a-tremble. Her shaking knees obliged her to drop suddenly upon an inviting rock.

At once her keen mind was at work. She had come farther than she thought and she should turn back at once. Then, too, that gateway held for her an irresistible fascination. Did she hope from this point of vantage to catch some glimpse of the life of those strange beings who lived beyond the gate? Was some good angel whispering to her soul some of the hidden things of the future? Who can say? Enough that she sat there alone while the dull shadows deepened.

It did not seem strange to her that her thoughts at this moment should turn to the little girl, Hallie, who had been so mysteriously thrust into the life that centered in the old whipsawed house. Indeed, she had often enough a.s.sociated her with this same stone gateway and had wondered if after all she had been brought through this very portal to the outside world.

Wherever she may have come from, Hallie had grown to be the life of that old brown cabin. She had come to them dressed in a water-soaked scarlet dress and a mud smeared tam that shone bright even in their terrible disarray. The bright colors had suited her so well that they had dressed her so ever since. Closing her eyes, Florence could see her now.

"Like a scarlet bird fluttering from branch to branch of an old tree,"

she mused as she saw her moving from room to room. "How we'd miss her if someone came for her!"

Imagine her surprise when upon opening her eyes she saw, not twenty yards before her, down the creek, the very person of whom she had been thinking.