Page:Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm.djvu/216

206 around, trying to make the discovery, and claim a reward.

"I spent a good deal of time in the barn, but I never thought there could be a secret room. I thought it might be buried somewhere around the place. I didn't have much chance to hunt, though, after the moving picture people got here," he added.

"And was it you who made the queer noises in the barn, and scared the girls?" asked Sandy.

"It was. I didn't mean to scare 'em, though. I was trying to crawl up between two beams one day, when I slipped and fell. I rattled some loose boards where I had lifted some up to have a place to hide. I hurt myself, too, and I guess I groaned. The fall made me lame for a while."

"That accounts for your limp," said Sandy. "How did you come to go to the cabin?"

"Oh, I wanted some place to stay near your barn, and as no one used the cabin, I took up my quarters there. Before that I often used to sleep in a secret place in your old barn. But I didn't mean any harm. Of course I didn't want it known who I was, for if it was learned that I had been Mr. Apgar's keeper in the asylum everybody would have guessed my object. So I ran whenever I saw anybody from Oak Farm. But you finally caught me. I'm not sorry, for I was getting