Page:The Boys of Bellwood School.djvu/54

42 how, it would look so bad for you that your father would settle all the damage."

"The villain!" commented Frank.

"Them's my sentiments, too, Frank. Mebbe, if things hadn't turned out as they did, I might have acted mean and measly, too, but I was so tickled over the way they did come out that I just laughed at your boyish mischief of letting the old shack slide downhill."

"But I had no hand In anything of the sort," declared Frank stoutly.

"Let it pass, Frank, let it pass," chuckled Dobbins unbelievingly. "You see, when I came to look over the old ruins I come to where the old storeroom wall had busted out. You know it's always been a mystery to me what had become of my wife Sairey's scrapings and earnings?"

"I've heard you tell so—yes," nodded Frank.

"There they were, boy!" cried old Dobbins in a sort of ecstasy. "She'd hidden them in a hole in the wall. The wall broke out in the crash. Confidentially," and the narrator looked around cautiously and lowered his voice to a mysterious whisper, "I found in gold and silver a heap of money amounting to nigh three thousand dollars."

"Well!" ejaculated Frank.

"So, you see, it was a lucky day for me when you cut that rope."