Page:The House On The Cliff.pdf/10

4 and inhospitable cliff. It was some distance back from the road, and there was no other house within miles. The boys had traveled a little more than three miles since leaving Bayport, and the Polucca place was at least five miles away. It could hardly have been seen, had it not been for its prominent position on top of the cliff, silhouetted clearly against the sky.

"He was a strange fellow," Frank observed. "No one knew very much about him. He didn't welcome visitors. In fact, he always kept a couple of vicious dogs around the place, so nobody cared to hang around there if they weren't invited."

"He was a miser," came from Joe Hardy.

"He may have been. At least that was the theory. Everybody said Polucca had a lot of money, but after his death there wasn't a nickel found in the house."

"Felix Polucca always said he wouldn't trust the banks," put in Biff Hooper. "But if he had any money I don't know where he made it, for he didn't work at anything and he mighty seldom came into the city."

"Perhaps he inherited it," Jerry suggested.

"Maybe. He must have had money at some time, to build that house. It's a great, rambling stone place that must have cost thousands."