The Automobile Girls at Chicago Part 17

"I'll make their old bones rattle. You just watch me," announced Tom.

"Now, girls, go ahead and browse to your heart's content. We are going to empty every trunk and chest and box in the place. We may find something exciting before we get through up here."

Olive's prophecy was a true one. They were going to meet with exciting experiences in the old garret, even more exciting than any of them had dreamed possible. They began eagerly to turn out the contents of trunks and boxes upon the garret floor, first dragging the receptacles up where the light from one or another of the windows would shine down on their work.

CHAPTER XII

A CURIOUS OLD JOURNAL

"OH, here's a bundle of letters, ever and ever so old!" called Grace.

Hers was the first find of interest, "Wouldn't it be splendid if I had unearthed an old romance?"

"Give them to Olive," suggested Bab. "We have no right to read them."

Grace promptly handed the packet to Olive, who turned them over reflectively.

"The writers of these have been dead for many, many years. There can be no harm in our reading the letters. However, let's defer that pleasure until another time. Here, Tom, you might carry out those old clothes.

They are so moth-eaten that they are likely to fall apart before you can get them outside." Tom reluctantly gathered up an armful and went stamping down the garret stairs.

Old clothes, trinkets, some of them of value, recipes for cooking, written on the fly leaves of books and on sc.r.a.ps of paper, a varied a.s.sortment of everything, including early photographs of forgotten persons, were discovered. Everything was a.s.sorted and placed in piles for future disposal. The girls' faces and hands were covered with dust long before they had gone through the contents of the first few trunks.

Nothing of unusual interest had been discovered after something more than an hour's rummaging. Tom had made so many trips to the back yard with rubbish that he was tired. Finally he rebelled, declaring that he wouldn't tramp up and down those stairs again for the whole of Treasureholme.

Ruth found a chest of books in very old bindings. She called Bab over.

"Here, dear. You are simply crazy over old books. Here are some that will keep you busy for the rest of the morning."

Bab ran over, and with a little chuckle of delight dropped down on her knees in front of the open chest. She lifted out the ancient bindings almost reverently, ran the pages through her fingers, pausing here and there to read a line or a page, or a faded notation in pencil, then carefully piled the books by the side of the chest. She was so wholly absorbed in the contents of the chest that she failed to hear the lively chatter going on about her.

About half way down in the chest she found a thin, leather-covered volume, showing indications of long usage and much thumbing. On the front page she read, "Journal of T. W. P."

"Olive, who was 'T. W. P.'?"

"'T. W. P.'? Why that's Tom's initials. Wait! Did you find that in one of those old books?"

Bab nodded.

"Then it must refer to Thomas Warrington Presby. He is the gentleman who is supposed to have been scalped by the Indians, the man who buried the treasure that we have had all the fuss and excitement about. What is the book?"

"It is his journal. His diary, I think we would call it. May I read it?"

"Of course. I hope you may find something interesting in it."

The reading of the diary was not easy. The ink was faded and the writing was so peculiar that Bab deciphered it with some difficulty. Bab curled up on a pile of old clothes under a window and buried her nose in the old diary. She found it fascinating to read the diary of the man who actually buried the treasure that had made the name of Treasureholme well known in all that part of the country.

The entries in the diary dealt with the routine affairs of the life of the owner. Then there were other and more absorbing pa.s.sages. One that made the girl's pulses quicken was the following:

"Rumors of Indian troubles are afloat. Jake was wounded by an arrow to-day, shot from somewhere in the forest back of the house. But no Indians were seen. We shall soon have to seek safety in the fort, I fear. What to do with my worldly goods when we go is the question that is troubling me now."

"Oh!" breathed Barbara.

"Does it blow hot or cold?" questioned Olive.

"It seems to be getting warm," replied Bab. "He is talking about the treasure."

"What?" The girls were on their feet in an instant. Barbara read the entry to them.

"Oh, fiddle!" sniffed Mollie. "That doesn't amount to anything. Don't arouse my curiosity again unless you have something worth while."

Barbara considered that she had found something worth while, but she made no comment on Mollie's remark. Instead, the girl returned to her perusal of the old diary, reading each page carefully, not knowing when a word or a sentence might give a clue to the mystery all were seeking to solve. The girls went on with their rummaging and their lively chatter. Tom had gone to sleep on a heap of bed spreads that were yellow with age. The ghosts of the past did not trouble this healthy young country boy. Mollie crouched down beside him, gently tickling his ear with a feather that she had found in a trunk. Mollie nearly exploded with merriment to see Tommy fight an imaginary fly in his sleep. The other girls were soon attracted to the game, though Barbara was entirely oblivious of what was going on. The girls gathered noiselessly about Mollie and Tom, shaking with silent laughter, taking care not to awaken the sleeping boy.

Tom's face twitched nervously. After a little one eye opened ever so little then closed warily. The girls did not observe the movement of the eyelid. Then all of a sudden things began to happen. Tom, with incredible quickness, leaped to his feet, and began laying about him with a folded bed spread. Mollie was the first to go down under the attack. The others tried to get away from that st.u.r.dily wielded spread, but were not quick enough, however. Tom did considerable execution with his unwieldly weapon before the girls finally threw themselves upon him.

Then Tom went down and out. The girls dragged him to the stairway and started him sliding down the stairs, feet first. With faces flushed, eyes sparkling, brushing truant wisps of hair from their foreheads, the girls returned to their exploration of the old chests. First Olive closed and locked the door that opened onto the staircase.

"There! I think we shall have peace now," she announced.

Suddenly Barbara uttered a sharp little cry.

"Girls! Girls! Come here! Oh, come here!"

The girls with one accord rushed pell-mell across the garret. Excitement reigned for a few seconds.

"I've found it! I've found it!" shouted Barbara.

"Found the treasure?" cried a chorus of voices.

"It's here, here!" she exclaimed, waving the little leather-bound journal above her head.

"What have you found?" demanded Olive, showing less excitement than her companions.

"This entry. It means something. I don't know just what, but I know it means something."

"Read it, read it!" demanded the girls.

"The item is a month later than the one I found in the journal in which they were afraid the Indians were going to make trouble. Listen to this.

If you don't think I have found something you are not half so smart as I had thought." Barbara hitched a little closer to the window and with her back to the light read from the journal the following entry:

"'To My Heirs: I am fleeing with my family, to the fort. The future looks dark. Should I not return, others of my family one day will come here and take possession, provided the savages do not destroy the old place, which is not probable, as the spirit of a long dead Indian chief is said to make his home here.'"

"I knew all the time there were ghosts here," interrupted Mollie.

"Wearing false faces," added Grace under her breath.

"There are further directions. 'Search and you shall find. I cannot be more explicit save to say that what is here is well worth years of endeavor,'" Barbara read on. "'I have a feeling that I shall see the old place no more. Remember, that to every people its own dead are sacred and be governed accordingly.'"