Chapter XII: At Hiram Duff's Cottage

"What can that be?"

"Must be somebody in trouble!"

"Maybe it is old Duff!"

"Let us go and see!"

With these hasty exclamations both boys leaped from the carriage they occupied and ran towards the delapidated cottage. The cries continued, coming from somewhere in the interior.

"Wait--we'll look in the window first," suggested Sam. "Maybe old Duff is having a quarrel with one of his neighbors, and if so it might not be wise to interfere."

There was a window with small panes of glass close at hand, and going to this the two youths peered into the cottage. To their surprise they could see nobody. Both lower rooms of the old building seemed to be unoccupied.

"Let's go around to the rear. Maybe the sounds come from there," suggested Songbird.

There was a path full of weeds leading to a rear porch that was almost ready to fall down. The back door stood partly open. Nobody was in sight.

"The call comes from somewhere inside," said Sam. "Come on in. But be on your guard, Songbird. We don't want to get into trouble."

Both lads crossed the rickety porch and entered what was the kitchen of the cottage. A musty odor pervaded the building, for old Duff usually kept everything tightly closed.

The place was in disorder, a chair being overturned and several cooking utensils littering the floor. On the stove, which was cold, lay a big carving knife.

"What do you want? Where are you?" called out Sam.

"Oh, help me! Get me out of here!" came the somewhat faint reply. "I am in the cellar!"

"In the cellar!" repeated Songbird. "Are you Mr. Duff?"

"Yes. Help me out, please."

Both boys looked around for a stairs, but there was none. Then, to one side of the kitchen floor, they saw a trap door. It was shut down and bolted by means of a plug stuck through two staples.

It was an easy matter to kick the plug away and raise the trap door. The boys peered down into the opening below and saw Hiram Duff sitting on the lower step of the stairs. He looked hollow-eyed and almost exhausted.

"What's the matter, Mr. Duff? How did you get shut up this way?" asked Sam, kindly.

"Oh, my! Oh, my!" sighed the old miser. "Ca--can't you help me up the stairs? I am so--so weak I can't hardly walk. Where is the rascal who shut me up this way? I'll have the police on him!"

"Did somebody shut you up In this cellar?" asked Sam, as he and Songbird crawled below to give the old man assistance. They saw that the cellar was merely a big hole in the ground and the stairs were very steep and not particularly safe.

"Yes, somebody got me to come down here and then locked that trap door on me," grumbled the miser. He got up with difficulty and crawled slowly to the kitchen, the boys coming after him to see that he did not fall back. "Oh, dear, what a time I have had of it!" he whined.

"When was this?" asked Songbird.

"I don't know--that is, I can't tell how long it was until I know what time it is now."

"It is half-past ten," answered Sam, consulting his watch.

"What! Do you mean half-past ten in the morning?" burst out Hiram Duff. "If that's true then I've been down cellar all night--ever since yesterday afternoon! No wonder I was hungry and thirsty. I've got to have something to eat and drink soon, or I'll starve to death!" And he walked to the kitchen cupboard and got out some bread and meat. There was water in a pail on the bench and he took a long drink of this.

"Who was it locked you in the cellar?" asked Sam.

"Who be you boys?" asked the miser in return.

"We belong to Brill College. We were driving past and we heard you yell," answered Songbird.

"Yes, I thought I heard a carriage on the road, so I called as loud as I could. I did that ever since that fellow went away, but I guess nobody heard me--leastwise, they didn't pay no attention."

"Will you tell us how it all happened?" asked Sam, and then he added aside to Songbird. "Don't say anything about Tom." And the would-be poet of Brill nodded to show he understood.

"It was this way," answered Hiram Duff, dropping down on the chair Sam fixed for him. "I was sitting on the back porch mending my coat when all of a sudden a fellow came around the corner of the house. He was a strange looking young fellow and he wore a funny looking cap pulled away down over his eyes. He asked me if I wasn't Hackler. I said I wasn't, that my name was Hiram Duff. Then he says, 'I knew it, I knew it! At last!' and sits down on the porch. I says, 'At last, what?' and he says something about a nugget of gold. He acted awful mysterious like, and finally he asks me if I'd like to own half of a big nugget of gold. I told him I certainly would."

"And then?" asked Sam, as the old miser paused to take a bite of bread and meat.

"Then he told a queer story about a nugget of gold brought down to this place from Alaska. He was very mysterious, and at last he said the nugget was right down in my cellar, and if I'd dig it up fer him he'd give me half. At first I thought he was fooling, or wasn't just right in his mind, but a nugget of gold--even a little one--isn't to be sneezed at, and it wouldn't cost me nuthing to go down cellar and look. So I starts to go down the stairs when he says to be careful, that he would look around, to make sure nobuddy was a-spying on him. He said the nugget was in the northwest corner. I went down and the next thing I knew I heard a strange cry upstairs. 'You shan't rob me! The nugget is mine!' yells that fellow and bang! goes that trap door, and then he up and bolts it fast, so I couldn't open it. I calls to let me out, and he calls back for me to keep quiet until he got some friends, so I couldn't rob him of that nugget. Then he slammed around upstairs here something awful. At last he went away; and that's the last I seen or heard of him."

"What did you do? Didn't you try to get out?" questioned Songbird.

"For a long time I waited, thinking he would come back. And as he seemed so sure about the nugget I took the lantern and looked for it. But there wasn't no signs of any gold. Then the lantern got dry and went out, leaving me in the dark. I didn't know what to make of it. I went up the stairs and tried to open the door, but I couldn't budge it. Then I tried to dig my way out of the hole, but the old shovel I had broke and there I was. I'm an old man and pretty full of rheumatism, and staying down cellar all night has most finished me," concluded Hiram Duff, with a groan.

"Did the fellow say where he was going?" asked Sam, after a pause.

"Said he was going to get help, that's all, so I couldn't rob him of that nugget. I don't know what to make of it. Might be he was a lunatic, eh?" went on the old miser, suddenly. "Maybe he run away from some asylum."

"Possibly," answered Sam, shortly. "Did he take anything, do you suppose?" he went on.

"Take anything? You mean steal anything?" cried Hiram Duff, and started back. The sandwich he had made for himself dropped from his hand. "I--I wonder if he did take anything," he muttered, and his eyes roved towards the other room of the cottage.

"Better take a look around, if you had anything of value," said Sam, and gave Songbird a meaning look.

With feeble steps the old miser walked out of the kitchen into what had been the sitting room of the cottage. As he was too feeble to sleep upstairs, Hiram Duff now used the apartment for a bedroom as well. He closed the door between the two rooms and the boys heard him rummaging around among his possessions. Then came a wild cry.

"It's gone! It's gone! My tin box is gone!"

"Your tin box?" repeated Songbird, as the old man threw open the door.

"Yes! yes! The fellow has robbed me! Oh, this is dreadful! What shall I do? I am a poor man! Oh, I'll have to go to the poorhouse!" And the miser commenced to wring his hands.

"What did you have in the box?" questioned Sam.

"I had--some--er--some money, and some--er--jewelry," faltered Hiram Duff. He was a very secretive man naturally and it galled him to make the admission.

"How much money, Mr. Duff?"

"Oh, a--er--quite some. Oh, this is too bad! What shall I do? This will ruin me! Oh, where is that rascal? How can I catch him?" and the old man ran around the kitchen, staring at one thing and another, and at the boys.

"This must be Tom's work," whispered Sam to Songbird. "I wonder what I had best do about it?"

"Wait until you are sure it was Tom," advised the would-be poet.

Sam commenced to question the old miser regarding the looks of the fellow who had visited him. He soon became convinced that it must have been Tom. Clearly his brother must now be completely out of his mind.

"Poor, poor Tom," he sighed. "If he is going to act this way, what will he do next? I wish I could find him, and that Dick was here to help me to take care of him and clear up this mess."

"I don't know what I'm a-going to do," whined Hiram Duff. "I gotter find that box."

"How big a box was it?" questioned Sam.

"'Twasn't so very big--a fellow could put it in his pocket. But it had gold--I mean money--in it, and my dead wife's jewelry."

"How much money, Mr. Duff?"

"What business is that of yours?" demanded the miser, suspiciously.

"Why, I think--maybe I can help you get it back," stammered Sam. He grew red in the face. "To tell the plain truth, I think I know who that fellow was."

"Who?"

"Tell me what you lost first."

"Well, if you must know, that box had three hundred dollars in gold in it, besides the jewelry. That my wife got from her folks when they died, and they said it was wuth over a hundred dollars."

"Is that all?"

"Ain't that enough? Land sakes! I ain't no millionaire! That gold was a-going to keep me from the poorhouse." And Hiram Duff shook his head dolefully. He did not tell the young collegiates that he had an even ten thousand dollars in the banks. He had saved money all his life, denying himself and his wife almost the necessities of life.

"Do you suppose anybody else could have come in and taken the box?" said Songbird.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, did anybody come in after that fellow left?"

"How should I know?--I was down cellar."

"Did you hear anybody?"

"I heard something. Maybe it was somebody, or maybe it was my sheep. They come up to the house sometimes."

"I see."

"But what do you know about this?" demanded Hiram Duff, turning to Sam. "You said you might help me to git the money back."

"I'll tell you," said Sam, and related how his brother had disappeared and how the blow on the head seemed to have affected him.

"That's it! That's him! That's the man!" cried the old miser. "He did it! You catch him and git my money back!" he went on, excitedly.

"I'll certainly do my best to find him, Mr. Duff," answered Sam. "And if he really took your box you shall have what you lost back."

"Is he crazy, do you think?"

"He wouldn't do such a thing if he was in his right mind."

"Tom Rover is as honest as the day is long," declared Songbird. "If he really took your box he didn't know what he was doing."

"Well, he certainly did act queer," agreed Hiram Duff. "But that ain't here nor there. I want my box back, with all that's in it, and I'm going to have it. I guess I had better go to town and tell the police about this."