Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 55947-h.htm or 55947-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55947/55947-h/55947-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55947/55947-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/deandunhamorwate00alge DEAN DUNHAM [Illustration: DEAN HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SQUIRE BATES.] [Illustration: DEAN FINDS A CLEW.] DEAN DUNHAM Or The Waterford Mystery by HORATIO ALGER, JR. Author of "The Young Acrobat," "The Erie Train Boy," "Adventures of a Telegraph Boy," etc. Philadelphia David Mckay, Publisher 610 South Washington Square Copyright, 1888 By Frank A. Munsey Copyright, 1891 By United States Book Co. Copyright, 1900 By Street and Smith Dean Dunham DEAN DUNHAM; OR, THE WATERFORD MYSTERY. CHAPTER I. ADIN DUNHAM SURPRISES HIS WIFE. "I've been looking forward to this day for weeks, Sarah," said Adin Dunham, as he rose from the breakfast-table on a certain Wednesday morning in the early part of June. "Why, father, what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Dunham curiously. "Because to-day I am to receive a thousand dollars—a thousand dollars in hard cash," answered her husband in a tone of exultation. "Well, I declare!" ejaculated his wife in amazement. "Who on earth is going to give you a thousand dollars?" "No one is going to give it to me; it's my own." "How strangely you do talk, Adin Dunham! You ain't out of your mind, be you?" "Not as I know of," answered her husband with an amused smile. "Is it really true that somebody is going to pay you a thousand dollars?" "Yes, it is." "And you say it is your own?" "Yes." "I don't understand it," said Mrs. Dunham, with the air of one to whom a puzzle is propounded and who gives it up. "Then I'll explain. You know when Uncle Dan died he left me a piece of stony pasture land in Rockmount?" "Yes, I know. You never could sell it, I've heard you say ag'in and ag'in." "Well, I've sold it at last. There's a company goin' to put up a big hotel just on that spot, and they've offered me a thousand dollars for the land." "Couldn't they find a better buildin' lot than that?" "Well, you see it's located near the lake, and though it's barren enough it's well situated, and there's five acres of it, plenty of room for all the buildin's required. They offered me first seven hundred, then eight hundred, and finally when they got up to a thousand I caved in----" "You what?" "Well, I agreed to let 'em have it. I'm going over to-day to get the money." "Why, it'll make us rich, Adin. I never expected you'd be wuth a thousand dollars." "I wonder what Uncle Dan would have said if he'd thought I would have got so much for the land. He never cared much for me, and he only left me that because he thought it wasn't wuth anything. He did better by me than he expected."