“The mice are here, anyway,” said Henry Burns, as he reached in and set the candle down, preparatory to extending his arm at full length to draw out the box. “I see a hole in one corner where they can get in and out.” Then, as he seized the knob and pulled the little drawer open, there darted out a small object that ran across his hand and disappeared in the darkness beyond the lantern lights. Henry Burns laughed, the next moment, for he had dodged back, bumping his head and letting go of the knob. “Run for your life, Jack,” he cried. “Here comes the witch.” Then, before Harvey’s astonished eyes, Henry Burns drew forth into the light of the cabin lantern a little drawer; and, within it, a nest fashioned of odds and ends of paper and soft stuff; and, within the nest, a family of tiny mice, lying as snug as the proverbial bug in a rug. The drawer was about a foot in length, six inches deep, and perhaps four inches in height. It contained no apparent treasure—only a litter of paper that mice had torn and gnawed into pieces. There was no gold nor jewels therein. “Hm!” exclaimed Harvey, with an expression of chagrin overshadowing his face, “Don’t look as though there was anything there to make us rich—or to have warranted Carleton in breaking into our cabin, eh?” “There isn’t now,” replied Henry Burns, calmly, but with a shade of disappointment in his voice. “There isn’t now, but there was. The mice have got here before us, that’s all.” He held up to the light a scrap of the torn paper. It was no ordinary paper that the lantern-light revealed to the eyes of the astonished Harvey—far from it. It was the paper that no man may make for himself—the paper of a national bank-note—and there were, on this particular fragment, yet to be seen, a full cipher and the half of another. Harvey fairly gasped. “That was a hundred-dollar bill!” he exclaimed. “Yes, or a thousand,” said Henry Burns. Harvey groaned. “Better drop those mice overboard, hadn’t we?” said he. Henry Burns scooped the family up in his hand and passed them over. “I believe you said if you saw a witch you’d eat her,” he remarked, slyly. “Ugh!” ejaculated Harvey, as he dropped the mice alongside. “Say, you take it coolly enough, don’t you?” “Well, why not?” replied Henry Burns. “It isn’t our money that’s gone.” “It would have been,” said Harvey. “I don’t know whether it would or not,” responded Henry Burns. “We’d have to turn it over to the authorities, I suppose, to see if any one claimed it—hullo! what’s this?” Running the litter through his fingers, he turned up from the very bottom a piece of the paper that had escaped entire mutilation. He held it up triumphantly to the light. “We’ve got one prize,” he cried. “It’s the only one that isn’t destroyed—but it’s fifty dollars, and that’s something.” “But there’s only a piece of it,” said Harvey. “More than half,” said Henry Burns, joyfully. “That’s enough. We can redeem it.”