"Well, you've hit it," responded John Ellison. "I know he needs a man, and I'm big enough to do the work. Say, come on in with me to-morrow, will you? I hate to go ask Old Witham for work. You don't mind. Come in and see what he says." "I'll do it," replied Henry Burns. "I'll meet you at the foot of the hill to-morrow forenoon at ten o'clock. Perhaps he'll hire me, too." "You! you don't have to work," exclaimed John Ellison. "No, but I will, if he'll take me," said Henry Burns. "I'll stay until I get one good chance to go through the mill, and then I'll leave." "You're a brick," said John Ellison. "I'm going to tell mother about the scheme now. She won't like it, either. She'd feel bad to have me go to work there for somebody else, when we ought to be running it ourselves. Where are you going--canoeing?" "Yes; come along?" replied Henry Burns. But John Ellison was too full of his plan to admit of sport, and they separated, with the agreement to meet on the following day. John Ellison was correct in his surmise that Mrs. Ellison would oppose his intention to work for Colonel Witham. Indeed, Mrs. Ellison wouldn't hear of it at all, at first. It seemed to her a disgrace, almost, to ask favour at the hands of one who, she firmly believed, had somehow tricked them out of their own. But John Ellison was firm. It would be only for a little time, at most; only that he might, at opportune moments, look about in hope of making some discovery. "But what can it possibly accomplish?" urged Mrs. Ellison. "Lawyer Estes has had the mill searched a dozen times, and there has been nothing found. How can you expect to find anything? Colonel Witham wouldn't give you the chance, anyway. He's always around the mill now, and he's been over it a hundred times, himself, I dare say. Remember how we've seen his light there night after night?" But John Ellison was not to be convinced nor thwarted. "I want to hunt for myself," he insisted. "You kept it from me, before, when the lawyers had the searches made." "I know it," sighed Mrs. Ellison. "I hated to tell you that we were in danger of losing the mill." "Well, I'm going," declared John Ellison, and Mrs. Ellison gave reluctant consent. Still, she might have saved herself the trouble of objecting, and let Colonel Witham settle the matter--which he did, summarily. It was warm, and miller Witham, uncomfortable at all times in summer sultriness, was doubly so in the hot, dusty atmosphere of the mill. The dust from the meal settled on his perspiring face and distressed him; the dull grinding of the huge stones and the whirr of the shaftings and drums somehow did not sound in his ears so agreeably as he had once fancied they would. There was something oppressive about the place--or something in the air that caused him an unexplainable uneasiness--and he stood in the doorway, looking unhappy and out of sorts.