Say, I was scared to get anywhere near John Till, remembering his big hunting knife, but I kept thinking all the time what I had been thinking before, which was, “What if John Till has found the map, and has gone to dig for the treasure? If the police find him, with it in his possession, the newspapers’ll print all the story, and the Sugar Creek Gang will get a black eye all over the country. On top of that, Little Tom Till will be ashamed to come to Sunday school or even to school; besides, if we can save Old hook-nosed John Till from having to go to jail, he might not ever have to go again.” But I knew that IF he had to go once more, having been in jail a good many times in his life, he’d maybe have to stay in ten or fifteen years this time. So if we could stop him from finding the ransom money, it’d be a good idea. Besides, the money was supposed to be used for a hospital on a foreign missionary field, which made it seem important that we find it ourselves. When we came to the first broken twig, even as scared as Poetry and I were we zipped on, using our flashlights till we came to the next, and the next. In a little while, we were at the top of the hill looking down at the moonlight on the lake. Between us and the lake was the cabin where we had had all our excitement in the afternoon. “Hey, look!” Poetry said to me. “There’s smoke coming out of the chimney!” And sure enough there was. We could see it in the moonlight, rising slowly from the brick chimney top and spreading itself out into a large lazy cloud just like the one Little Jim had whispered to me about, that was hanging above our heads and that had reminded him of the one that had been above the camp of the people in the Bible, which meant that God was right there looking after them and loving them and protecting them. For a minute, right in the middle of all that excitement I got a warm feeling in my heart that God was right there with Poetry and me and that He loved us and was looking after us, and also we were doing the right thing. “Look!” I whispered to Poetry, holding onto his arm so tight he said, “Hey, not so tight--I _am_ looking!” Through one of the windows, we could see a flickering fire in the fireplace. From where we were, we could see past the kitchen window, but couldn’t see into it. Then I felt my hair rising right up under my hat, for there was the shadow of a man just like he’d climbed out that window. Then a flashlight went on and off real quick. “SH!” Poetry said to me, ’cause I had gasped outloud. “He’s coming this way.” Which he was, but only for a few feet till he got to the corner of the cabin, then he turned and followed the cement walk which led along the side of the house and down the slope to the dock. I could hardly believe my ears, but I had to, ’cause the man was whistling a tune and it was “Old Black Joe,” which we sometimes sang out of a song book at Sugar Creek school, and also used different words to in our church, which were: