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Show Three Ways to Do It Ey ROSE MEREDITH iJ by McClur Nw'8iiarr Syndicate. W.NL" Service) dpO," SAID James Faruaham, look- J ing with kindly, shrewd eyes at the ardent young man who wanted to marry his daughter, "so, Anthony, you are asking for my Ann':" "Yes, sir,", said Anthony, looking very proud and straight as he stood before Mr. Farnaham. "I love Ann, and I want to marry her." "Well, then, there are three things you must do before I will say "yes" to your question," said James Farnaham Farna-ham gravely. "Will you spend a night In the haunted house? Then, will you find out who is smuggling liquor Into the town, and lastly, will you pay up every debt that you owe before you are married?" mar-ried?" "Right," said young Anthony firmly, "I will do all of those tilings In proper order and report to you. May I speak to Ann before I go?" "Of course," said Mr. Farnaham, extending ex-tending his hand. "Please stay nnd have supper with us and spend the evening, too, Anthony." "Thank you, sir. But I must get to bed early for I have much to do if I am going to spend the night at the haunted house." "Three things to do," thought Anthony An-thony later on that night, as he slipped out of his window, slid down the rainwater pipe to the ground, and shook himself. "I've certainly had my suspicions of the old house and as for the Identity of the rum runner3, why I believe that the two matters are connectedand con-nectedand if I guess those two riddles, rid-dles, and win the large reward, I can finish paying up my few debts, and Ann and I can stnrt with money in the bank and not a debt to our names !" The old haunted house, as It was called, occupied a quiet back street not far from the little creek that entered en-tered the sound when the tide was going go-ing out. Anthony Ware thought of all of these things as he went up on the broken front porch of the old house. The tide was coming in and Anthony really expected something might happen hap-pen that night when the tide was high. So he tiptoed through the old house on rubber-soled shoes, not hearing hear-ing a sound until after he had been sitting in darkness for an hour. Brave as he was, Anthony felt the hair lift on his head, when those limping limp-ing footfalls began away off somewhere some-where In the kitchen, and came nearer, near-er, nearer. He had slipped Into a tiny cupboard In what was known as the sitting-room, and It was all that he could do to stuff himself in there and close the door before the footfalls came very close they seemed to circle cir-cle the room and then went off again and after awhile he heard them upstairs up-stairs prowling into every room, and then, at last, they came down again and went out of the back door. "He has gone to the creek to meet someone," said Anthony, and he went to the kitchen loft and hid himself in a dark corner by the window where he could see the creek In the queer light of a waning moon. He remembered remem-bered stories that he had heard of how the village constable and some of his men had hidden near the creek and all they discovered was old Oscar Johnson bringing home a load of lobster lob-ster pots filled with crawling black shapes. And now, old Oscar was coming com-ing up the creek, his flat-bottomed boat piled high, with lobster pots. The old man stopped at the old place and unloaded his pot3 into a two-wheeled car that was behind the house, and trundled It out of the yard and down the street to his own house and fish shop. After that, It was quiet again for a long time, and then came the sound of oars and paddles and another an-other boat, loaded with square, deep boxes, wrapped in newspapers. There were four men working there. From his window in the kitchen loft, Anthony Ware watched the unloading of the boxes until all of it had been transferred to the cellar and all the men disappeared down there. Then Anthony, slipping from place to place like a ghost, locked the trapdoor in the kitchen, and locked the outside door, and fled noiselessly down the street to the constable's house and roused him. Then they went and arrested ar-rested the guilty men who were sorting sort-ing out the bottles in the cellar of the haunted house. In the morning, when James Farnaham Farna-ham opened his kitchen door to come outside he found Anthony sitting there waiting for him. "Well?" said Mr. Farnaham. "I came to receive my answer to last night's question," said Anthony. "Did you spend the night in the haunted house?" "Just came from there." "What about the smuggling?" Anthony told him that the guilty men were In jail. "And I suppose the reward yon will get will pay your debts," said Mr. Farnaham -with a twinkle. "But you see, Mr. Farnaham, I haven't any debts at all instead of that, I've got a thousand dollars In the bank. How about Ann?" "She seems to be in the window over your head," chuckled his future father-in-law, and, looking up, he saw lovely Ann, smiling at him. "Of course, you will stay for breakfast," break-fast," she called to him, smiling at him. "He says 'Yes,' Ann, and now we can tell him about building a house on the farming property next door." |
