Sweetwater headed the procession.  He had admonished silence, and his wish in this regard was so well carried out that they looked more like a group of spectres moving up the moon-lighted road, than a party of eager and impatient men.  Not till they turned into the main thoroughfare did anyone speak.  Then Abel could no longer restrain himself and he cried out: 

“We are going to Mr. Sutherland’s.”

But Sweetwater quickly undeceived him.

“No,” said he, “only into the woods opposite his house.”

But at this Mr. Fenton drew him back.

“Are you sure of yourself?” he said.  “Have you really seen this money and is it concealed in this forest?”

“I have seen the money,” Sweetwater solemnly declared, “and it is hidden in these woods.”

Mr. Fenton dropped his arm, and they moved on till their way was blocked by the huge trunk of a fallen tree.

“It is here we are to look,” cried Sweetwater, pausing and motioning Knapp to turn his lantern on the spot where the shadows lay thickest.  “Now, what do you see?” he asked.

“The upturned roots of a great tree,” said Mr. Fenton.

“And under them?”

“A hole, or, rather, the entrance to one.”

“Very good; the money is in that hole.  Pull it out, Mr. Fenton.”

The assurance with which Sweetwater spoke was such that Mr. Fenton at once stooped and plunged his hand into the hole.  But when, after a hurried search, he drew it out again, there was nothing in it; the place was empty.  Sweetwater stared at Mr. Fenton amazed.

“Don’t you find anything?” he asked.  “Isn’t there a roll of bills in that hole?”

“No,” was the gloomy answer, after a renewed attempt and a second disappointment.  “There is nothing to be found here.  You are labouring under some misapprehension, Sweetwater.”

“But I can’t be.  I saw the money; saw it in the hand of the person who hid it there.  Let me look for it, constable.  I will not give up the search till I have turned the place topsy-turvy.”

Kneeling down in Mr. Fenton’s place, he thrust his hand into the hole.  On either side of him peered the faces of Mr. Fenton and Knapp. (Abel had slipped away at a whisper from Sweetwater.) They were lit with a similar expression of anxious interest and growing doubt.  His own countenance was a study of conflicting and by no means cheerful emotions.  Suddenly his aspect changed.  With a quick twist of his lithe, if awkward, body, he threw himself lengthwise on the ground, and began tearing at the earth inside the hole, like a burrowing animal.

“I cannot be mistaken.  Nothing will make me believe it is not here.  It has simply been buried deeper than I thought.  Ah!  What did I tell you?  See here!  And see here!”

Bringing his hands into the full blaze of the light, he showed two rolls of new, crisp bills.

“They were lying under half a foot of earth,” said he, “but if they had been buried as deep as Grannie Fuller’s well, I’d have unearthed them.”