Penny leaped out of bed and touched a match to the wick of an oil lamp.In its flickering yellow glow Mrs. Lear looked as pale as a ghost.
"While we were at the barn dance someone broke into the house," the oldlady explained in an agitated voice. "The deed's gone! Now I'll be putoff my land like the others. Oh, lawseeme, I wisht I was dead!"
"What deed do you mean?" Penny asked, perplexed.
"Why, the deed to this house and my land! I've always kept it under themattress o' my bed. Now it's gone!"
"Isn't the deed recorded?"
"No, it ain't. I always calculated on havin' it done, but I wanted tosave the fee long as I could. Figured to have the property put in myson's name jes' before I up and died. He's married and livin' in Omaha.Now see what a mess I'm in."
"If the deed is lost and not recorded, you are in difficulties," Pennyagreed.
"Perhaps it isn't lost," said Louise, encouragingly. "Did you searcheverywhere, Mrs. Lear?"
"I pulled the bed half to pieces."
"We'll help you look for it," Penny offered. "It must be here somewhere."
"This is the fust time in twenty years that anyone ever stole anythingoff me," the old lady wailed as she led the way down the dark hall. "ButI kinda knowed somethin' like this was goin' to happen."
Mrs. Lear's bedroom was in great disorder. Blankets had been strewn overthe floor and the limp mattress lay doubled up on the springs.
"You see!" the old lady cried. "The deed's gone! I've looked everywhere."
Penny and Louise carefully folded all the blankets. They straightened themattress and searched carefully along the springs. They looked beneaththe bed. The missing paper was not to be found.
"Are you sure you didn't hide it somewhere else?" Penny asked.
"Fer ten years I've kept that deed under the bed mattress!" the old ladysnapped. "Oh, it's been stole all right. An' there's the tracks o' thethievin' rascal that did it too!"
Mrs. Lear lowered the oil lamp closer to the floor. Plainly visible werethe muddy heelprints of a woman's shoe. The marks had left smudges on therag rugs which dotted the room; they crisscrossed the bare floor to thedoor, the window and the bed. Penny and Louise followed the trail downthe hallway to the stairs. They picked it up again in the kitchen andthere lost it.
"You don't need to follow them tracks no further," Mrs. Lear advisedgrimly. "I know who it was that stole the deed. There ain't nobody couldo' done it but Mrs. Burmaster!"
"Mrs. Burmaster!" Louise echoed, rather stunned by the accusation.
"She'd move Heaven and Earth to git me off this here bit o' land. Shehates me, and I hate her."
"But how could Mrs. Burmaster know you had the deed?" Penny asked. "Younever told her, did you?"
"Seems to me like onest in an argument I did say somethin' about havingit here in the house," Mrs. Lear admitted. "We was goin' it hot and heavyone day, an' I don't remember jest what I did tell her. Too much, Ireckon."
The old lady sat down heavily in a chair by the stove. She looked sickand beaten.
"Don't take it so hard," Penny advised kindly. "You can't be sure thatMrs. Burmaster stole the deed."
"Who else would want it?"
"Some other person might have done it for spite."
Mrs. Lear shook her head. "So far's I know, I ain't got another enemy inthe whole world. Oh, Mrs. Burmaster done it all right."
"But what can she hope to gain?" asked Penny.
"She aims to put me off this land."
"Mr. Burmaster seems like a fairly reasonable man. I doubt he'd make anyuse of the deed even if his wife turned it over to him."
"Maybe not," Mrs. Lear agreed, "but Mrs. Burmaster ain't likely to giveit to her husband. She'll find some other way to git at me. You see!"
Nothing Penny or Louise could say cheered the old lady.
"Don't you worry none about me," she told them. "I'll brew a cup o' teaand take some aspirin. Then maybe I kin think up a way to git that deedback. I ain't through yet--not by a long shot!"
Long after Penny and Louise had gone back to bed the old lady remained inthe kitchen. It was nearly three o'clock before they heard her tiptoeupstairs to her room. But at seven the next morning she was abroad asusual and had breakfast waiting for them.
"I've thought things through," she told Penny as she poured coffee from ablackened pot. "It won't do no good to go to Mrs. Burmaster and try tomake her give up that deed. I'll jes wait and see what she does fust."
"And in the meantime, the deed may show up," Penny replied. "Even thoughyou think Mrs. Burmaster took it, there's always a chance that it wasonly misplaced."
"Foot tracks don't lie," the old lady retorted. "I was out lookin' aroundearly this morning. Them prints lead from my door straight toward theBurmasters!"
Deeply as were the girls interested in Mrs. Lear's problem, they knewthat they could be of no help to her. Already they had lingered in RedValley far longer than their original plan. They shuddered to think whattheir parents would say if and when they returned to Riverview.
"Lou, we have to start for Hobostein right away!" Penny announced. "We'llbe lucky if we get there in time to catch a train home."
Mrs. Lear urged her young guests to remain another day, but to her kindinvitation they turned deaf ears. In vain they pressed money upon her.She refused to accept anything so Penny was compelled to hide a bill inthe teapot where it would be found later.
"You'll come again?" the old lady asked almost plaintively as she badethem goodbye.
"We'll try to," Penny promised, mounting Bones. "But if we do it will beby train."
"I got a feeling I ain't goin' to be here much longer," Mrs. Lear saidsadly.
"Don't worry about the deed," Penny tried to cheer her. "Even if Mrs.Burmaster should have it, she may be afraid to try to make trouble foryou."
"It ain't just that biddy I'm worried about. It's somethin' deeper." Mrs.Lear's clear gaze swept toward the blue-rimmed hills.
Penny and Louise waited for her to go on. After a moment she did.
"Seen a rain crow a settin' on the fence this morning. There'll be rainan' a lot of it. Maybe the dam will hold, an' again, maybe it won't."
"Shouldn't you move to the hills?" Penny asked anxiously.
Mrs. Lear's answer was a tight smile, hard as granite.
"Nothin' on Earth kin move me off this land. Nothin'. If the flood takesmy house it'll take me with it!"
The old lady extended a bony hand and gravely bade each of the girlsgoodbye.
Penny and Louise rode their horses to the curve of the road and thenlooked back. Mrs. Lear stood by the gate for all the world like a statueof bronze. They waved a fast farewell but she did not appear to see. Hereyes were raised to the misty hills and she stood thus until the treesblotted her from view.