The next morning Robert is again up before sunrise sipping hot coffee on the front porch, old Kentuck lying at his feet. He thinks of the previous day, the men were right - the church is not that big and there is no place to hide anything, especially a considerable quantity of gold bars. He keeps remembering back to what his friend Ben had told him – a bar of gold weighs over twenty-seven pounds each. A wagonload of that would take up a pretty good chunk of space. The church just isn’t big enough.
A few minutes before 9 a.m. he rides Blaze up to the hitching post in front of Masonic House Number One. As he steps from the saddle to the ground, he thinks, ‘How could I have been so wrong? All the clues were right there in the 2nd Chapter of Kings, Chapter 16 and Verse 8.’
The men are milling around the front of the Lodge, but today only about twelve show up. Six decide Robert is crazy and did not want to waste their time. Yesterday the men were eager to get started looking for the gold – they thought within a few hours they would have their hands on bars and bars of shiny gold. It isn’t to be that way today the men were simply going through the motion, after searching the church they are sure nothing is in the Lodge either.
The noonday meal comes and goes without any hint of information being discovered about the gold. At 5 p.m., as happened yesterday Robert asks if anyone had found anything – the answer was still no. Did anyone have a word or a comment – again no one speaks. Robert calls everyone into a semi-circle around him, “Men, I am sorry! I could have sworn the gold would have been in the church and the Lodge – I was wrong! You all have done an excellent job. I guess looking on the bright side the gold was to be returned to the Treasury of the United States, so not finding it is not a big loss to us; however, I am sorry your sincere efforts did not produce any positive results.”
After supper, Robert and Luke sit on the porch once again. Robert is in a melancholy mood; he does not want to talk. Luke presses the issue, “Father, I have a question to ask,” as he rubs Kentuck’s head.
“No, no I do not want to talk more about the fruitless search of the church and lodge.”
“Father what I need to ask concerns the Masonic Lodge, but not the search for the gold. Today William, Isaac, Stephen, Thomas Henry and I were assigned to search outside the Lodge building around the rock foundation checking for possible hidden storage areas.”
“Are you trying to say you and the boys found something?”
“Oh no, no we didn’t, but the boys were checking out the old cannon sitting in front of the Lodge, you know, that was the one fired on the 4th. Well, the boys asked a question I could not answer. They wanted to know what a cannon ball weighed? I tried to tell them you and I were in the Infantry, not the Artillery, so I did not know the weight. Do you know?”
At first, Robert sits there appearing as though he has not heard the question, “The weight of a cannon ball huh? That is a twelve pounder sitting out front of the Lodge, so I suppose the balls weigh twelve pounds each.”
“Father, does the Army make different weights of twelve pound cannonballs.”
“Luke did you just hear what you said? Why do you suppose they call them twelve pounders?”
“Oh yeah, that was silly wasn’t it, but those cannonballs weigh much more than twelve pounds. The boys tried to pick one up, and they were just barely able to move it. Oh well, it’s not important, I think I’m going in and get ready for bed.”
Robert sat by himself with only Kentuck for company on the porch. Kentuck still lay at his feet sleeping. Robert watches the moon rise over the pond and trees toward the east thinking about the past two days: why does the church have bells, but never use them. Why would the members of the Meetinghouse stop ringing their bells right after the Battle of Scarburg Mill? As a tribute to Pappy John, that makes no sense? Quakers are pacifists, silencing the bells would be looked upon as a tribute to the battle. They would not do that. And what’s with the twelve-pound cannonballs not weighing twelve pounds? Suddenly it struck him like a bolt of lightning!
Running back into the house, he hollered, “Luke! Luke go saddle the horses; we’ve got things to do!”
“Father it’s late,” complained Luke. “Why would you want to go somewhere at this hour?”
“Come on hurry! We’re going back to the Meetinghouse and the Lodge.”