There were no traces left the next morning of Martha's stealthy visit.

The chicken bone had gone out of the window, but all the rest had gone where it would do the most good. And Teddy had slept the sleep of the satisfied, if not exactly the sleep of the just.

Breakfast was served at an unusually early hour, as there was a great deal to be done to right the wrong of the day before, and it was very important that the boys get an early start in the search for Uncle Aaron's missing papers.

He himself had little hope of finding them. If they were in the river, which seemed to him most likely, they might have been carried down the stream. And, even if they were found, they might be so spoiled by the soaking that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make them out.

In any event, it meant for him a lot of trouble, and he was in a fiendish temper, when, after a sleepless night, he came downstairs. He responded gruffly to the greetings of the others, and favored Teddy with a black stare that showed that he had not forgiven him.

"What have you got up your sleeve for to-day?" he growled. "Some more mischief, I'll be bound."

"I'm going to look for your papers," answered Teddy promptly, "and I won't stop until I find them."

His mother shot him a bright glance at the respectful reply, which rather took the wind out of Aaron's sails.

"Humph," he muttered. "Talk is cheap." But he became silent and devoted himself to the breakfast, which Mrs. Rushton, with Martha's help, had made unusually tempting in order to coax him into good humor.

"Now," said Mr. Mansfield Rushton when they had finished, "your Uncle Aaron and I are going down to the village. He's going to leave his watch to be repaired, and I've got to see Jed Muggs and settle with him for the damage to his coach and horses"--here he looked sternly at Teddy, who kept his eyes studiously on the tablecloth--"from the runaway. I'm going, too, to put up a notice in the post-office, offering a reward to any one who may find and return Uncle Aaron's papers.

"As for you boys, I want you to get some of the other boys together and go over every foot of ground down near the river, where the accident----"

"_Accident!_" sneered Aaron contemptuously.

"Where the accident happened," went on Mr. Rushton, taking no notice of the interruption. "Look in every bush on both sides of the road. Slip on your bathing suits under your other clothes, and if you can't find the papers on land try to find them in the water.

"In most places it isn't so deep but what you can wade around. Get sticks and poke under the stones and in every hole under the bank. In places where it's over your heads, dive down and feel along the bottom with your hands."

"But do be careful, boys," put in Mrs. Rushton. "I'm always nervous when you get where the water is deep."

"Don't worry, Agnes," were her husband's soothing words. "Both of them can swim like fish, and now they've got a chance to do it for something else than fun.

"And mind, Teddy," he added, "it's up to you to get busy and make good for your own sake, as well as Uncle Aaron's. I haven't yet decided"--here Aaron grinned, unpleasantly--"just what I shall do to you for what happened yesterday, but I don't mind telling you that if you come home with those papers it's going to be a mighty sight easier for you than if you don't. Now get along with you," addressing both boys, "and make every minute tell."

The Rushton boys hurried about, put on their bathing suits under their other clothes, and hastened from the house, eager for action. They were glad to get out of the shadow of Uncle Aaron, and, besides, the task they had before them promised to be as much of a lark as a duty.

"I'll pick up Jack and Jim as I go along, and you skip around and get Bob," suggested Fred. "Probably we'll find some other fellows down by the bridge, and they'll be glad enough to help us do the hunting."

Teddy a.s.sented, and soon had whistled Bob out of the house.

"h.e.l.lo, Teddy," was Bob's greeting. "You're still alive, I see. What did that old crab do to you last night?"

"Nothing much," said Teddy cheerfully. "So far, I've only had to go without my supper. Didn't go altogether without it, though," and he poured into Bob's sympathetic ears the story of the pie and the chicken.

"Bully for Martha," chuckled Bob. "She's the stuff!"

"You bet she is!" echoed Teddy heartily. "But let's hurry now, Bob," he went on. "Fred and the other fellows are down at the bridge by this time, and we've got a job before us."

The two boys broke into a run and soon overtook the three other boys, who were looking carefully among the bushes on each side of the road as they went along. This they did more as a matter of form than anything else, for it was hardly likely that the papers had been dropped this side of the bridge.

It was almost certain that they had left Aaron's pocket at the moment he had made his flying leap into the stream. In that case, they would be either in the bushes on the bank or in the water itself. It was barely possible, too, that they had fallen in the coach, when the blow of the ball had brought Aaron to his knees. If that were so, they might have been jarred out of the coach on the further side of the road, when it had smashed into the trees.

So when the boys reached the neighborhood of the bridge, the search began in earnest. The boys scattered about under the direction of Fred, who gave each one a certain section to search over.

"Now, fellows," he urged, himself setting the example, "go over every foot with a fine-tooth comb. We've simply got to get those papers, or home won't be a very healthy place for Teddy."

Apart from their liking for Teddy, the boys were excited by the idea of compet.i.tion. To be looking for papers that meant real money, as Fred had carefully explained to them, seemed almost like a story or a play. Each was eager to be the first to find them and stand out as the hero of the occasion.

But, try as they might, n.o.body had any luck. They reached and burrowed and bent, until their faces were red and their backs were lame. And at last they felt absolutely sure that the papers were not on either side of the stream.

There remained then only the river itself.

"Well, fellows," summed up Fred, finally, "it's no go on land. We've got to try the water. Here goes."

And, stripping off his outer clothes, he dived in, to be followed a moment later by Teddy.

"Gee, that water looks good," said Jim enviously. "I wish I'd thought to bring my bathing suit along."

"So do I," agreed Jack, as he looked at the cool water dripping from the bodies of the brothers.

"Well, what if we haven't!" exclaimed Bob. "Don't let's stand here like a lot of b.o.o.bs. We can take off our shoes and roll our pants almost up to our waists. Then we can wade along near the edge, while Fred and Teddy do their looking further out in the river."

It was no sooner said than done, and they were soon wading along in the shallower parts, each armed with a long stick, with which they poked into every place that they thought might give results.

Fred and Teddy dived and dived again, keeping under water as long as they could, and feeling along the river bed. They kept this up until they were nearly exhausted, and had to go to the bank to rest.

"It isn't our lucky day," said Fred, puffing and blowing. "I'm afraid the river doesn't know anything about those papers."

"I hate to go home without them," said Teddy, as visions of Uncle Aaron flitted across his mind.

"Oh, well, you fellows have certainly worked like truck horses,"

remarked Bob, "but if they're not there you can't get them, and you might as well make up your minds to it."

"Phew, but I'm hot!" complained Jim. "Say, fellows, how would some of those peaches taste?" and he cast a longing look toward a peach orchard, across the way from where they were resting.

"How would they taste?" repeated Jack, as he followed the direction of Jim's glance. "Yum-yum."

"There's a lot of big mellow ones lying on the ground," went on Jim, whose mouth was watering more and more. "They'll only rot, anyway, so what's the matter with our getting a few? They're no good to Sam Perkins, and they'd certainly do us a whole lot of good."

Fred and Teddy were hurrying into their clothes.

"We want to keep a sharp lookout for Sam," cautioned Fred. "He's got a new dog whip, and he said that if he caught any boy in his orchard, he was going to skin him alive."

"He's got to catch us first," said Teddy. "Let's take a chance."

They took it. Another moment, and they were over the fence.

CHAPTER IX