On Saturday, shortly after noon, the boys were at the dead tree again.
They had a smoke and a chat in the shade, and then dug a little in
their last hole, not with great hope, but merely because Tom said there
were so many cases where people had given up a treasure after getting
down within six inches of it, and then somebody else had come along and
turned it up with a single thrust of a shovel. The thing failed this
time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools and went away feeling
that they had not trifled with fortune, but had fulfilled all the
requirements that belong to the business of treasure-hunting.
When they reached the haunted house there was something so weird and
grisly about the dead silence that reigned there under the baking sun,
and something so depressing about the loneliness and desolation of the
place, that they were afraid, for a moment, to venture in. Then they
crept to the door and took a trembling peep. They saw a weed-grown,
floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant windows, a
ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and
abandoned cobwebs.
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