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betcricketapp is gaming monitoring system ensures transparency and fairness, with testing and certification by independent regulatory bodies.⭐️ As he climbed the rail fence his eyes swept the Settlement below, resting at length on the jail-like wall in the edge of the Scroggie timber, above which the tall derrick protruded like a white, scarred face. "Humph!" he mused, "Scroggie and Hinter must either have struck water, or give up. Their rig's quiet after chuggin' away day and night for weeks.",CHAPTER XXIII MR. HINTER PROVES A PUZZLE,Two weeks had passed since the robbery of the Twin Oaks store and that which he and Maurice had planned to do towards finding the Scroggie will and capturing the thieves had, through dire necessity, been abandoned. Sickness had claimed Maurice just when he was most needed. For days Billy had lived a sort of trancelike existence; had gone about acting queerly, refusing his meals and paying little attention to anybody or anything.,"Not what you'd notice, Ma. He ain't any like Mr. Stanhope. His face—I ain't likin' it a bit. Besides, Ma, he flogs his poor horse somethin' awful.","It shall be extended sir, it shall be extended," broke in Captain Acton.，"Down feedin' his pets, most likely," answered his father as he went out. A moment or two later Billy came in. The boys seated themselves in their places and ate their breakfast in silence.，"Have you seen a letter," cried Mr Lawrence, "a broad piece of paper folded into four lying in the road?"，The two boys crouched down beside a great beech. The light, which had not been a great distance from them when first sighted, was rapidly approaching. Billy grasped his chum's arm. "Look," he whispered, "there's two of 'em.""So you're back at last, are you?" she addressed Billy, crossly. "Thought you'd never come. I've been waitin' on that sugar an' stuff fer two hours er more. Now, you go into the pantry and get somethin' to eat, while I unpack this basket. I know you must be nigh starved."

The ordinary was held in a long room next to the room in which the seafaring men congregated. As a meal it was renowned in the district. Coarse it might have been called, coarse and plentiful, but it was of that sort of coarseness which makes very good eating. Mr Short, the landlord, was a liberal caterer, and he excelled in choice of rounds of beef, in joints of venison, in legs of pork and mutton, in fine dishes of veal; and this ordinary was always graced with a precedent dish of fish, which was invariably fresh from the sea, and whether turbot, cod, bake, soles, and many flat fish which the smacks brought with them into Old Harbour, were delicious in freshness and flavour. Short's cheeses, too, were always very fine, dry, crumbly, flakey, nutty, and without being too strong they flavoured the bread or the biscuit with what the palate knew to be real cheese. His cellars held a very fine old port, but it was seldom asked for unless some person of distinction and importance occupied a seat at that teeming and appetising board. Short brewed his [Pg 125]own beer, and a delicate amber draught it was; there was no better beer brewed in England.,Mr Lawrence was a quality guest, and being a frequenter, had a place of his own, which was on the left hand of the landlord; thus he got the fish of his choice, the cut of meat he liked best, the best draught of ale the house could[Pg 127] supply, and this ordinary was too useful to him to allow him to be in debt to it.,"Hey? Oh, all right, all right. Stanhope's a fine youngster, but poor, poor.",The deacon stood perplexedly scratching his head. Then he started forward on a run to tell those who had planned with him a little surprise gift for the fishermen of the perfidy of human nature.,Maurice was off like a shot. As he rounded the house on a lope he ran into Billy, coming from the opposite direction. Billy's cotton blouse was bulging. In one hand he carried the smoking bake-pan, in the other a fat cookie deeply scalloped on one side.,"Sure. Do you want somebody else to stumble on it first? We've gotta hunt tonight an' every night till we find it, that's all.",She caught her breath quickly and a flush stole up beneath the sun and wind stain on her cheeks. There was that in the pressure of the hand on hers, strong yet tender, which swept the feeling of loneliness from her heart.,"I guess so," Billy replied indifferently.,He snatched up the demijohn and went into the store. Old Harry sat down on the bench and waited until he returned.,"Well, run along then. I best keep right on. Your poor Ma'll be needin' me.","That's a nice smile you wear," said Mr. Johnston scathingly as he gazed down at Billy, his bony fingers caressing the long, supple pointer.,"We beg to thank you most cordially," replied the Admiral, who, in response to Captain Acton's desire, was acting as spokesman in this passage. "May I venture to ask if I have the honour of addressing my Lord Garlies?".