A Mystery Story for Boys
By
ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
COPYRIGHT, 1936
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
“You mean to say he takes those big, jug-likethings down there empty andbrings them up full?” Johnny Thompson, theboy from Illinois who had travelled far andseen many strange things, stared at BallardBall, the red-headed boy of the CumberlandMountains of Kentucky, with surprise. If thetruth were told, he found himself doubting theother boy’s story.
Here he was standing in the grinding roomof an old fashioned mill watching massivestone wheels grind the corn he had carted fromhis cousin’s store and at the same time discoveringwhat promised to be a first classmystery right down here in the slow old Cumberlandmountains where, he had supposed,nothing unusual ever happened.
“But what’s down there?” He was lookingat the floor of the mill. At the same time hewas hearing a curious sound, a sucking andhissing that might, he thought, have been theworking of a small steam engine. But of coursethere was no steam engine, for there was nosmoke stack and no smoke.
“Nothing down there but water. Som