"But if our musician is, as you think, innocent," Grace insisted, "then your father could do more for him than we."
"But we don't know that he is innocent. That's only my idea," said Betty. "And dad would probably think it was a very foolish one. Maybe it is, for all I know," she added dubiously.
"How about Allen?" said Grace suddenly after another rather long silence. "He would certainly sympathize with our poor hermit and, being a lawyer, he would probably be able to think up some way that we might establish the man's innocence or guilt without giving away his whereabouts. There, how's that for a brilliant idea?" she finished proudly.
"I had already thought of that," admitted Betty, while the girls turned amused eyes upon her. "But I was almost afraid to suggest it."
"Maybe Allen would agree with your father that we, ought to turn him over to justice," said Mollie, but Betty shook her head vigorously.
"Never! Not Allen!" she declared fervently. "He believes the other fellow innocent until he is proved guilty."
"Yes, but the law has sent many an innocent man to prison nevertheless," retorted Mollie. "We don't always find justice in the courts."
"Hear, hear," cried Grace. "Get a soap box, Mollie."
"Then it is settled that we are to tell Allen, is it?" said Betty eagerly. "I'm sure he will find some way to help us."
"If we can pry him loose from the mining outfit," laughed Mollie. "He seems to have gold fever worse than any of them."
But Allen had been busy, during the intervals when he could tear himself away from the fascination of the mining operations, on some legal matters.
Mrs. Nelson, and her husband also, had feared that these numerous relatives of her great uncle, of whose existence she herself had scarcely been aware, might see fit to contest the old man's will especially when it became apparent that his property at this time was far more valuable than it had been at the time of his death.
Allen, after considerable investigation, was able to set their fears at rest upon this point, however, by asserting that the old gentleman had made only one will and that he thought it very doubtful under the circumstances that the relatives would take the case into the courts. They were not Mr. Barcolm's children and grandchildren, as Lizzie had supposed, but distant relatives whom at one time and another the old man had befriended and gathered about him, but who had later quarreled with their benefactor.