interesting. But let me go back to my motel and think it over, and I’ll tell you about it tomorrow when I visit your folks.” “Suits me fine,” Ronnie answered. Caldwell climbed into his car and started the engine.15 Ronnie and Bill watched him while he maneuvered his machine about on the narrow, cobbled roadway and headed in the opposite direction. Then Caldwell leaned from the window and waved good-by. He started back up the road toward the highway in low gear. 15 Bill turned to Ronnie. “Now just what do you suppose brought him here to see the village in the first place? He couldn’t have stumbled on it just by accident, that’s for sure!” “He was eying the locked-up building mighty suspicious-like, I’ll tell you that!” Ronnie added. “Did you see him, Bill?” Bill nodded his head. “He’s come here for something, and I don’t think writing a book is the whole answer.” They walked up the path together, picking up old acorns and shooting them into the trees. Suddenly Bill stopped and confronted Ronnie. “How come you asked him would other people pay money to see the village, Ronnie?” he asked. “I was putting one and one together, and I think I came up with two.” “And what’s this two you came up with?” “Well, that narrow gap where Goose Brook comes down through the valley, plus some money we might be able to earn this summer showing people around. Maybe it equals a dam and saving the village.” Bill thought about that while he searched the dried leaves beneath a giant bull oak for more ammunition. “How much you figure a dam would cost?” Ronnie shrugged. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. A hundred dollars, maybe?” 16 Bill shook his head. “Maybe more like a thousand. Maybe ten thousand.” 16 “Well, it would be a beginning anyway. And I know people hereabouts who would want to see the village saved, too, and I’ll bet if they heard how we were working to earn money, maybe they’d help out too. My dad knows the president of the historical society in town, and he told Dad he was sick hearing about how the village would be bulldozed and flooded, and if there was anything the society could
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