we left pinned to the door?" asked Dray of
Denny.

"Nary a note," he said.

Later it was found where it had blown into a clump of bushes. So that
accounted for Denny's not being warned in time.

"But everything seems to be coming out right," said Cora, with a
rather wintry smile. All the girls were pale, and a trifle weak. The
boys, too, were tired.

"And what are those papers?" asked Jack, taking them from Cora.

"Those prove Mrs. Lewis's title to the land the plotters tried to
get," she said. "Oh, I'm so glad we found them."

"Who found them?" asked Walter, giving Cora's hand a surreptitious
squeeze.

"They were in the red oar," said Denny. "And to think I never knew it!
They were there all these years, and all of us worrying about them and
wondering where they were. But I understand now. Grandfather Lewis
must have hollowed out a hole in the handle, hid the papers in it, and
then plugged it up. Then he gave the oar to me to keep. I remember
well at the time he said it would prove valuable some day. I often
wondered what made the oar lighter than it had been. It was because it
was hollowed out.

"I asked him what he meant by sayin' the oar was valuable, but he kept
puttin' me off. He said he'd tell me some time, but he never did. Then
the day he died he sent for me, and was trying to tell me, I guess,
but he couldn't. I remember I wondered what was on his mind, but he
was too weak to explain. So he died with his secret, and the red oar
had it and kept it all these years.

"But the oar broke, or those men and myself broke it between us, and
the papers fell out. Now the widder will get her rights."

And the Widow Lewis did. Leaving the valuable documents with Denny,
the motor girls and the boys went back to their stopping places--the
girls to the bungalow, the boys to the tent.

And such a time as Cora and her chums had in telling the good news to
Mrs. Lewis and Freda! The latter could hardly believe it at first.

"Oh, how can we ever thank you!" cried Freda, as, with tears in her
eyes, she embraced Cora.

"Don't try," was the whispered answer.

And so everything came out right after all. The papers so oddly hidden
in the red oar proved the widow's title to the valuable land beyond
the shadow of a doubt. As for the plotters, they were not seen again
in that part of the country. They realized that the sharp trick they
had tried to play had failed, thanks to the activities of Cora and her
friends.

M