On Saturday afternoon Tom and Huck pushed open the creaky door of the haunted house.
The house was very quiet.
In the cracks of the stone floor, sickly looking weeds were growing.
The stone fireplace was crumbling, and cobwebs hung from every corner.
"See," whispered Tom, "haunted houses aren't so bad during the day."
Huck only nodded.
The boys left their tools by the fireplace, and Tom led Huck up the stairs.
The stairs were old and rotten in many places, but the boys had no problem climbing them.
The boys searched a closet for hidden treasure but they found nothing.
Huck was getting ready to go down the stairs when Tom hissed, "Shhh . . . Listen!"
"Wh . . . what is it?" asked Huck.
"Someone's coming," whispered Tom. The boys looked at each other in fear.
Then they lay flat on the floor.
Each peered through a knothole in the floorboards.
Two men entered the room below.
One was a Spaniard whom the boys had seen around town.
The boys had never seen the other man before.
The men talked in whispers as they entered the house, but once they shut the door, they began to speak at normal volume.
"It's dangerous," said the ugly unshaven man to the Spaniard.
"Dangerous?" echoed the Spaniard. "I don't care. I want revenge."
The boys began to shake with fear.
The voice of the Spaniard was Injun Joe's!
Tom and Huck were both sure that when Injun Joe said "revenge," he meant he wanted to get revenge on them.
"I think it's dangerous," argued the other man.
"If you don't want to help," said Injun Joe, "you can wait for me up the river.
I'll do the job, and then we'll be off to Texas."
"I said I was your partner," said the ugly man, "so I'll help. I just wish we could have done it—"
"I know," interrupted Injun Joe.
"Those darn kids were playing right outside the whole day, so we couldn't have left this house without being seen."
"Have you got any food in your sack?" asked the man. "I'm starving."
Injun Joe pulled some food out of his very large and very heavy sack, and the two men had lunch.
Then they fell asleep.
Tom and Huck started for the stairs, but the floorboards creaked and moaned with every step.
They worried that the sleeping men would wake up, so they decided to remain upstairs.
Injun Joe woke first, and then he woke his partner. "It's almost time."
"Okay," said the ugly man with a yawn. "But shouldn't we hide our loot here?
Six hundred and fifty dollars in silver is a lot to carry."
"You're right," said Injun Joe. "Let's bury it deep."
Injun Joe pulled out his knife and began to dig in the dirt under the rotten floorboards.
It wasn't long before Joe's knife struck something.
"What did you hit?" asked his partner.
"I'm not sure, but I think it's a box," said Injun Joe.
He reached his hand into the box and pulled out a handful of gold coins.
Everyone in the house—the two men and the two boys—stared at the money.
"I saw a pick in the corner by the fireplace.
Let's find out how much there is," said the man excitedly.
He grabbed the boys' pick, and Injun Joe used it to dig up the box.
"There's over ten-thousand dollars here," said Injun Joe. "We're rich!"
"You won't need to do that other job now," said the other man.
Injun Joe frowned and said, "It isn't just a robbery, it's also revenge.
As soon as we're finished we'll go to Texas."
"Okay," said the man. "The sooner we get the job done, the better.
Should we bury the money again?"
Injun Joe looked at the pick.
"What's this doing here? It wasn't here yesterday," he said.
The two men looked at each other, and then Injun Joe pointed to the ceiling.
Right away the boys knew they were going to die.
Injun Joe grabbed his knife and began to climb the stairs.
The boys were sliding across the floor toward the closet when the stairs made a terrible groaning noise.
Then the stairs crashed down in a cloud of dust.
Injun Joe was furious.
When he got up from the collapsed stairs, his partner reminded him it was time to move out.
"We'll be taking the treasure with us," said Injun Joe.
"Naturally," said the man.
"We'll take it to my hiding place and bury it in number two under the cross," said Injun Joe as they left.
The boys were both happy and sad.
They were happy to be alive but depressed at having lost a chance to get ten-thousand dollars.
"We need to keep an eye out for Injun Joe," said Tom. Huck agreed.
"If he comes into town, we should follow him to hiding place number two," Tom added.
Then Tom and Huck walked back to town, dreaming of being rich.