“No, I am not,” said Nathan in his slow and stolid manner; “and if I did think he was, you would be the last person who would hear of it from me. All the same, it was a thief who entered the house that night. It was a thief who knew the neighbourhood pretty well, too. That means we have a thief living amongst us, a pretty low-down sort of a rogue too, seeing that he would lure a couple of defenceless girls out to take the choice of several ways of dying at night in midwinter, the snow deep on the ground, the wolves hunting in packs. I just wish I had caught the wretch red-handed; I would have choked the life out of him then and there!”
“Oh, hush!” cried Pam, aghast at the passion of the quiet man’s tone. “Remember that the thief, whoever he was, is dead.”
“If he is dead, then it certainly was no one from round about here,” said Don. “We have had no one disappear from the neighbourhood this winter.” He had been running over in his mind all the persons of shady character that he knew, but none of them filled this bill.
“I do not think it was a thief,” protested Pam. “I think it was poor Grandfather himself, who came to get the money from his own desk because he was so hard pressed by want. Then when he got clear of the house he must have lost his way in the forest. Where would he have been heading for in this direction?”
Both Don and Nathan knew the forests like a book, but this question of Pam’s seemed to puzzle them very much.
“So far as I can judge he would not have been heading for anywhere,” answered Don, and Nathan nodded in complete acquiescence. “If it was your grandfather, he must have been wandering for the sake of wandering, or else he must have lost his way in the snow, and that is not likely, seeing how well he knew the ground. But we may know more about it when we have scooped the snow away. You and Amanda had better go back to the house and not worry about this.” Don nodded in the direction of the hollow, and Pam shivered anew.
“Will you bring the remains to our house?” she asked, and before her eyes came a picture which made her feel as if she would faint.
“No, we shan’t, we shall carry them to The Corner,” answered Don briefly; and then he hurried Pam off the scene, and hustled Amanda until she turned on him with a childish impertinence on her tongue, though she burst into noisy crying before it was uttered. Her nerves were shaken by the tragedy on which she had stumbled, and she clung to Pam, sobbing violently.
“You must help me carry the pot of syrup; you can cry when you get home,” said Pam in a matter-of-fact fashion intended for the soothing of Amanda.
“She had better wait until she has something to cry about,” put in Nathan, who was also doing his best to speed their going.