Before he stooped over to pick it up he saw that it was a handsome pocket-knife.
"He has dropped it," was the thought of Fred, who wondered how he came to do it; "anyway I'll hold on to it for awhile."
He quietly shoved it down into his pocket, where his old Barlow knife, his jewsharp, eleven marbles, two slate pencils, a couple of large coppers, some cake crumbs and other trifles nestled, and then, having succeeded so well, he again went softly to the open window at the rear.
Just as he reached it he heard an unusual noise in the smaller apartment where the man was at work, and he was sure the burglar had discovered what he was doing, and was about to punish him.
But the sound was not repeated, and the boy believed the tramp had got the chest open. If such were the fact, he was not likely to think of the youngster in the next room for several minutes more.
Fred was plucky, and the thought instantly came to him that he had a chance to leave the room and give an alarm; but to go to the front and climb out on the roof of the porch would bring him so close to the tramp that discovery would be certain.
At the rear there was nothing by which he could descend to the ground. It was a straight wall, invisible in the darkness and too high for any one to leap. He might hang down from the sill by his hands and then let go, but he was too unfamiliar with the surroundings to make such an attempt.
"Maybe there's a tub of water down there," he said to himself, trying to peer into the gloom; "and I might turn over and strike on my head into it, or it might be the swill barrel, and I wouldn't want to get my head and shoulders wedged into that——"
At that instant something as soft as a feather touched his cheek. The gentle night wind had moved the rustling limbs, so that one of them in swaying only a few inches had reached out, as it were, and kissed the chubby face of the brave little boy.