"The tramp got away while we were down the lane," said Fred, as he stood looking at the signs of ruin about him; "but why didn't my friend let me know about it, and where is he?"
Fred Sheldon stopped in dismay, for just then the whole truth came upon him like a flash.
These two men were partners, and the man in the lane was on the watch to see that no strangers approached without the alarm being given to the one inside the house.
"Why didn't I think of that?" mentally exclaimed the boy, so overcome that he dropped into a chair, helpless and weak, holding the candle in hand.
It is easy to see how natural it was for a lad of his age to be deceived as was Fred Sheldon, who never in all his life had been placed in such a trying position.
He sat for several minutes looking at the open chest, which seemed to speak so eloquently of the wrong it had suffered, and then he reproached himself for having failed so completely in doing his duty.
"I can't see anything I've done," he thought, "which could have been of any good, while there was plenty of chances to make some use of myself if I had any sense about me."
Indeed there did appear to be some justice in the self-reproach of the lad, who added in the same vein:
"I knew, the minute he stopped to ask questions at our front gate, that he meant to come here and rob the house, and I ought to have started right off for Constable Jackson, without running to tell the folks. Then they laughed at me and I thought I was mistaken, even after I had seen him peeping through the window. When he was eating his supper I was sure of it, and then I should have slipped away and got somebody else here to help watch, but we didn't have anything to shoot with, and when I tried to keep guard I fell asleep, and when I woke up I was simple enough to think there was only one way of his coming into the house, and, while I had my eye on that, he walked right in behind me."