“No. I’m jest figgerin’. Now, this Neale boy here heard that shot fired upstairs that killed the fox. He went up this mornin’ and saw where the shot was fired from. I seen it, too. So the feller that opened the Lodge and that lit the fire was up there at ten or half past last evening, for sure.”
“Well?” murmured the lawyer.
“He didn’t go out during the night, or his footprints would have been seen by John this morning in the new-fallen snow.”
“That sounds right.”
“It is right!” said the old man vigorously. “Now we come to this here dog you brought.”
“Oh, yes!” cried Mr. Howbridge. “How about Tom Jonah? Surely if there had been a stranger about—one who stole food from the pantry—he would have interfered.”
“Mebbe he would. And mebbe again he wouldn’t. He’s a mighty friendly dog.”
“But he is a splendid watchdog,” interposed Neale O’Neil.
“That may be, too,” Ike said, quite unshaken in his opinion. “If anybody had come in from outside and undertaken to disturb anything, that old dog would probably have been right on the job.”
“I see your point,” Mr. Howbridge admitted. “But this person who came down from the garret must have been a stranger.”