“I had better get,” muttered Burns.
He got out of the window quietly, but as the boy stirred again he hurried away without stopping to shut it.
When, a little after seven o’clock, Ernest woke up, the sun was streaming in at the open window, and the cool air entered with it.
“How came the window up?” thought Ernest, wondering. “I am sure I didn’t leave it open last night.”
There was nothing else to indicate that the cabin had been entered. But the more Ernest thought it over the more convinced he was that there had been a visitor.
What could have been his motive?
With sudden suspicion he went to the trunk and opened it. It was evident that things had been disturbed. His eyes sought the box that contained the gold pieces. He opened it, and found that he had been robbed.
“Who could have done it?” he asked himself.
He could not think of anyone. He was acquainted with everyone in the village, and he knew none that would be capable of theft. He never thought of the ill-looking tramp he had met in Joe Marks’s store.
Ten dollars was a considerable loss to him, for he had estimated that it would defray the expenses of old Peter’s interment. It was not so bad as it might have been, for the hundred dollars of which Peter had told him were still safe.