“Tell her the store’s been broken into and burglarized,” answered Chub, stolidly. “I’ll make up the money they stole, but I don’t think I ought to pay for the goods taken. And I imagine, from the looks of things, that the robbers took more than twelve dollars’ worth of stuff with them.”
“That’s the worst of it,” mourned Harry. “We can make up the money between us, for you know very well, Chub, we aren’t going to let you pay it all, but we can’t pay for the groceries and things.”
“We haven’t even any way of finding out how much they are worth,” replied Chub. “I suppose I’d better report the robbery to some one. I wonder where the nearest police station is.”
He got up and walked to the back door, Harry following him, and examined it.
“Looks as though some one had just kicked his foot through it, doesn’t it?” he asked. “And here he goes—hello, there must have been two of them! You can see the footprints, Harry. They just climbed the fence here, walked across to the door, and smashed it in so that one of them could put his hand through and turn the key. And here’s a match.” He picked it up, examined it, and dropped it into his pocket. “They lighted a candle or something—”
“There’s a candle over there beside the barrel,” said Harry. Chub picked it up.
“If it was a new one when they lighted it,” he said, “they must have been in here a good long time. I don’t believe a candle burns down that much in less than twenty minutes or half an hour. I wonder—”
He broke off and walked to one of the shelves. A new box of tallow candles had been dragged from its place, and one candle was missing from the top layer. Between the counter and the door he picked up four more matches and added them to the one in his pocket.
“I don’t suppose,” he said thoughtfully, “that they’ve got any police around here who could catch these fellows in a hundred years. So I guess it doesn’t make much difference whether we report the robbery to-day or next week.”
“Oh, but we ought to tell some one right away, Chub,” exclaimed Harry.