“That’s a right smart sum, Cy,” remarked a sympathetic listener. “What was it they got away with?”
“Money, mostly,” mourned Cy. “The goods in the store wasn’t bothered much. Reckon they was lookin’ only for cash. Then, too, they’ve cleaned out a co’sid’able of jewelry and watches. Some of ’em I was gettin’ ready to send away to the city to be repaired, and others had come back mended, but the customers hadn’t called for ’em yet.”
Catching sight at that moment of Fred in the crowd, he added: “One of them watches was your Uncle Aaron’s. It was a vallyble one and I feel wuss over that than almost anything else. I know he set a heap of store by it.”
“Uncle Aaron’s watch!” gasped the boys.
It was a knock-down blow for them, especially for Teddy. Was he never to get away from that miserable runaway? If it had not been for that, the watch would not have been injured, and at this very moment it might have been reposing in his uncle’s capacious pocket. Now the “fat was in the fire” again. The chances were that the watch would never be seen again by the rightful owner.
“I’m the hoodoo kid, all right!” he groaned.
“It sure is hard luck,” sympathized Jack.
“Brace up, Teddy,” urged Jim. “They may catch the fellows yet.”
“Swell chance!” retorted Teddy to their well-meant sympathy. “Even if they do, they won’t get the watch back. Those fellows will make a beeline to the nearest pawnshop, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“I wish we could have caught them at it,” said Fred savagely. “If they’d only been working when we came past last night.”