“Ben!” she cried.
He opened his eyes, smiled and sat up.
“Look at your arm!” she exclaimed. “And your jacket is torn! What has happened to you, Ben dear?”
Then he remembered and told her all about his midnight adventure. She sat on the edge of his bed and listened gravely. The more she heard, the graver she became.
“I bet the man I bumped into is the one who did it,” concluded Ben.
“Yes—but I can’t think what to make of it,” she said. “Something queer is going on. Perhaps an enemy of poor Mr. Sherwood’s is lurking around. I shall tell Jim, but nobody else.”
“The little girl will ask about her red pirogue some day,” said Ben. “It was a fine pirogue—the best I ever saw.”
“We must try not to let her know that it was willfully burned,” replied his mother. “The poor child has suffered quite enough without knowing that her father has an enemy mean enough to do a thing like that. We must see that no harm comes to her, Ben.”
CHAPTER III
THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF DOGS AND MEN
Five days after the burning of the red pirogue, another queer thing happened at O’Dell’s Point. It happened between three and five o’clock of the afternoon.