Carden came up presently and peered in through a crack of the door. The crack was narrow, but still wide enough to enable him to see what was going on within.
Carden was actuated at first by mere curiosity, but his curiosity speedily gave place to deep interest when he saw Tarbox lift a trap door and prepare to descend into the barn cellar.
"What is he going to do, I wonder?" thought the canvas man.
He was disappointed to find that the farmer and his operations were concealed from him, as, though he could see the trap door, he could not look down into the cellar. Of course it was possible to enter the barn and look down, but this would be too venturesome, and, if he were observed it would be hard to explain his curiosity in any satisfactory manner.
However, it occurred to the eager looker-on that it might be possible for him to look down into the barn cellar through some crevice near the bottom of the barn. No sooner had the idea come into his mind than he discovered exactly such an opening as he desired. He lost no time in throwing himself flat upon the ground, and putting his eye to a round hole—once a knot hole.
Now his curiosity was gratified. Through this loop-hole he saw the farmer with a small spade in his hand, which he appeared to keep permanently under the barn, digging at a particular spot in the northeast corner, only a few feet from the ladder beneath the trap-door.
Carden's heart beat high at this sight. It naturally recalled to him the conversation he had heard in the billiard saloon, and putting the two together he jumped to the conclusion that Tarbox had come to this out-of-the-way spot to visit one of his hoards—perhaps to add to it.
"If it should be so," he muttered to himself, "then I am in luck. It won't be my fault if I don't borrow a good sum without the farmer knowing anything about it. Let me see what he is doing."
He glued his eyes persistently to the loop-hole, and watched with an anxious eagerness which can be surmised the movements of the miserly farmer.
Tarbox did not need to dig long. Presently he threw aside his spade, and getting on his knees began to fumble with his hands in the cavity he had made.