"All full of black wrapping paper that came off of his books. The professor got so many books."
"And his safe with the papers in it?"
"Nobody ever touched it but the professor. At least, I never meddled with it."
Emily noticed the emphasis Bertha laid on the first person, but an unwelcome interruption prevented further disclosures.
The knoll which Bertha and Sire had descended made a grade like the pitch of an old gable roof. Toward the top a tempting tussock of clover lay in sight, scenting the atmosphere and titillating the nostrils of the horse attached to Farmer Griggs' hay-cart. Dobbin was ordinarily a staid and trustworthy animal, who might be left alone for hours; but on this occasion his carnal appetite overmastered his sense of duty and led him gradually higher and higher up the grade toward the odorous herbage. The first hint the two girls had of the peril which was imminent was when they heard the voice of the farmer shouting from the barn.
Turning in that direction, they beheld him running toward them, hat in hand, as if racing for a guerdon, and brandishing a pitchfork. Whether they or some one else were the object of his outcries they could not in the confusion of the moment determine. But the doubt was speedily settled by the occurrence of the very catastrophe which Farmer Griggs was hastening to avert.
Dobbin had just climbed within reach and was relishing the first morsel of his stolen supper, when suddenly the top of the hay load, which was tipped up to an exceedingly steep angle by his ascent of the knoll, slid down like a glacier and deposited itself at the feet of the startled girls.
But this was not all. From the midst of it the figure of a man, badly shaken but unhurt, arose and straightened itself out.
Both girls gave a shriek in unison. Emily recognized, to her astonishment and dismay, the face of her train companion, the supposed Bill Dobbs. But Bertha's surprise was quickly converted into merriment.
"Why, Mr. McCausland, what a tumble!" she laughed, just as Farmer Griggs arrived.