The store ran back from the main street to a narrow alley. A window opening on this alley had been forced, the safe blown open, and all the stock of any real value carried off. The work had evidently been done by experts, and they had disappeared without leaving a single trace behind them.
Budd learned of the robbery about ten o'clock on Monday morning. He had gone over to the village in the sloop to make a deposit of money and checks at the bank, for the young firm had reached the dignity of having a bank account, and while in the banking-rooms had his attention called to a poster which had already appeared about the village. It read:
$1,500 REWARD.
One thousand dollars will be paid for the arrest and conviction of the burglars who entered our store some time between the hours of twelve o'clock on Saturday night, June 24th, and six o'clock on Monday morning, June 26th. Five hundred dollars additional will be given for the return of the goods that were carried off, or ten per cent. of that amount for each thousand dollars worth of goods restored.
Respectfully,
CLAPP & ST. JOHN.
After inquiring of the bank-teller more of the particulars respecting the robbery, Budd went around to the store and made a careful examination of the premises. He found the shutter of the window had been opened by forcing some powerful instrument under the iron bar that ran across the outside, and thus prying the bar out of its socket. Then a pane of glass had been cut out as neatly and deftly as the one over at the island. The fastening of the window had in this way been reached, and the window shoved up. As soon as Budd had noticed these details he left the building and started down toward his boat.
"That was the work of Bagsley and his gang," he murmured, "and our opportunity, if we can only find them, has come."
[CHAPTER XV.--BUDD ENTRAPPED.]
Just before Budd reached the wharf he noticed another poster tacked up on the side of a storehouse, and paused to read it, that he might be sure of the terms under which the reward was offered.