“I would not, Ernest, if I had understood what manner of man he was.”
“I may meet him some time,” said Ernest thoughtfully.
“Would you claim relationship?”
“Never!” declared Ernest emphatically. “It was he, you say, who prejudiced my grandfather against my poor father.”
“Yes.”
“In order to secure the estate himself?”
“Undoubtedly that was his object.”
“Nothing could be meaner. I would rather live poor all my life than get property by such means.”
“If you have no more questions to ask, Ernest, I will try to sleep. I feel drowsy.”
“Do so, Uncle Peter.”
The old man closed his eyes, and soon all was silent. Ernest himself lay down on a small bed. When he awoke, hours afterward, he lit a candle and went to Peter’s bedside.
The old man lay still. With quick suspicion Ernest placed his hand on his cheek.
It was stone cold.
“He is dead!” cried Ernest, and a feeling of desolation came over him.
“I am all alone now,” he murmured.
But he was not wholly alone. There was a face glued against the window-pane – a face that he did not see. It was the tramp he had met during the day at the village store.
CHAPTER III
ROBBERY
The tramp stood with his face glued to the pane, looking in at the boy. He could not quite understand what had taken place, but gathered that the old man was dead.
“So much the better!” he said. “It will make my task easier.”
He had hoped to find both asleep, and decided to wait near the house till the boy went to bed. He had made many inquiries at the store of Joe Marks, and the answers led him to believe that old Peter had a large amount of money concealed in his cabin.
Now Tom Burns was a penniless tramp, who had wandered from Chicago on a predatory trip, to take any property he could lay his hands on. The chance that presented itself here was tempting to a man of his character.
Earlier in the evening he had reached the cabin, but thought it best to defer his work until later, for Ernest was awake and stirring about the room.
The tramp withdrew from the cabin and lay down under a tree, where he was soon fast asleep. Curiously it was the very oak tree under which Peter’s little hoard was concealed. This of course he did not know. Had he been aware that directly beneath him was a box containing a hundred dollars in gold he would have been electrified and full of joy.
Tom Burns in his long and varied career had many times slept in the open air, and he had no difficulty in falling asleep now, and when he woke it was much later than he intended. However, without delay, he made his way to the cabin, and arrived just as Ernest discovered the death of the old man whom he had supposed to be his uncle.
What time it was the tramp did not know, but as he stood with his face glued to the window-pane he heard a clock in the cabin striking the hour of three.
“Three o’clock,” he ejaculated. “Well, I did have a nap!”
The boy was awake, and he thought it best to wait a while.
“Why didn’t I get here a little sooner?” he grumbled. “Then I could have ransacked the cabin without trouble. Probably the old man has been dead some time.”
He watched to see what Ernest would do.
“He won’t be such a fool as to sit up with the corpse,” he muttered a little apprehensively. “That wouldn’t do no good.”
Apparently Ernest was of this opinion, for after carefully covering up the inanimate body he lay down again on his own bed.
He did not fall asleep immediately, for the thought that he was in the presence of death naturally affected his imagination. But gradually his eyes closed, and his full, regular breathing gave notice that he was asleep.
He had left the candle burning on the table. By the light which it afforded the tramp could watch him, and at the end of twenty minutes he felt satisfied that he could safely enter.
He lifted the window and passed into the room noiselessly. He had one eye fixed on the sleeping boy, who might suddenly awake. He had taken off his shoes and left them on the grass just under the window.
When Tom Burns found himself in the room he made his way at once to the trunk, which his watchful eye had already discovered.
“That’s where the old man keeps his gold, likely,” he muttered. “I hope it isn’t locked.”
Usually the trunk would have been fastened, but the conversation which Ernest had with old Peter so engrossed his mind as to make him less careful than usual. Tom Burns therefore had no difficulty in lifting the lid.
With eager fingers he explored the contents, and was not long in discovering the box which contained the two gold coins.
The discovery pleased and yet disappointed him.
“Only ten dollars!” he muttered. “There ought to have been a pile of these yellow boys. Perhaps there are more somewhere.”
Meanwhile he slipped the two coins into his vest pocket. It was not much, but it was more than he had had in his possession for months.
He continued his search, but failed to discover any more money. He felt indignant. That a miser should have but a paltry ten dollars in his trunk was very discreditable.
“He must have some more somewhere,” Burns reflected.
It occurred to him that there might be hoards hidden under the floor, or in the immediate neighborhood of the cabin. But it was night, and there would be no profit in pursuing the search now.
“To-morrow,” he reflected, “the boy will be off, making preparations for buryin’ the old man, and then I can make another visit.”
He closed the lid of the trunk, and with a general glance to see if there was anything more worth taking he rose to his feet and prepared to leave the room.
Just at this moment Ernest, who was probably dreaming of the old man, spoke in his sleep.
“Uncle Peter,” he murmured.
The tramp stood still, apprehensive that Ernest would open his eyes and detect his presence. But the boy did not speak again.
“I had better get,” muttered Burns.
He got out of the window quietly, but as the boy stirred again he hurried away without stopping to shut it.
When, a little after seven o’clock, Ernest woke up, the sun was streaming in at the open window, and the cool air entered with it.
“How came the window up?” thought Ernest, wondering. “I am sure I didn’t leave it open last night.”
There was nothing else to indicate that the cabin had been entered. But the more Ernest thought it over the more convinced he was that there had been a visitor.
What could have been his motive?
With sudden suspicion he went to the trunk and opened it. It was evident that things had been disturbed. His eyes sought the box that contained the gold pieces. He opened it, and found that he had been robbed.
“Who could have done it?” he asked himself.
He could not think of anyone. He was acquainted with everyone in the village, and he knew none that would be capable of theft. He never thought of the ill-looking tramp he had met in Joe Marks’s store.
Ten dollars was a considerable loss to him, for he had estimated that it would defray the expenses of old Peter’s interment. It was not so bad as it might have been,