Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-10-18

ceived the informal ton about buttons dia-
inonds with perfect Indifference? How I'M
orthy of her he felti He wished that he
still had the pebble in his pocket. If he had
he would slip into the sick room and restore
1t to Its proper place, and let Goldfng do
what he would to get possession of the sick
mans property.
TN get that pebble again after break
fast decided Mr.. Warren.
Accordingly, as soon as the meal was
over. he FASTENED to the barn. The tool
chest was in little workshop partitioned
off in one corner. There was but one door
into 1t. The room was half rooted over
with loose boards that had been laid merely
to prevent hay on the loft from dropping
down to the carpenters bench.
A hen was chattering noisily up in the
lot when Mr.. Warren entered the barn. and
turned toward the workshop. Under ordi-
nary circumstances he would have gone up
to find the eggs that she had concealed, and
under ordinary circumstances, too,he would
have noticed that the noise she made was
not at all like the contented, self-satisfied
clucking with which respectable hens an
EcGnce the advent of new eggs. No ordi-
| Eary event of farm life could appeal to him
now. the more especially as, when he STEP
ped into the workshop, he saw that that
caused him to rush forward and drop on
his knees before the tool chest and try to
lift the cover.
He could not stand, and he gave a deep
sigh of relief, but the perspiration of fresh
agitation. not to say terror, broke out upon
him By what enemies was he surrounded?
BY what demons were the forests peopled?
Somebody had been attempting to break
the lock of the chesti
A Ratchet, with one end of the blade
broken off, lay by the chest. 1t had been
inserted between the cover and the body
of the box and in prying the blade had
broken.
Mr.. Warren hurriedly found the key and
tried it in the lock- 1t worked with diff
Guilty, for the mechanism had been strain
ed. but it turned, and the next instant he
hn1 fHo Y,a1 ioh hav IL
to be diamond in his hand.
Then he started up with determination to
find the man who had attempted to rob
him. Not ten minutes could have elapsed
since he went to breakfast. There was
but enc way into the barn, through The
vide open doors. The fellow had undoubt-
eddy been at work when Mr.. Warren had
started from the house, and had desisted
at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Where could he have gone? Not out by
the door, or he would have met the farmer
There was no other
Mr.. Warren then recalled the excited
noise of the men on the loft. The intruder
had climbed up over the hay, making his
way from the carpenters bench from
which he could easily reach the loose
boards of the half roof, and mother hen
disturbed in her dignified occupation, had
expressed her resentment in unmeasur ed
terms.
The fellow must be up there now, then,
though the silence of the hen would seem
escape. There was no way, however, I'M
less he chose to drop from. the tiny WIN
dow III the peak of the gable, from which
to the ground was a fall of more than
thirty feet.
These points occurred to the farmer all
in a flash, even as he was running from
the shop to the nearest parpen licular lad
der that led to the hay loft. AS in many
barns, the loft YVES shaped somewhat like
the letter U, the space between the arms
of the letter representing the carriage and
wagon room on the ground floor. Mr.. War
rem climbed up to the arch OF the U that
extended over the work shop. There was
comparatively little hay there, and to climb
ever it to the floor of the main loft would
be no difficult matter.
The farmer seized a pitchfork and
mounted the pile, stabbing the hay as he
vent thinking that the intruder might
have concealed himself under it. On the
other side of the mound, where there was
little open space before the immense,
closely packed supply of hay for the COM
ing winter, lay the hen, whose chattering
should have warned him that an intruder
had come to the barn. Her neck had been
wrung.
Mr.. Warren stopped and picked up The
hen, looking at her in growing bewilder
ment. 1t was not a long pause, and it made
no difference in the escape of the marauder,
for even as the farmer was mounting the
ladder ard climbing the mound of hay,
man had crept around to the other arm of
the L, and when Mr. Warren found the hen
he had dropped through the opening IN me
loft over the manager of the stall, where the
doctors horse had been stabbed the night
before.
He then crept to the open part of the main
floor and, not daring to go out by the doors,
he raised a scuttle and, adjusting it SO that
it would fall after him. he dropped upon the
refuse heaped under the barn, made his
way to the pig pen at the back, scaled the
two or three fences that intersected the cat
tie yard, and before Mr.. Warren had half
finished his search, was safe from observa-
ton in the edge OF the forest that remained
intact on that slope of Baker mountain and
extended almost to the Warren farm.
(To be continued tomorrow)