ing, yet he felt a tense
nervousness, as if trouble might be brooding. He examined every section
of the wire, and kept watchful eyes on the grasses of the swale, in
an effort to discover if anyone had passed through them; but he could
discover no trace of anything to justify his fears.

He tilted his hat brim to shade his face and looked for his chickens.
They were hanging almost beyond sight in the sky.

"Gee!" he said. "If I only had your sharp eyes and convenient location
now, I wouldn't need be troubling so."

He reached his room and cautiously scanned the entrance before he
stepped in. Then he pushed the bushes apart with his right arm and
entered, his left hand on the butt of his favorite revolver. Instantly
he knew that someone had been there. He stepped to the center of the
room, closely scanning each wall and the floor. He could find no trace
of a clue to confirm his belief, yet so intimate was he with the spirit
of the place that he knew.

How he knew he could not have told, yet he did know that someone had
entered his room, sat on his benches, and walked over his floor. He was
surest around the case. Nothing was disturbed, yet it seemed to Freckles
that he could see where prying fingers had tried the lock. He stepped
behind the case, carefully examining the ground all around it, and close
beside the tree to which it was nailed he found a deep, fresh footprint
in the spongy soil--a long, narrow print, that was never made by the
foot of Wessner. His heart tugged in his breast as he mentally measured
the print, but he did not linger, for now the feeling arose that he
was being watched. It seemed to him that he could feel the eyes of some
intruder at his back. He knew he was examining things too closely: if
anyone were watching, he did not want him to know that he felt it.

He took the most open way, and carried water for his flowers and moss
as usual; but he put himself into no position in which he was fully
exposed, and his hand was close his revolver constantly. Growing restive
at last under the strain, he plunged boldly into the swamp and searched
minutely all around his room, but he could not discover the least thing
to give him further cause for alarm. He unlocked his case, took out his
wheel, and for the remainder of the day he rode and watched as he never
had before. Several times he locked the wheel and crossed the swamp on
foot, zigzagging to cover all the space possible. Every rod he traveled
he u