cket was empty!

For a few moments he could not believe the truth. He frantically searched
his clothing over and over again, but in vain. The explanation was as
clear as noonday. In the bottom of his right-hand pocket was a gaping
rent, through which he pushed two fingers and disgustedly spread them
apart like a fan. He turned the cloth wrong side out and the dreadful
yawn seemed to grin at him.

Weak and faint he sat down on the edge of his trundle bed.

"What made that blamed hole? It wasn't there a little while ago. It must
have wored the hole while I was walking. I wouldn't lose that knife for
ten million dollars. It _can't_ be lost!"

And then he repeated the search, as almost anyone will do in similar
circumstances. He even looked under the jewsharp and among the marbles on
the stand, where a mosquito could not have hidden itself.

"Oh, what's the use!" he exclaimed, dropping down again despairingly on
the bed. "It's lost! Where did I lose it?"

Pulling himself together, he recalled the experiences of the day, from
the time he received the present directly after breakfast. He had tested
the implement many times in the course of the forenoon and afternoon, and
by and by remembered snapping the big blade shut and slipping it into his
pocket as he was going out of the house to the post office to perform his
daily task. He reasoned well.

"I lost it somewhere atween here and the store. I can't see how it
slipped down my trousers leg without me feeling it, but that's what it
done. It's a-laying on the ground atween here and there, onless," he
added, with a catch of his breath, "that ugly looking willain seen me
drop it inside the store. I wonder if he give me that quarter so as to
hurry me out that he might git my knife!"

He shivered at the probability, but rather singularly the dread was
dissipated by a few minutes more of thought.

"If he'd seen it, so would Nora and she'd told me. It's somewhere along
the street."

Such being his conclusion, the all-important question was what should he
do to retrieve his crushing loss. His first inclination was to tell his
parents and then hurry back over the route to look for the treasure. But
it was night. There was no such thing as a lantern in the house, he could
not carry an ordinary light in the breeze, and the search would be
hopeless.

"I'll get up as soon as it is light," he said, "and hunt till I find it."

Trying to gain hope from this decision, he knelt a