.

The whole thing was a mystery, and this was increased by the discovery
that while the door had been found open, showing that the thieves had
come out that way, they must have found some other means of entrance.
The door had been fastened by a bolt, which Cy had pushed into the
socket the last thing before leaving. This had not been broken, as it
would have been, if the robbers had forced their way in from the front.
Cy himself had gone out of a back door, which he had locked, carrying
the key away with him, and this door was found still locked when he came
that morning to open up.

"Well, Cy, how about it?" was the question from a dozen voices, as the
old storekeeper, grizzled and flushed, came out on the porch. "How much
did you lose?"

"Don't know yet," Cy answered, wiping his forehead with a huge bandana
handkerchief, "but I reckon it'll figger up to close on three or four
hundred dollars' wuth."

A hum of excitement rose from the crowd. To the boys especially, this
seemed an enormous amount of money.

"That's a right smart sum, Cy," remarked a sympathetic listener. "What
was it they got away with?"

"Money, mostly," mourned Cy. "The goods in the store wasn't bothered
much. Reckon they was lookin' only for cash. Then, too, they've cleaned
out a co'sid'able of jewelry and watches. Some of 'em I was gettin'
ready to send away to the city to be repaired, and others had come back
mended, but the customers hadn't called for 'em yet."

Catching sight at that moment of Fred in the crowd, he added: "One of
them watches was your Uncle Aaron's. It was a vallyble one and I feel
wuss over that than almost anything else. I know he set a heap of store
by it."

"Uncle Aaron's watch!" gasped the boys.

It was a knock-down blow for them, especially for Teddy. Was he never to
get away from that miserable runaway? If it had not been for that, the
watch would not have been injured, and at this very moment it might have
been reposing in his uncle's capacious pocket. Now the "fat was in the
fire" again. The chances were that the watch would never be seen again
by the rightful owner.

"I'm the hoodoo kid, all right!" he groaned.

"It sure is hard luck," sympathized Jack.

"Brace up, Teddy," urged Jim. "They may catch the fellows yet."

"Swell chance!" retorted Teddy to their well-meant sympathy. "Even if
they do, they won't get the watch back. Those fellows will make a
beeline to the nearest pawnshop, and that'll be the