y, that you would have thought he came into
the room merely to warm his toes and to hear the men talk. You would
never have supposed he was asleep unless you had looked at his eyes.
They were wide open, it is true, but fixed, like a doll's eyes. If you
had held a lighted candle before them, I suppose they would not have
winked.

[Illustration: THE LITTLE SLEEP-WALKER.--Page 31.]

In fact, Willy was fast asleep and dreaming; and all the difference
between him and other sleepers was, that he acted out his dreams.

"Queer what ails that child! Must be trouble on the brain, and he ought
to be bled," said Dr. Hilton, with the wise roll of the eye he always
gave when he talked of diseases.

Nobody answered, for the doctor had said the same thing fifty times
before.

Still little Willy kept on rocking and dreaming, as unconscious as a
yellow lily swinging on its stem.

Everybody had a story to tell, which everybody else laughed at, while
the fire joined in the uproar right merrily. Still Willy slept on.

Presently a glare of light at the windows startled the company.

"Must be a fire somewhere!" said one of the men.

"Only the moon rising," said another.

"That's no place to look for the moon," said Mr. Parlin, seizing his hat
and cloak.

"Fire! Fire!" shouted Mr. Riggs, running to the door in a panic.

"I'll warrant it's nothing but a chimney burning out," remarked Caleb,
coolly; and when all the rest had gone to learn what it meant, he chose
to stay behind.

There was nobody left in the bar-room now but himself and the sleeping
Willy.

"Guess I'll take a look at the drawer, and see that the money is all
right," said careful Caleb, stepping inside the bar, which had a long
wooden grate, and looked somewhat like an enormous bird-cage, with the
roof off. "Mr. Parlin is a very careless man," said Caleb, drawing a
key from its hiding-place in an account-book; "he's dreadful free and
easy about money. I don't know what he'd do without me to look out for
him."

So saying, Caleb turned the key in the lock, and opened the drawer.
There were rolls of bank bills lying in it, and handfuls of gold and
silver.

"With so many coming and going in this house, it's a wonder Mr. Parlin
ain't robbed every night of his life," said Caleb, reckoning over the
bills very fast, for he was in the habit of counting money.

Was it all right? Was the ox money there? When the "man from the
west'ard" paid it to Mr. Parlin, Caleb saw