. Pettigrew."

"Have you any suggestion to make?" asked Jefferson. "Have you by chance
lost anything?"

"Not that I am aware of."

"Is there any one else here who has been robbed?"

No one spoke.

"You asked me if I had any suggestions to make, Mr. Pettigrew," said
Louis Wheeler after a pause. "I have.

"Our worthy friend Mr. O'Donnell has met with a serious loss. I move
that we who are his friends make it up to him. Here is my contribution,"
and he laid a five dollar bill on the table.

It was a happy suggestion and proved popular. Every one present came
forward, and tendered his contributions including Jefferson, who put
down twenty five dollars.

Mr. Wheeler gathered up the notes and gold and sweeping them to his hat
went forward and tendered them to John O'Donnell.

"Take this money, Mr. O'Donnell," he said. "It is the free will offering
of your friends. I am sure I may say for them, as for myself, that it
gives us all pleasure to help a comrade in trouble."

Louis Wheeler could have done nothing that would have so lifted him in
the estimation of the miners.

"And now," he said, "as our friend is out of his trouble I will play you
a few tunes on my violin, and will end the day happily."

"I can't make out that fellow, Rodney," said Jefferson when they were
alone. "I believe he is the thief, but he has an immense amount of
nerve."

CHAPTER XXXI.

MR. WHEELER EXPLAINS.

Probably there was no one at the hotel who suspected Louis Wheeler of
being a thief except Rodney and Mr. Pettigrew. His action in starting
a contribution for John O'Donnell helped to make him popular. He
was establishing a reputation quite new to him, and it was this fact
probably that made him less prudent than he would otherwise have been.

As the loss had been made up, the boarders at the Miners' Rest ceased to
talk of it. But Jefferson and his young assistant did not forget it.

"I am sure Wheeler is the thief, but I don't know how to bring it home
to him," said Jefferson one day, when alone with Rodney.

"You might search him."

"Yes, but what good would that do? It might be found that he had money,
but one gold coin is like another and it would be impossible to identify
it as the stolen property. If O'Donnell had lost anything else except
money it would be different. I wish he would come to my chamber."

"Perhaps he would if he thought you were a sound sleeper."

"That is an idea. I think I can make use of it."