alf."

"I would not, Ernest, if I had understood what manner of man he was."

"I may meet him some time," said Ernest thoughtfully.

"Would you claim relationship?"

"Never!" declared Ernest emphatically. "It was he, you say, who prejudiced
my grandfather against my poor father."

"Yes."

"In order to secure the estate himself?"

"Undoubtedly that was his object."

"Nothing could be meaner. I would rather live poor all my life than get
property by such means."

"If you have no more questions to ask, Ernest, I will try to sleep. I feel
drowsy."

"Do so, Uncle Peter."

The old man closed his eyes, and soon all was silent. Ernest himself lay
down on a small bed. When he awoke, hours afterward, he lit a candle and
went to Peter's bedside.

The old man lay still. With quick suspicion Ernest placed his hand on his
cheek.

It was stone cold.

"He is dead!" cried Ernest, and a feeling of desolation came over him.

"I am all alone now," he murmured.

But he was not wholly alone. There was a face glued against the
window-pane--a face that he did not see. It was the tramp he had met
during the day at the village store.

CHAPTER III

ROBBERY

The tramp stood with his face glued to the pane, looking in at the boy. He
could not quite understand what had taken place, but gathered that the old
man was dead.

"So much the better!" he said. "It will make my task easier."

He had hoped to find both asleep, and decided to wait near the house till
the boy went to bed. He had made many inquiries at the store of Joe Marks,
and the answers led him to believe that old Peter had a large amount of
money concealed in his cabin.

Now Tom Burns was a penniless tramp, who had wandered from Chicago on a
predatory trip, to take any property he could lay his hands on. The chance
that presented itself here was tempting to a man of his character.

Earlier in the evening he had reached the cabin, but thought it best to
defer his work until later, for Ernest was awake and stirring about the
room.

The tramp withdrew from the cabin and lay down under a tree, where he was
soon fast asleep. Curiously it was the very oak tree under which Peter's
little hoard was concealed. This of course he did not know. Had he been
aware that directly beneath him was a box containing a hundred dollars in
gold he would have been electrified and full of joy.

Tom Burns in his long and varied career had many times slept in the open
air,