g glance at Bart.
"How did you know that?"

"I noticed the wagon wasn't in the shed."

"Oh, he sold it--and the horse."

"When, Mrs. Wacker?"

"Last night some men came here, two of them, about nine o'clock. They
talked a long time in the sitting room, and then Lem went out and
hitched up. He came into the kitchen before he went away, and told me he
had a chance to sell the rig, and was going to do it, and had to go down
to the Sharp Corner to treat the men and close the bargain."

"I see," murmured Bart. "Who were the men, Mrs. Wacker?"

"I don't know. One of them was here with Lem about two weeks ago, but I
don't know his name, or where he lives. He don't belong in
Pleasantville. Oh, dear!" she concluded, with a sigh of deep depression,
"I wish Lem would get back on the road in a steady job, instead of
scheming at this thing and that. He'll land us all in the poorhouse
yet, for he spends all he gets down at the Corner."

Bart backed down the steps, feeling secretly that Lem Wacker would have
a hard time disproving a connection with the burglary.

"Take care of the dog!" warned Mrs. Wacker as she closed the door.

Bart, passing a battered dog-house, found it tenantless, however.

"I wonder if Lem Wacker has sold the dog, too?" he reflected. "Poor Mrs.
Wacker! I feel awfully sorry for her."

Bart walked rapidly back the way he had come. It was just a quarter of
seven when he reached a half-street extending along and facing the
railroad tracks for a single square.

The Sharp Corner was a second-class groggery and boarding house,
patronized almost entirely by the poorest and most shiftless class of
trackmen.

Its proprietor was one Silas Green, once a switchman, later a prize
fighter, always a hard drinker, and latterly so crippled with rheumatism
and liquor that he was just able to get about.

Bart went into the place to find its proprietor just opening up for the
day. The dead, tainted air of the den made the young express agent
almost faint. As it vividly contrasted with the sweet, garden scented
atmosphere of home, he wondered how men could make it their haunt, and
was sorry that even business had made it necessary for him to enter the
place.

"Mr. Green," he said, approaching the bar, "I am looking for Lem Wacker.
Can you tell me where I may find him?"

"Eh? oh, young Stirling, isn't it? Wacker? Why, yes, I know where he
is."

He came out slowly from the obscurity of the bar, blinking his faded