During the next few days, George was permitted to live in peace, but we cannot say that he enjoyed himself, for at times he felt very lonely, and bitter, too.

While other boys in the village were given every opportunity to work their way up in the world, he had been driven into exile by force of circumstances, and just now he did not see how he could better his condition.

“I have heard people say that it is always darkest just before daylight, and if that is the case, my day must be close at hand,” George often said to himself. “Things couldn’t look darker to me than they do now; but if a canal boy can become President, I don’t see why a fisher-boy cannot become a decent, respected member of society, if nothing more. I shall work hard for it, and if I fail, it will not be my fault.”

Every other day George carried to the village a nicely-dressed string of fish, for which he found ready sale, bringing back with him such supplies as he happened to need.

He always found everything in and about the cabin just as he had left it, and there was nothing to indicate that there had been any one there during his absence.

But, for all that, there had been visitors at the cabin on two different occasions. These visitors were in no way connected with each other, although they had the same object in view, as we shall presently see.

The first to come was a party of three boys—the same ones that George had met at the spring a few days before, and who had exhibited so much surprise and alarm at his sudden appearance.

Two of them carried bundles under their arms, and the third was provided with a spade.

That they did not want to be seen by anybody was evident. They spent an hour or more in reconnoitering the premises. Having at last fully satisfied themselves that George was nowhere in the vicinity, they made their way behind the cabin, and the one who carried the spade set to work to dig a hole in the ground.

This being done, the other two deposited their bundles in it, the earth was thrown upon them, and finally dead leaves were spread evenly over the spot, to hide all traces of their labor.

“That’s about the idea,” said one of the party. “We’ve put evidence enough there to remove all suspicion from ourselves.”

“I don’t think much of it,” said another. “If those bundles should be discovered before the rest of the work is done, it would spoil everything.”

“So it would,” admitted the first speaker. “But we must not wait long enough for that. We must pay our visit to Stebbins’ some night this week. Besides, I don’t see that these bundles are in any immediate danger of discovery. The constable won’t go to prowling about there until we put him on the track.”

“And we must do that as soon as we can,” said the one who had not spoken before; “for the sooner George is compelled to leave this neighborhood, the better it will be for us. If he should happen to stumble on our headquarters during his rambles, we might find ourselves in a pretty mess.”

The boys left the cabin as cautiously as they had approached it.

And the next visitor who came was none other than Uncle Ruben, who looked better natured now than he did the last time we saw him.

“I’ll fix him,” he kept muttering to himself. “I’ll l’arn him to throw away the chance of a good home, when he might have had it jest as well as not. I am his only livin’ relation, so to speak, an’ I had oughter be his gardeen an’ have the profits of his work till he comes of age; but he wouldn’t let me, an’ now I’ll put him where he’ll have to work for nothing.”

Uncle Ruben also carried a bundle under his arm, and, as it was not very neatly made up, the contents of it could have been named by any one who had chanced to meet him on the road. The heads of a couple of chickens, whose necks had been wrung, stuck out of one end of it, while two pairs of yellow legs projected from the other.

The man made his appearance late on Friday afternoon. He was not as stealthy in his movements as the first visitors were, for he knew that the coast was clear, having seen his nephew sail up the lake toward Mr. Stebbins’ farm.

What business the boy had up there Uncle Ruben did not know; but of course his suspicions were aroused, and it was not long before those suspicions gave way to positive conviction.

Having hitched his old clay-bank back in the bushes, out of sight, Uncle Ruben hastened to the rear of the cabin, and, picking up a sharp stick, he began raking away the leaves and digging in the ground, thus making it evident that he was preparing a place of concealment for the chickens he had brought with him.

By the merest accident he struck upon the very spot on which the boys of whom we have spoken had hidden their bundles, and he was not long in bringing them to light.

“What on ’arth is them?” soliloquized Uncle Ruben as the bundles were thrown out of the hole one after the other.

His eyes opened to their widest extent, his under jaw dropped down, and he seemed to be very much disconcerted by the discovery he had made.

He looked all around to make sure that he was alone, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, he dropped down on his knees and began untying the strings with which the bundles were fastened.

The first was found to contain half a dozen new pocket-books, and a bolt of fine linen that had never been cut; and the second was made up principally of razors, revolvers, powder- and shot-flasks and jack-knives.

“Now, I am astonished,” said Uncle Ruben; and the word he used conveyed but a very faint idea of the bewilderment and confusion into which his mind had been thrown by the sight of the articles upon which he had so unexpectedly stumbled. “I never did b’lieve that George was to blame for them stores bein’ broke into, but what is a feller to think of this, I’d like to know?”

Right on the heels of this question came others that were just as hard to answer.

Should he put the bundles back as he found them, and let matters take their own course? or, would it be better to await George’s return and confront him with the evidence of his guilt, at the same time promising never to lisp a word of it to anybody if the boy would consent to be bound out to him until he was twenty-one years old?

“There’s objections to both them plans,” thought Uncle Ruben, after he had spent some minutes in trying to find a way out of his quandary. “George had oughter be punished for refusin’ to go home with me like I wanted him to do, an’ if he is shut up for a thief I want him to know that I had a hand in it. That’s what I bring them chickens up here for. But if he is shut up, he won’t never come nigh me arter he gets out, an’ I ain’t by no means sart’in that I want him to; for, jest as like as not, he’ll go to stealin’ from me. Mebbe I had better go home and sleep on it.”

Having come to this conclusion, Uncle Ruben hastily tied up the bundles again, tossed them back into the hole and covered them up.

He had already wasted considerable time, and being anxious to reach home before dark, he did not stop to bury the chickens. He simply threw them into the bushes, marking the spot on which they fell, so that he could easily find them again if circumstances should require it, and then he mounted his horse and rode away.

Meanwhile, George Edwards was sitting on a log by the side of the road that led from the village to Mr. Stebbins’ farm, waiting as patiently as he could for the coming of his expected friends, Bob Howard and Dick Langdon.

Remembering his last interview with the choleric old man, and the orders he had given regarding his “vagabond” acquaintances, George had landed with his scow in a little cove near the promontory, and made his way by a roundabout course to the road, in order to intercept his expected guests before they crossed the sheep pasture.

He did not want them to be insulted, as he knew they would be if Mr. Stebbins should catch them on his grounds; but still he need not have taken so much pains to prevent it, for he did not see Dick and Bob that night.

He waited for them until long after dark, and then went back to his boat and pulled for the cabin, feeling very lonely indeed.

“I have looked forward to this night with many pleasurable anticipations, and it is hard to be disappointed,” thought George. “The shanty will look as gloomy now as it did last Saturday when those fellows first went away. Well, I will hope for better luck next week.”

George slept but little that night, and he was up the next morning long before the sun.

Having lighted the fire, he opened the door, and the first objects that attracted his attention, as he stepped across the threshold, were two boys who were coming down the beach at a rapid walk. He recognized them at a glance.

“There they are now!” he exclaimed, pulling off his hat and swinging it about his head. “They have brought their guns and fishing-rods with them, and each one has a pack of something on his back. More provisions, I suppose. They haven’t come from the village this morning, and consequently they must have laid out all night.”

The approaching boys answered his greeting by flourishing their caps in the air, and George hastened to meet them, fully prepared to laugh at them for losing their way, when the road that led from the village to the lake was as plain as the beach they were then following; but as he drew nearer to them he saw that something had gone wrong with them.

Their faces were flushed, and their quick, nervous movements showed that they were excited and angry.

“What’s the matter?” asked George. “And where did you stay last night? Did you miss your way?”

“I should say so,” answered Bob, in a tone of deep disgust.

“And you had to stay in the woods, I suppose?”

“No, we didn’t. I wish to goodness we had. We camped in old Stebbins’ barn; and ‘thereby hangs a tale’—one that will astonish you, too.”

“I am very sorry you went near that barn,” said George. “If you had come up here last night—I waited for you at the road until after dark—I should have told you that the old fellow gave me fits for taking you across his sheep pasture last Saturday. He had a good notion to horsewhip me.”

“He had a good notion to serve us worse than that this morning,” said Dick Langdon. “But don’t waste any more time in standing here. Bob and I went to bed without any supper to speak of, and we are as hungry as wolves.”

While they were on their way to the cabin, George came to the conclusion that his friends must have had a very animated interview with Mr. Stebbins, during which the latter had said some things that were in the highest degree exasperating; for they grumbled at him every step they took, and gave full and free expression to the opinions they had formed concerning him.

Having relieved himself of his heavy pack—a neat camper’s basket, which was provided with straps like a soldier’s knapsack, and filled so full of something that a cloth had been tied over the top to keep the contents from falling out—and deposited his gun and fishing-rod in one corner of the cabin, Bob Howard took possession of the bench beside the door and said, abruptly, addressing himself to George:

“You remember of saying something to us about the money that Mr. Stebbins is supposed to have hidden in his house, do you not? Well, sir, three masked robbers came there last night and tried to get it. At least, they tried to break into the house, and we suppose they were after the money.”

George was profoundly astonished.