Tom saw it all now. The men had evidently watched Elam from the time he
started out, until they saw him pick up one trap and set out for
another, and had then made up their minds to rob him. They little
expected to find a tender-foot behind to watch his cabin, and had
consequently made up their story on the spur of the moment.

"Aleck, you will find your bundle over thar," said the man, "and there
are some otter-skins you can take, too. This rifle I will just take with
me and leave it agin some rocks out here whar you can easy find it. Mind
you, we haint done you no harm so far, but don't come nigh this rifle
under an hour. You hear me?"

Tom said nothing in reply. He watched Aleck as he picked up the other
bundle and otter-skins (he left the eighteen Elam had brought in the
night before, because they were not cured), flung them over his
shoulder, and joined his companion at the door, where the latter had
already taken charge of the rifle.

"You haint disremembered what I've told you?" he said, in savage tones.
"You come out in one hour and you can find the rifle; but you come out
before that time expires and ten to one but you will get a ball through
your head."

Tom still made no reply, and the robbers went out as noiselessly as they
had come in. He listened, but did not hear the snapping of a twig or the
swishing of bushes to prove that they had worked their way through the
thicket of evergreens to the natural prairie along which Elam was to
come.

"Well, now, I am beat," drawing a long breath of relief, thrusting his
feet out in front of him, and putting his hands into his pockets. "So it
seems that Elam isn't so very happy, after all, and that, no matter
where one gets, he's going to have trouble. Here he's been working like
a nailer for--I don't know how long he's been out here--until it seems
to me----What's that?" he added, as his feet came in contact with a
small buckskin bag which one of the robbers had dropped.

Tom bent over and saw that one side of the string was broken. The bag
had been tied around the man's neck, and had worked its way down until
it found an opening at the bottom of his trousers above his moccasons.
The man had never noticed it, and this was the first Tom had seen of it.
It was small, but it was well filled, and Tom began to look about for a
place to hide it.

"Let him take the skins if he wants to, and I'll take this," said he,
getting up and looking first into one place and the