ool this hermit
must be to stay in such a place when with his money he could live
handsomely in the city! But I don't find fault with him for that. It's
so much the better for me."

He turned his eyes toward the sea, and by the light of the moon he saw
the hermit's slender skiff approaching. The old man was plainly visible,
with his long gray hair floating over his shoulders as he bent to the
oars.

"He mustn't see me," muttered the fisherman. "I had better go home."

CHAPTER XVIII

A DESPERATE CONFLICT

About eight o'clock the next evening John Trafton sat in the barroom at
the tavern enjoying himself in the manner characteristic of the place.

All day long his mind had been dwelling upon the plan which he had so
recently formed, and he felt a feverish desire to carry it out.

"One bold stroke," he said to himself, "and I am a made man. No more
hard work for me. I will live like a gentleman."

It was rather a strange idea the fisherman had--that he could live like
a gentleman on the proceeds of a burglary--but there are many who, like
him, consider that nothing is needed but money to make a gentleman.

That very night John Trafton decided to make the attempt, if
circumstances seemed favorable. He shrank from it as the time approached
and felt that he needed some artificial courage. For this reason he
visited the tavern and patronized the bar more liberally than usual.

Trafton had prudently resolved to keep his design entirely secret and
not to drop even a hint calculated to throw suspicion upon him after the
event.

But there is an old proverb that when the wine is in the wit is out,
and, though the fisherman indulged in whisky rather than wine, the
saying will apply just as well to the one as to the other.

Among the company present in the barroom was one man who had been in the
village a day or two, but was a stranger to all present.

He was a short, powerfully made man, roughly dressed, with a low brow
and quick, furtive eyes that had a look of suspicion in them.

He had naturally found his way to the tavern bar and proved himself a
liberal patron of the establishment. Therefore the landlord--though he
did not fancy the looks of his new guest--treated him with politeness.

Somehow the conversation on that particular evening drifted to the
probable wealth of city people who made their homes at Cook's Harbor
during the summer. It was afterward remembered that the roughly dressed
stranger had i