Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/128

 went back twenty miles and got that crowbar and came again to lift and straighten the stone over my father's grave before I left it. . . . And now, will you ride on and leave me to finish my work and go?"

"Smallwood," Abner said presently, "how do you know that your house was robbed before it was burned? Might it not be that the county revenues were burned with the house?"

"I will tell you how I know that, Abner," replied the man. "The revenues of the county were all in my deerskin saddle-pockets, under my pillow; when I awoke in the night the house was dark and filled with smoke. I jumped up, seized my clothes, which were on a chair by the bed, and ran downstairs; but, first, I felt under the pillow for my saddle-pockets—and they were gone."

"But, Smallwood," said Abner, "how can you be certain that the money was stolen out of your saddle-pockets if you did not find them?"

"I did find them," replied the sheriff; "I went back into the house and got the saddle-pockets and brought them out—and they were empty."

"That was a brave thing to do, Smallwood," said Abner—"to go back into a burning house filled with smoke and dark. You could have had only a moment."

"You speak the truth, Abner," replied the sheriff. "I had only a moment—the house was a pot of smoke. But the money was in my care, Abner. 115