"He seems to have done it--so far as that trunk is concerned!" murmured Bart. "Mr. McCarthy, you and I are friends?" "Good friends, Stirling." "And I can talk pretty freely to you?" "I see your drift--you think Lem Wacker had a hand in this burglary?" "I certainly do." "Well, I'll say that I don't think he's beyond it," observed the watchman. "You'll find, though, he only had a hand in it. His way is generally using someone else for a cat's-paw." "I am going to ask you to do something for me," resumed Bart seriously--"I'm going to get back that trunk--I've got to get it back." "The company ought to provide you with a safe, decent building." "That will come in time." "No one can blame you. They can't expect you to sit up watching all night, nor carrying trunks to bed with you for safe-keeping." "No, but the head office, while it might stand an accidental fire, will not stand a big loss on top of it. My ability to handle this express proposition successfully is at stake and, besides that, I would rather have almost anybody about my ears than Mrs. Harrington." "The colonel's wife is a Tartar, all right," bluntly declared the night watchman. "Hello! here's somebody from Harrington's, now." The same buckboard that had driven up the afternoon previous, came dashing to the platform as McCarthy spoke. It was in charge of the same driver, who promptly hailed Bart with the words: "That trunk gone yet?" "No, not yet," answered Bart. "Then I'm in time. Mrs. Harrington wanted to put something else in--this box. Forgot it, yesterday," and the speaker fished up an oblong package from the bottom of the wagon. "It will have to go separate," explained Bart. "Can't do that--it's a silk dress, and not wrapped for any hard usage. Why, what's happened!" pressed the colonel's man, shrewdly scanning the disturbed countenances of Bart and the watchman. "Door lock smashed, too, and--say! I don't see the trunk!" He had stepped to the platform and looked inside the express shed. Bart thought it best to explain, and did so. It made him feel more crestfallen than ever to trace in the way his auditor took it, that he anticipated some pretty lively action when Mrs. Harrington was apprised of her loss. "You can tell Mrs. Harrington that everything possible is being done to recover the trunk," Bart told the man as he drove off. "Now then, Mr. McCarthy," he continued, turning to his companion, "I am going to ask you to take charge here till I return. I will pay you a full day's wages, even if you have to stay only an hour." "You'll pay me nothing!" declared the watchman vigorously. "I'll camp right in your service as soon as the seven o'clock whistle blows, and you get on the trail of that missing trunk." "I intend to," said Bart. "I will get Darry Haven to come down here. He knows the office routine. In the meantime, we had better not say much about the burglary." "Are you going on a hunt for Lem Wacker?" "I am."