On a table behind him a lamp was dimly burning, and the bed in its billowy warmth looked uninviting. The old clock in the hall below had struck eleven when he rose to disrobe. Suddenly he heard Rover, the watch-dog, bark loudly and scamper down the lawn toward the tannery. Then there was silence, broken by a subdued muttering under the dark sheds. Hoag was sure that the dog had been silenced by some one, and the circumstance was suspicious, to say the least, and must be looked into. So, taking his revolver from the table, and in order that he might not wake Jack or Mrs. Tilton in the next room, he opened his door softly, then crept noiselessly out at the side-entrance and went across the damp lawn down the slope, avoiding this or that obstacle in his progress--a beehive, a lawn-mower, or a dismantled cider-press left at the mercy of the weather. He was soon under the sheds groping his way, most cautiously now, for it was quite dark, between the open vats, and stumbling over heaps of used and unused tan-bark, his eyes and ears alert. He asked himself, in growing wonder, what had become of Rover, for surely the dog was somewhere near. At this juncture he heard a dull, thumping sound in the warehouse a hundred yards to the left, and cocking his revolver he strode quickly in that direction. Reaching the warehouse, and turning the corner, he saw at the door of the building a horse and open road-wagon, at the side of which Rover sat on his haunches idly beating the ground with his tail. Wholly nonplussed, Hoag stepped noiselessly on to the long platform, and peered in at the sliding door. At the farthest end of the room, in the dim light of a lantern, he saw a man half pushing, half rolling a heavy bale of leather toward the door. Crouched down, as the intruder was over his work, Hoag could not see his face, but presently it appeared quite clearly in the light. It was Henry. It was his son. He was a thief caught in the act. Volcanic fury swept over Hoag. The would-be thief was of his own blood, of his own loins. Revolver in hand, and indignantly quivering in every inch of his fat body, Hoag glided from the dark into the light. “What the hell does this mean?” he demanded, in a loud and yet guttural tone. The young man at the bale of leather, without hat or coat, his brow red and streaming with perspiration, started and, looking up, faced his father. For an instant his glance wavered, but as Hoag thundered out a repetition of his question, Henry drew himself up defiantly and glared straight at him. “You see well enough,” he answered, doggedly. “So you are a thief--a low, sneaking, prowling night-robber?” Hoag gasped, taken aback by his son's unexpected attitude. “You--you!”