Charles heard Rowland's faint voice in response, but failed to catch his words. It was ten o'clock before he heard the others go to their rooms, and he waited half an hour afterward before stealing down the stairs and starting on his walk to the village. CHAPTER XXI The following morning Charles went to his work after breakfasting alone. Aunt Zilla said the others were not yet up. From his corn-field he saw Frazier lead his horse up to the gate and hitch it to his buggy, which had been left there. Presently Mary came out, and was assisted into the vehicle. Frazier attentively tucked the lap-robe about her feet, waved a parting hand to Rowland at the gate, and they drove away. The buggy seat was a narrow one and the couple had to sit close together. Frazier, in a very loutish way, had dropped his right foot over the edge of the buggy, and it was swinging to and fro close to the wheels, like a pendulum. "I want to warn you and your father both against that fellow," he was saying to the thought-immersed girl, who, pale and rigid, sat by his side. "I am sure there is something crooked about him. He has all the earmarks of a suspicious character. I have helped my brother in several detective cases and I never saw a man I suspected more. It is not all groundless, either, little girl. You see, the last time I was here to stay all night I heard him coming in away after midnight, slipping up the stairs with his shoes in his hand, and this morning between two and three he did the same thing. The first time I stopped him with my gun in my hand, but this morning I let him pass. I intend to give him plenty of rope and watch him. Some suspicious characters were connected with the circus he left, and my frank opinion is that this Brown dropped off here, and is working on your place merely as a blind to cover up some shady game." "You say you heard him come in this morning between two and three?" Mary said, wonderingly. "Are you not mistaken?" "No. The truth is I thought I heard him go out about eleven, but was not sure, so I left my door slightly ajar. I am a light sleeper when I want to be, and I heard him at the front door and watched him creep up the stairs without his shoes again. A fellow like that may stare at me and not answer a decent question, but it won't pay him. He doesn't know who he is fooling with."