He paused a second, even then; then he turned towards the house, and spoke, with his face away from them, with a curious directness and taciturnity.

"Didn't go to the traps on West Mountain," he said, then; "went there myself.

They hadn't been there--no tracks; was home before father was to-night.

Louis and Richard hadn't come.

Went down to the village; hadn't been there." "You don't mean Louis and Richard have run away ?" demanded David.
"Both their guns and their powder-horns and shot-bags are gone," said Abner.
"They would have taken them anyway," said Louis.
"The chest in Louis's chamber is unlocked and the money he kept in the till is gone, and his fiddle is gone, and the cider-brandy and wormwood bottle to bathe his arm with, and two shoulders of pork out of the cellar, and a sack of potatoes, and the blankets off his and Richard's beds are gone too," said Abner.