Bart helped carry it in, dumped it on the scales, went to the desk, got the receipt book, and reading the label on the trunk found that it was directed to Mrs. Harrington at Cedar Springs, the summer resort to which the colonel had already gone.

“Value?” he asked.

“Mrs. Harrington didn’t say, and I don’t know.  If you saw all the finery in that trunk, though, you’d stare.  You see, Mrs. Harrington is going to stay three weeks at the Springs, and is sending on her finest and best.  I’ll bet they amount to a couple of thousand dollars.”

Bart filled out a blank receipt, stamping it:  “Value asked, and not given.”

“It can’t go till morning,” he said.

“That don’t matter.  The missus won’t be going down to the Springs till Saturday.”

“You have just missed the afternoon express,” went on Bart.

“Yes, Lem Wacker said I would.”

“What has he got to do with it?” asked Bart.

“Why, nothing, I gave him a lift down the road, and he told me that.”

The driver departed.  Bart stood so long looking ruminatively at the trunk that Darry Haven finally nudged his arm.

“Hi! come out of it,” he called.  “What’s bothering you, Bart?”

“Nothing—­I was just thinking.”

“About that trunk, evidently, from the way you stare at it.”

“Exactly,” confessed Bart.  “I believe I am getting superstitious about anything connected with the Harringtons or the Wackers.  Here, give me a lift.”

“All right.  Where?”

“Swing it up—­I want to get it on top of the safe.”

“What!” ejaculated Darry in profound amazement.

“Yes, we don’t handle property in the thousands every day in the week.”

“But the company is responsible only up to fifty dollars, when they don’t pay excess.”

“That doesn’t satisfy the shipper if there is any loss.  I feel we ought to be extra careful until we get a new office with proper safeguards, and that expensive outfit staying here all night worries me.  Up—­hoist!”

Bart settled the trunk on top of the safe, and on top of that he set the lantern.

When he locked up for the night he lit the lantern, and went over to the freight platform where the night watchman had just come on duty.

Bart knew him well and liked him, and the feeling was reciprocal.

He explained that a valuable trunk had to remain overnight in the express shed, and how he had placed it.

“Just take a casual glance over there on your rounds, will you, Mr. McCarthy?” he continued.

“I certainly will.  You set the lantern so it shows things inside, and I’ll keep an eye open,” acquiesced the watchman.

Bart went home feeling satisfied and relieved at the arrangement he had made.

All the same he did not sleep well that night.  About daybreak he woke up with a sudden jump, for he had dreamed that Colonel Harrington had thrown him into a deep pit, and that Lem Wacker was dropping Mrs. Harrington’s precious trunk on top of him.