that had aroused his curiosity and a passion of avarice.

Foxey Jack Quinn was warmly clothed. His rackets and a light pack were
on his back and his pockets were stuffed with food and a flask of rum.
He was armed with a hatchet. He crouched beside the window of the empty
room for several minutes, listening intently and fearfully. At last he
wedged the strong blade of his hatchet between the sash of the window
and the frame and prised inward, steadily and cautiously. With a shrill
protest of frosted spikes the lower part of the sash gave by an inch or
two. He devoted another minute to listening, then applied the hatchet to
the left side of the window. He worked all round the sash in this way
and at last pushed it inward with both hands until it hung below the
sill by a couple of bent spikes. He thrust the hatchet in his belt and
entered the room. He put up his hand to the rafter that crossed the low
ceiling and so felt his way along to the middle of the room. Halting
there, he removed the fur mitten from his right hand and felt about
until his chilled fingers discovered a thin crack in the whitewash of
the rafter. The little square of dry wood came away in his fingers. Next
moment he held the leather-bound casket in his hand. He opened it and
felt the cold jewels which he could not see. Then he closed it, slipped
it into a pocket, replaced the square of wood in the beam and made his
cautious way back to the window. He crawled over the sill, turned and
tried to lift the sash upward and outward to its place. The sash came
up easily enough but the bent spikes would not hold. After a few minutes
of fruitless effort he turned away, leaving the window wide open. The
sky was black as the throat of a chimney. A breath of wind came from the
northwest. Foxey Jack Quinn was not weatherwise, however. He climbed the
path to the edge of the barrens and turned to the north.

"Diamonds white an' red," he muttered. "I seen 'em, and I knowed what