One of the officers had a big flashlight turned on, and they were talking in low voices. Alan, his voice a little shaky, was telling how it all had happened.

Alan presently insisted on getting upon his feet. He was all right of course. What did they think he was? A baby? Just a little punch in the nose, what was that? All he was sorry about was that the man got away.

They went inside the store and saw the safe. It had been blown open with noiseless powder. There were papers strewn wildly about on the floor, and the little stack of children’s garden tools was lying across them. There were the day book and ledger, too, on the floor where they had fallen when the man fled. Alan shut his lips in a tight line. Who could have done it? What would his father say when he heard of this new disaster? And how much had the man been able to get away with? Was it his fault in any way? Yes, at least in part, for he never should have opened the safe with the shade up and a light inside. Besides, he now remembered he had left the iron shutters of that window, that were always closed at sundown, wide open! He hadn’t even remembered to fasten the window. It might have even been left wide open, for all he remembered. He certainly hadn’t done anything to it except to draw down the shade.

They went home at last, back to bed, leaving the police in charge. They could find no trace of the robber anywhere.

Alan felt a little shaky and found that he had a black eye as well as a bloody face, and many minor bruises.

“Bob, you saved my life, you know,” he remarked, as they went up the walk to the MacFarland house.

“Aw, cut it! Nothing of the kind!” said Bob. “I just helped out a little. You’d have been up in a second more.”

“No,” said Alan seriously, “I was gone. He had me by the throat. I was choking to death. I remember thinking it was all over for me. You came just in time. Say, kid, this binds us close. I won’t ever forget.”

Bob threw an impulsive arm across Alan’s shoulder.

“That’s great of you, Mac,” he said. “Then we’ve got something on both sides to bind us. I’ll never forget either.”

Back in the room, while Alan washed his bruises, Bob stood handling his new Bible again, admiring it, turning the pages, reading again the inscription and the names. As he came to the little reference at the bottom of the page, he studied it thoughtfully.

“Say, Mac, what’s this down at the bottom? What does it mean? Two Timothy, two fifteen?”

“Oh, that reference?” said Alan emerging from the towel. “That’s the groups’ text for the year. Second Timothy, two fifteen. You know the verse. ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.’ You’ll find the verse marked in the Bible, likely. Trust Sherrill Washburn for that. Here, I’ll show you.”

Alan fluttered the leaves over and handed the Bible back, opened to the chapter.