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start a fire, and get away unseen by any of us.
"
He may burn and steal without being found out, and thus go unpunished. I
wish I could catch him."
This thought so worried Ivan that he decided not to return to his house,
but went out and stood on the street-corner.
"I guess," thought Ivan to himself, "I will take a walk around the
premises and examine everything carefully, for who knows what he may be
tempted to do?"
Ivan moved very cautiously round to the back of his buildings, not
making the slightest noise, and scarcely daring to breathe. Just as he
reached a corner of the house he looked toward the fence, and it seemed
to him that he saw something moving, and that it was slowly creeping
toward the corner of the house opposite to where he was standing. He
stepped back quickly and hid himself in the shadow of the building. Ivan
stood and listened, but all was quiet. Not a sound could be heard but
the moaning of the wind through the branches of the trees, and the
rustling of the leaves as it caught them up and whirled them in all
directions. So dense was the darkness that it was at first impossible
for Ivan to see more than a few feet beyond where he stood.
After a time, however, his sight becoming accustomed to the gloom, he
was enabled to see for a considerable distance. The plow and his other
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