"Oh, thank you! but there are no hiding places about our shack. Either you are in it or out of it, and in one way or the other one is bound to be in evidence," said Miss Robbins, smiling frankly.

"What did your visitor look like?" inquired Cora.

"He was tall and dark and very stooped," replied Mrs. Robbins.

"Besides this, I noticed he wore boots with his trousers outside, as a farmer or clammer wears them."

"Oh!" said Cora simply. But she did not add that this description tallied somewhat with that of the man she had seen about Clover Cottage. She particularly saw the boots, but many clammers wear them that way.

"I fancy the girls will be timid to-night," Cora remarked, as they started back to the cottage.

"Yes, this has been what you might call a portentous evening," agreed Walter, "and I do declare I think Miss Robbins is--well--nice, to put it mildly."

"Wallie," said Jack. "I will have an awful time with you, I can see that. But you are young, boy, very young, and she is already a doctor, so maybe there is hope--she may be able to cure you."

CHAPTER VI

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

"Hush!"

"I heard it!"

"Call Nettie!"

"I would have to go out in the hall--the noise was somewhere near the second stairs."

"But I am so frightened--I shall die!"

"No, you won't. Please be quiet! I have the little revolver!"

Cora crept out of bed and left Belle trembling there. She only advanced a few steps when the sounds in the hall again startled her.

The stairs certainly creaked. There was no cat, no dog. Some one was walking on those steps.

Cora realized that discretion was the better part of valor. It would be foolhardy to run out in the hall, even with the c.o.c.ked revolver in her hand. If she could only touch the b.u.t.ton of the electric hall light! She stepped out cautiously. Something seemed very near, yet, at that moment, there was no sound, just that feeling of some one near.

She reached her arm out of the door, touched the b.u.t.ton, and, in an instant, had flooded the hall with light.

As she did so she saw a man turn and run down the three steps near the window, part way up the stairs.

The window was open! Cora was too frightened to move for a moment, then she raised her revolver, and the next instant the sound of a shot rang through the house.

The man dropped out of the window.

Cora ran to it, looked down, saw the figure on the ground beneath, and fired again, but not at the man.

With a cry the fellow jumped up, and as he hurried away Cora saw that he limped. She must have hit him!

In all this time she could not give a word to the three frightened girls who were screaming and shouting for help. Nettie had run down from the third floor, Belle was threatening to die, and Bess was doing her best to make the boys down at the bungalow hear her cries.

"Did you kill him?" gasped Belle, when Cora finally returned to the bedroom.

"No, indeed, but I guess I hurt him a little. He limped off rather unsteadily. I had no idea of hitting him, but just as I fired toward the window he darted into it. I could not help it. He should have surrendered."

Cora was as pale as death. Her black hair fell in a cloud about her shoulders. She sank into a chair and still held the smoking weapon.

"Put that down!" commanded Nettie.

"Not yet--he might come back," murmured Cora. "There is no reason for you to fear, it is not c.o.c.ked," and she held up the revolver to prove her words.

"Oh, do put it down!" begged Belle.

"Seems to me you are more afraid of the revolver than of the burglar,"

remarked Cora. "Do you realize that a man has just jumped out of the window?"

"Of course we do," wailed Bess, "but we don't want any more things to happen, and it's always the perfectly safe, unloaded guns that shoot people."

"Oh, I'll put it away, if you feel so about it," and Cora stepped over to the dresser as she spoke. "I really hope I have not hurt the man very much!"

"Couldn't have, when he was able to get away," declared Nettie. "But I just wish you had! The idea of a mean man sneaking around here!

Likely he's taken the silver. I didn't bring it up last night!"

"Well, that was not your fault, Nettie," Bess said. "We had so much excitement last night you are not responsible. Besides, you wanted to go down for it, and I said not to bother. But I hope he didn't take grandma's spoons."

"Let's go down and find out," suggested Cora.

"Oh, mercy, no!" cried Belle, who all the time continued to shiver under the bed clothes. "Let the old silver go--grandma's spoons and all the rest. We may be thankful we are alive."

"But the man is gone," declared Cora. "I saw him go."

"Yes, but there might be another man down stairs. Who knows anything about such persons or their doings?"

"Again I'll agree, if it makes you feel better," replied Cora. "But, you see, mother has been away so much, and Jack is always at college, so that I am rather educated in this sort of thing," and as she glanced at her watch on the dresser the other girls could not help admiring her prudent courage.

"What time is it?" asked Nettie.

"The mystic hour--when we are supposed to be farthest from earth,"

replied Cora. "Just two."

"There is no use in trying to sleep any more," said Bess. "We might better get up and dress."

"And look like valentines in the morning! No, indeed, I am going to bed," and Cora deliberately dropped herself down beside Belle.

"Oh, Nettie will keep guard," said Bess, apparently disappointed that Cora should give up her part of the "guarding."

"Strange, the neighbors did not hear the shots," the maid said. "But it is just as well. We might have had to entertain people more troublesome than burglars. I'm going down stairs. I must look about the spoons. Mrs. Robinson will be so angry----"