"Hurry up, Chet, take off your apron and dish up the stew while I pour
the coffee. What do you know about that? _I_ made the coffee. And doesn't
it smell good?"

It was the jolliest of meals and finished up in royal fashion with the
peach pie and whipped cream.

In a very gale of merriment Chet and Billie cleared away the dinner
dishes, and then, being tired by the unusual exertion, decided to go
early to bed.

For the first part of the night Billie slept soundly, but just as the
clock downstairs was striking two, she awakened suddenly and lay still in
bed listening. She was frightened, though she could not have told why.

Rigidly she lay there hardly daring to breathe.




CHAPTER VII

A STRANGE BURGLAR


What was it that had awakened Billie Bradley?

Hardly had the girl asked herself that question when she heard it--a
padding, stealthy, creeping noise that made her clutch the bed clothes
and draw them tighter about her.