became.

"I'll bet mine's the hardest place of all," he said to himself.

[Illustration]

Bob heard a great deal of noise and shouting after the big girl came
out from her corner and began finding the others, and he also heard a
bang above his head, but he did not know that it was some one shutting
the cellar-door. After that all was quiet.

Bob listened, but could not hear a step. He had not the slightest
idea, of course, that they had stopped playing and were telling
stories by the kitchen fire. The big girl had found them all so easily
that Hide-and-Seek had been voted down.

Bob had his own ideas in regard to this silence. "I know," he
whispered to himself, "they're all found, and they're after me, and
keeping quiet to hear me breathe!"

And, to prevent their finding his hiding-place by the sound of his
breathing, Bob held his breath until he was red in the face. He had
heard often enough of that trick of keeping quiet and listening to
breathing. You couldn't catch him that way!

When he was at last obliged to take a breath, you might have supposed
he would have swallowed half the air in the cellar. He thought he had
never tasted anything so good as that long draught of fresh air.

"Can't hold my breath all the time!" Bob thought. "If I could, maybe