She put down the treasure-box and tried to open the window. But
the sash stuck. She distinctly heard the door below close and
footsteps receding from the porch.

Wishing to make sure that it was Arlo Junior who had been below,
the girl ran back to her bedroom. Yes! there he was scuttling
across the street in evident haste to get under cover.

"Now, isn't that odd?" murmured Janice. Suddenly a sound
floated up from below--an echoing wail that seemed wrenched from
the very soul of a tortured cat. The cry reverberated through the
house in a most eerie fashion.

Fortunately her father slept in the front of the house and there
was a closed door between the front and the back halls on both
floors. But Janice heard Olga's big, flat feet land upon the
floor almost instantly. That feline wail had evidently brought
the Swedish girl out of her dreams, all standing.

That sound sent Janice out of the room on a run. She must reach
the seat of trouble before Olga got to the place! Otherwise, the
trouble was bound to increase and become--what? Even Janice's
imagination, trained, as it was, by the succession of incompetent
and unwilling kitchen helpers, could not picture that.

Before Janice Day could reach the hall, Olga was padding down the
stairs to the kitchen. From the rear arose increasing howls.
The cats may have mysteriously gathered in apparent amity; but so
many of them shut up in that outer kitchen with no escape could
not possibly dwell for long in harmony.