felt my feet, that had grown heavy in the last few steps, light as
air again. Once I sobbed for breath, and he took my hand as we ran,
saying, 'Courage, brave girl!' We ran on hand in hand, and I never
failed again. We heard Mr. Brett's feet running, not far behind; he
was a strong, active man, but could not quite keep up with us.

"As we neared the house, 'Quiet,' I said; 'Mrs. Bowles does not know.'"

He nodded, and we slipped in at the back door. In an instant his
shoes were off and he was up the back stairs like a cat, and I after
him. As we entered the shed chamber the lid of the cedar trunk rose.

I saw the gleam of the evil black eyes and the shine of white,
wolfish teeth. Without a sound George Brett sprang past me; without
a sound the robber leaped to meet him. I saw them in the white light
as they clinched and stood locked together; then a mist came before
my eyes and I saw nothing more.

"I did not actually faint, I think; it cannot have been more than a
few minutes before I came to myself. But when I looked again George
was kneeling with his knee on the man's breast, holding him down,
and Father Brett was looking about the chamber and saying, in his
dry way, 'Now where in Tunkett is the clothes-line to tie this fellow?'

"And the girl? Annie? O girls, she was so young! She was just my own
age and she had no mother. I went to see her the next day, and many
days after that. We are fast friends now, and she is a good, steady
girl; and no one knows--no one except our two selves and two
others--that she was ever in the shed chamber."