out his raid finely, and would
make the widow's store of rice smart for it.

The thief loosed his hold upon the rafter of the roof by which he
hung, and his long, slender, naked body, bare but for his waist-cloth,
dropped as a great snake might drop between Jack and his father. Mr.
Haydon made one clutch, and closed his fingers in a tremendous
throttling grip about the rogue's neck. Jack caught him by the arms.

A most extraordinary struggle followed. The fellow was like an eel,
and it proved a task of the greatest difficulty to hold him and keep
him from getting loose and raising a disturbance. He was like an eel
not only in his marvellous agility, his twists, his feints, his
wriggling, but in his actual bodily slipperiness. The cunning rascal
had smeared his naked body from head to foot with oil, so that, if
seized, he could the more easily wriggle out of the hands of his
captors.

How clever a device this was Jack learned to his great surprise. The
arms he seized were whipped out of his clutch as if he was trying to
lay hold of quicksilver. He grabbed something which proved to be a
leg. A swift jerk, and his fingers slipped off the greasy limb.
Finally he settled the matter by throwing both arms round the slim,
bare waist, and closing upon the rogue with a bear's hug which drove
the breath out of the thief's body.

Together they threw the man upon the dried grass, and Mr. Haydon, who
had made his hold good by locking his fingers about the fellow's
windpipe, now eased his grip a little so that the man could breathe.

Suddenly a light flashed upon this scene of fierce but silent
struggle. The woman herself had been aroused from her couch in the
room below, had lighted a small lamp, and climbed the rude steps to
the loft.

Mr. Haydon turned his head, saw her, and snapped out a single word.
She set down her lamp, disappeared, and was back in an instant with a
long strip of cloth in her hand. Mr. Haydon took this, and soon
whipped a gag round the mouth of the intruder, while Jack held him
down. In response to another whispered request of Mr. Haydon's, the
woman fetched a length of cord, and in two minutes the thief was bound
hand and foot. Then father and son got up and stood looking down at
their captive, who stared sullenly up at them from his dark eyes.

"If this isn't a confounded fix," murmured Mr. Haydon. "Why should
this thieving rogue choose us to drop in on, of all people?"

"The unprotected house drew