was the open window.
Indeed, there were no sashes in these hall windows at this time of year;
only the bars.

The night air breathed in upon her. Was that a rustling just outside the
bars? There was no light behind her and she did not fear being seen from
without.

Tiptoeing, she came to the sill. Her ears were quick to distinguish
sounds of any character. There _was_ a strange, faint creaking not
far from that wide-open casement. She could not thrust her head between
the bars now (she remembered vividly the last time she had done that and
got stuck, and had to shriek for Daddy to come and help her out), but
she could press her face close against them and stare into the blackness
of the outer world.

There! something stirred. Her eyes, growing more accustomed to the
darkness, caught the shadow of something writhing in the air.

What could it be? Was it alive? A man, or----

Then the bulk of it passed higher, and the strange creaking sound was
renewed. Frances almost cried aloud!

It was the man she had before seen. He was mounting directly into the
air. The over-thrust of the ranch-house roof made the shadow very thick
against the house-wall. The man was swinging in the air just beyond this
deeper shadow.

"What can he be doing?" Frances thought.

She had almost spoken the question aloud. But she did not want to
startle him--not yet.

First, she must learn what he was about. Then she would run and tell her
father. This night raider was dangerous--there was no doubt of that.

"Oh!" quavered Frances, suddenly, and under her breath. The uncertain
bulk of the man hanging in the air had disappeared!

For a minute she could not understand. He had disappeared like magic.
His very corporeal body--and she noted that it had been bulky when she
first saw him roll over the edge of the veranda roof and sit up--had
melted into thin air.

And then she saw something swinging, pendulum-like, before her. She
thrust an arm between the bars and seized the thing. It was a rope
ladder.

The whole matter, then, was as plain as daylight. The man had climbed to
the porch roof, with the rope ladder wound around his body. That was
what had made him seem so bulky.

Selecting this spot as a favorable one, he had flung the grappling-hook
over the eaves. There must be some break in the slates which held the
hook. Once fastened there, the man had quickly worked his way up to the
roof, and Frances had arrived just in time to see him