look around
to see if there is anything here that I would like." He seized poor
Lillian's plate of chocolate fudge and stuffed the candy into his
pockets. Then he left the sitting room and crept into the bedroom
which was used by Miss Jones and Eleanor. He found Eleanor's purse
under her pillow and pocketed it. On the small dressing-table was Miss
Jenny Ann's purse. He chuckled softly. This was the best of the sport.

Phil's humming upstairs stopped. Why did that lazy farmer boy not get
to his work? And where were Lillian and Nellie? Phil listened. She
thought she heard such an odd noise. It was as though some one were
trying to talk while choking. She ran lightly down the outside cabin
steps, her broom still in her hand. She peered into the kitchen. It
was empty. Phil did not go into the sitting room next. Some instinct
must have guided her. Had she seen the plight poor Lillian and Eleanor
were in, she must have screamed and betrayed herself. Instead she
stepped into Miss Jones's bedroom.

The youth, with his back to the door, had ears like the creatures of
the woods. Under other circumstances he would have heard Phyllis's
approach. But something in the discovery of Miss Jenny Ann's poor
little purse seemed to give him special joy. He was opening it and
emptying it of its last penny.

Phil saw him from the open cabin door. She did not think--she acted.
She saw, as she supposed, the farmer lad, intent on robbing them. Phil
brought her broom down on the boy's head with a resounding whack.

The tramp started forward with a growl. For the moment he was nearly
blinded from the pain of the blow.

Phil recognized that discretion was now the better part of valor. She
dashed out of one door, then into another, the youth stumbling after
her, raging with anger. She knew every turn and twist of the tiny
cabin. Instead of running around the deck, where she would surely have
been captured, she darted in and out of the cabin doors, those on the
inside, swinging backward and forward, sometimes closing a door in the
face of her pursuer.

She was almost overcome with horror when she saw Lillian and Eleanor in
the sitting-room. Lillian could not speak, but her eyes pleaded with
Phil. Phyllis had no reason not to cry out. As she ran she screamed
with all her might:

"Help, help, help!" Some one would soon be passing along the shore who
would come to their aid.

The thief did not like the noise Phy