and dimly
saw the dark forest all around the cabin. "No one will think of coming
here," said Janet to herself.

She cuddled herself into as small a nook as possible down behind the
chair, in a place where she could look out through the other rooms and
could see the lamplight and firelight in the big living apartment.

It was in this living apartment that Mary was counting with her eyes
shut and soon she would call: "Ready or not I'm coming!" Then she would
walk around and try to find the hiding ones.

"But she won't find me," thought Janet, "and I can get in home free."

From the distance Janet heard Mary say she was coming, and then suddenly
the little girl was startled by a tapping on the window just back of
the chair behind which she was hiding.

At first Janet thought it was the brushing of some tree branch against
the glass that had made the tapping sound. But when it came again,
several times, and very regular, the little girl knew some hand must be
doing it.

"Maybe Tom or Ted has gone outside and is trying to scare me," thought
Janet. "I'll take a peep and see."

Slowly she raised herself up from her crouching position behind the
chair. And then the tapping sound on the glass came again. Janet looked
out and gave a scream as, looking in through the window, she saw the
face of a man on which the moon faintly shone.

CHAPTER XV

ON THE SLIPPERY HILL

Janet Martin had only a glimpse of the face of the man looking in
through the window at her after he had tapped on the glass. As soon as
he saw some one peering out at him, and as soon as he heard Janet
scream--as he must have heard--the man sprang away.

He was soon lost to sight in the woods around the cabin. The moon shone
faintly--had it not been for this Jan would never have seen the man's
face--but it was not bright enough in the forest to see him after he
leaped away from the cabin.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" screamed Janet. Her voice rang out in the empty room and
was heard by Uncle Toby, Aunt Sallie and the children playing hide and
go seek.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" asked Uncle Toby, who was
putting wood in the fireplace.

"Oh, it's a man! A man!" cried Janet, running out from Uncle Toby's
bedroom into the living apartment where they were now all gathered. "A
man looked in the window at me and he tapped on the glass!"

"Who was he?" asked Uncle Toby, grasping a heavy stick of wood. Tom, Ted
and Harry at once began to think they