bled into a
crouching, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and approached the
house. Nothing but his own commendable caution delayed his approach. The
small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. There were no signs of
life.

He reached the front door, deposited the May-basket with a force that
further demolished it, and took to his heels. After another breathless
wait the procession formed behind him and trailed after him up the road,
hilly here, so that the market basket grew heavier.

"Some evening," Willard murmured to himself, not the rest of the world,
but he sounded amiable.

"Willard."

"Well, kid."

"There wasn't anybody in that house. Ed knew it."

"There might have been. They might have come home."

"But they didn't ... Willard, is this all there is to it?"

"What?"

"Hanging May-baskets. Throwing them down that way. I thought maybe they
really hung them, on the doorknob--I thought----"

"Silly! Ed's going cross lots, and up the wood road to Larribees'. Good
work. That will throw them off the track."

"Throw who off the track?"

"You scared? Want to go home?"

"Oh, no! But who? There's nobody chasing us. Nobody."

"No. We've got them fooled. It's some evening."

"Willard, where are the paddies?"

That was the question Judith had been wanting to ask more and more, for
an hour, but it came in a choked voice, and nobody heard. They were
plunging into a rough and stubbly wood lot, and hushing each other
excitedly. Twigs caught at Judith's skirt, and it was hard to see your
way, with the moon, small and high above the trees in Larribee's woods,
only making the trees look darker. The wood road was little used and
overgrown.

"If they get us in here!"

"They won't, Willard." Judith's voice trembled.

"Cry-baby!"

"I am not."

"Here, buck up. We're coming out right here, back of the carriage house.
If Ed catches you crying he'll send you home."

But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You girls stay here with the
baskets. Don't move. Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll
meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is clear."

"If they get us----"

If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the gravel, awesome silence set
in, and Rena and Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed. Four
May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; dark cross-streets chosen
instead of Main Street and no danger pursuing them there. If there was
no danger in the whole town, why should there