in there this morning, when we missed him. We went down there
and watched to-night, and almost caught him. But he disappeared a
little below here, and we've lost him again. It's my opinion he's an
evil spirit in disguise. He ran like the wind, in amongst the trees,
where we couldn't follow with the horses. Are you sure he did not
skulk in here somewhere? Sim White thinks he did."

"I knew I saw him turn the corner of the lane," chimed in another
voice, "and we've scoured the woods."

"I think we'd better search the barn, anyhow," some one else said,
and a good many murmured assent.

"Wait a minute, I'll be down," said Phineas, shutting his window.

How long poor Ann lay there shaking, she never knew. It seemed hours.
She heard Phineas go down stairs, and unlock the door. She heard them
tramp into the barn. "O, if I had hidden him there!" she thought.

After a while, she heard them out in the yard again. "He could _not_
have gotten into the house, in any way," she heard one man remark
speculatively. How she waited for the response. It came in Phineas
Adams' slow, sensible tones: "How could he? Didn't you hear me unbolt
the door when I came out? The doors are all fastened, I saw to it
myself."

"Well, of course he didn't," agreed the voice.

At last, Phineas came in, and Ann heard them go. She was so thankful.
However, the future perplexities, which lay before her, were enough
to keep her awake for the rest of the night. In the morning, a new
anxiety beset her. The poor thief must have some breakfast. She could
easily have smuggled some dry bread up to him; but she did want him
to have some of the hot Indian mush, which the family had. Ann,
impulsive in this as everything, now that she had made up her mind to
protect a thief, wanted to do it handsomely. She did want him to have
some of that hot mush; but how could she manage it?

The family at the breakfast table discussed the matter of the
horse-thief pretty thoroughly. It was a hard ordeal for poor Ann, who
could not take easily to deception. She had unexpected trouble too
with Nabby. Nabby _had_ waked up the preceding night.

"I didn't see anything," proclaimed Nabby; "but I heerd a noise. I
think there's mice out in the grain-chist in the back chamber."

"I must go up there and look," said Mrs. Polly. "They did
considerable mischief, last year."

Ann turned pale; what if she should take it into her head to look
that day!

She watched her chance very na