er a hasty look; "because there's Fred's mother coming out of
the door."

"Gee whiz! can she be meaning to meet this man?" ventured Toby,
apparently appalled by his own suspicion.

"Well, hardly likely," Jack told him, "because the man has ducked down
as if he didn't want to be seen by her, though he's looking like
everything all the while."

"That's little Barbara Badger, the five-year-old sister of Fred," Steve
was saying. "She's got a basket on her arm, too, and I reckon her ma is
sending her to the store down the street for a loaf of bread, or
something like that. Everybody seems to agree that Barbara is the most
winsome little girl in the whole of Chester."

"Barring none," admitted Toby, immediately. "Why, she's just like a
little golden-haired fairy, my dad says, and since he's something of an
artist he ought to know when he sees one. Yep, you were right, Steve,
the child is going after something at the store. I wonder now would that
wretch have the nerve to stop Barbara, and try to get some information
from the little thing?"

"What if he tries to kidnap her?" suggested Steve, suddenly, doubling up
his sturdy looking fist aggressively, as though to indicate that it
would not be safe for the stranger to attempt such a terrible thing
while he was within hearing distance.

"Oh! I hardly think there's any fear of that happening," Jack assured
the aggressive member of the trio. "But he acts now as if he meant to
drop back here out of sight, so perhaps we'd better slip around this
bunch of bushes so he won't learn how we've been watching him."

Suiting their actions to Jack's words, the three boys quickly "made
themselves scarce," which was no great task when such an admirable
hiding-place as that stack of bushes lay conveniently near by. Sure
enough, the stranger almost immediately came around the clump and made
sure that it hid him from the small cottage lying beyond. Jack, taking a
look on his own account from behind the bushes, saw that Mrs. Badger had
started to reenter the house; while pretty little Barbara was
contentedly trudging along the cinder pavement.

Evidently the child was quite accustomed to doing errands of this nature
for her mother, when Fred did not happen to be around; nor was it likely
that Mrs. Badger once dreamed Barbara might get into any sort of
trouble, for the neighborhood, while not fashionable, was at least said
to be safe, and honest people dwelt there.

"He's staring as hard