the next
estate. "Stop or I'll call the police," he said, coming upon the drive.

He looked much disconcerted when Nyoda and Gladys both burst into a
ringing peal of laughter. "Oh, it's too funny for anything," said
Gladys, wiping her eyes, "to be caught breaking into your own house.
You're a good man, whoever you are, for keeping an eye on the house,"
she said to the puzzled-looking arrester, "but the joke is on you this
time. This is my father's house. I'm Gladys Evans. Give him one of my
cards out of my purse, Nyoda, so he'll believe it."

"I beg your pardon," said the man, convinced that Gladys had a right to
enter the Evans's house by the second-story window if she chose. "I'm
the new gardener next door and I didn't know you, and it always looks
suspicious to see such goings-on."

"You did perfectly right," said Gladys, as he went back to his work.

Laughing extravagantly over their being taken for housebreakers, Gladys
climbed into the window and went downstairs. Opening the front door a
crack, she gave a low whistle which she fondly believed to be a
burglar-like signal. Nyoda answered with a similar whistle. "Is that
you, Diamond Dick?" she asked in a thrilling whisper.

"Who stands without?" asked Gladys.

"It is I, Dark-lantern Pete," hissed Nyoda.

"Give the countersign," commanded Gladys.

"Six buckets of blood!" replied Nyoda in a curdling voice.

Gladys admitted her into the house and they both sat down on the stairs
and shrieked with laughter. "Oh, I can hardly wait until we get down to
the car, so we can tell the other girls," said Gladys. "Caught in the
act! My fair name is ruined. Now for some dinner."

"I'm hungry for a pickle," she said as they foraged in the pantry for
something to eat. "Wait a minute until I go down cellar and get some."
As she opened the door of the cool cellar she started back in surprise.
On the floor lay Katy, the maid, unconscious. An overturned chair beside
her and a shattered light globe told how she had tried to screw a new
bulb into the fixture in the ceiling and had tipped over with the chair,
striking her head on the cement floor. "Nyoda, come down here," called
Gladys. Nyoda hastened down. Together they laid the unconscious girl on
a pile of carpet and tried to revive her. After a few minutes' work
Nyoda went upstairs and called the ambulance to take Katy to the
hospital. When she had been examined by a surgeon and pronounced badly
stunned but not seriously i