any money?" and without waiting for a reply she
counted twenty-five dollars from the roll she had tucked in the front of
her waist and handed them to Billy.

"Nothin' doin'," said he; "but t'anks just the same."

"You got to take it," she insisted. "Let me make believe I'm givin' it
to my boy, Eddie--please," and the tears that came to her eyes proved
far more effective than her generous words.

"Aw, all right," said Billy. "I'll take it an' pass it along to Eddie if
I ever meet him, eh?"

"Now please hurry," she urged. "I don't want you to be caught--even if
you are a murderer. I wish you weren't though."

"I'm not," said Billy; "but de law says I am an' what de law says,
goes."

He turned toward the doorway with Bridge, calling a goodbye to the
woman, but as he stepped out upon the veranda the dust of a fast-moving
automobile appeared about a bend in the road a half-mile from the house.

"Too late," he said, turning to Bridge. "Here they come!"

The woman brushed by them and peered up the road.

"Yes," she said, "it must be them. Lordy! What'll we do?"

"I'll duck out the back way, that's what I'll do," said Billy.

"It wouldn't do a mite of good," said Mrs. Shorter, with a shake of
her head. "They'll telephone every farmer within twenty mile of here in
every direction, an' they'll get you sure. Wait! I got a scheme. Come
with me," and she turned and bustled through the little parlor, out of a
doorway into something that was half hall and half storeroom. There was
a flight of stairs leading to the upper story, and she waddled up them
as fast as her legs would carry her, motioning the two men to follow
her.

In a rear room was a trapdoor in the ceiling.

"Drag that commode under this," she told them. "Then climb into the
attic, and close the trapdoor. They won't never find you there."

Billy pulled the ancient article of furniture beneath the opening,
and in another moment the two men were in the stuffy atmosphere of the
unventilated loft. Beneath them they heard Mrs. Shorter dragging
the commode back to its accustomed place, and then the sound of her
footsteps descending the stair.

Presently there came to them the rattling of a motor without, followed
by the voices of men in the house. For an hour, half asphyxiated by the
closeness of the attic, they waited, and then again they heard the sound
of the running engine, diminishing as the machine drew away.

Shortly after, Mrs. Shorter's voice rose to