per, he told what had been on his mind, without further delay.

"Hey, Sube!" he cried in a tremulous voice. "You gotta get out of here!
He jus' went in your house lookin' for you!"

He caught Sube by the arm and dragged him towards the door.

"What I got to get out for?" asked the amazed cat-catcher.

"Dan Lan-non!" enunciated the terrified informant. "He's goin'ta _'rest_
you!"

At the name of this grim officer of the law all felons trembled. Sube
was no exception to the rule. He grew deathly pale. He had that empty
feeling in his interior that Gizzard had complained of. He vaguely
wondered what crime he had committed, but did not stop to inquire, as
Gizzard dragged him feverishly towards the back door of the barn. Once
outside he seemed to recover possession of his senses and assumed the
lead. He conducted Gizzard to the midst of a clump of blackberry bushes
in the rear of a deserted house not far away, and there Gizzard
unburdened his soul.

Sube was scared. He was petrified. But he was faithful to the last. He
could not believe that Nancy had betrayed him.

"It must of been that ol' M's Rude," he kept repeating. "It _must_ of
been! It couldn't of been--anybody else! Now I wonder if that big cat
with the long hair belonged to her."

"Wonder? Ain't you _sure_?"

"Why, it looked like hers, but--"

"It wasn't M's Rude," declared Gizzard. "It was Nancy Guilford! Why,
didn't she say she was goin' to have you--!"

"Girls _say_ lots of things they don't mean."

"Yes, but she said it, and then it happened!"

"I don't care what she _said_! I tell you it was that ol' M's Rude!"
Sube burst out angrily. Then modifying his tone he continued: "But that
don't cut any ice anyway! What I want to know is, what we goin' to do?"

Then followed a long discussion of the possibilities, and, as neither of
the fugitives was willing to be taken alive, there seemed to be only one
alternative: flight. Alaska was discarded as too cold, and South America
as too hot. That portion of Texas nearest to the Mexican line seemed to
offer the most tempting prospects for a "career," and Sube had begun to
take a bit of grim comfort in the pangs that he felt sure Nancy Guilford
must endure as she came to realize that she had made a desperado of him,
when an idea flashed into his brain with the brilliancy of a
searchlight.

"Say!" he gasped. "Why couldn't we sneak back there and let the derned
ol' cats out! Then we'd lay low till they had t