e ground
and lay still. It was David who had flung her from the reach of the
fire's scorching heat and plunged into the barn in her stead.

The crowd watched the brave young man in horrified silence. Seconds that
seemed ages passed. The front of the barn collapsed. Madge felt Mr.
Preston seize her and drag her away with him, but not before she and all
the watchers had caught sight of David. He stood in the far corner of
the barn with his coat thrown over the terrified horse's head. His face
was almost unrecognizable through the smoke, but the ringing tones of
his voice urging the old horse forward could be heard above the
crackling wood.

"Hurrah!" shouted Mr. Preston hoarsely. He almost trampled over Madge,
who was sitting on the ground staring wildly at David. Then she saw Mr.
Preston and a half dozen other men pick David up on their shoulders and
bear him away from the crowd, while two of the farm-hands took charge of
old Fanny.

David's burns, though not serious, were painful. His hands and arms were
severely blistered. But the excitement occasioned by the fire had hardly
passed when it was discovered that during the fire some one had entered
the Preston house and had stolen a quantity of old family silver. Miss
Betsey Taylor's money bag, which she had carefully concealed under the
day pillow on her four-post mahogany bed, had also disappeared.

There would probably never be any way to discover how or when the thief
entered the house. There had been more than a hundred visitors about the
place, and the house had been open for hours. During the fire every one
of the servants had rushed into the yard.

There was also another disturbing fact to be considered. Either before
or after the fire the old gypsy woman, who had unexpectedly appeared to
take the character part of old Nokomis in the Hiawatha recitation, had
completely vanished; also, the two men disguised as Indian braves had
gone.

The Prestons and their guests discussed all these pertinent features of
the affair until long after midnight. Miss Betsey wept and mourned over
the loss of her money bag, and dolefully repeated that she wished she
had never, never heard of a houseboat. The four girls and Miss Jenny Ann
became thoroughly disgusted with the disgruntled spinster's selfish
bewailing of her own loss, when the Prestons, who had met with a much
heavier loss, were heroically making light of their misfortune.

Madge also had a private grievance, one th