capture him, and Bobby had designs on
Meg.

"Glory be! Where to now?" Norah's cry came from the pantry as four
pairs of stout shoes thundered through her kitchen and up the back
stairs. Norah, if the children had stopped long enough to hear, would
have told them that she had hurried home to start supper after seeing
the "episode" of the serial picture she was interested in at the motion
picture house.

Dot sounded like a husky young Indian as she hurled herself upon
Twaddles in the center of Aunt Polly's carefully made bed in the
guest-room and rubbed what was left of her handful of snow into his
eyes and mouth.

"My, it's wet," he sputtered. "Let go, Dot! Ow! you're standing on my
finger."

Meg had dashed into her mother's room, and, banging the door in Bobby's
face, turned the key. She was safe!

Bobby had no intention of being defeated. When he heard the key turn
in the door he looked about for a way to outwit Meg. He might be able
to climb through the transom if he could get a ladder or a chair.

His own room was next to his mother's, and, turning in there to get a
chair, he saw the window. It opened on the roof of the porch, as did
the windows in his mother's room. What could be simpler than to walk
along the roof of the porch, raise a window and get in? He could
gather up more snow, too, as he went along, and just wouldn't he wash
Meg's face for her!

"What you going to do?" asked Twaddles, as Bobby hoisted his window.

Dot and Twaddles, tiring of their own fracas, had come in search of Meg
and Bobby.

"You wait and you'll see," answered Bobby mysteriously, putting one leg
over the sill.

Dot and Twaddles crowded into the open window to watch him as he picked
his way along. There was a linen closet between the two rooms, so
Bobby had some space to cover before he came to the windows of the room
where Meg was hiding.

"My goodness!" whispered that small girl to herself, parting the white
curtains to look out as she heard footsteps on the porch roof. "He
might fall; it's ever so slippery!"

It was slippery; in fact, the roof was much harder to walk on than
Bobby had suspected. For one thing, the roof sloped, and he had to
cling to the side of the house as he walked; then, too, the fine
driving snow almost blinded him; and a third reason that made it hard
going was the way the snow caked and clung to his shoes.

He had reached the window where Meg was waiting, so interested in
watchi