ren!
He grew sick with terror at the thought, and flew on faster.

There was only a faint swish in the air to indicate that anyone had moved,
a sound so faint that the thief in the office did not hear it. He was
busily engaged on the lock of the farmer's safe.

The kitchen reached, Paul flew up the back stairs, and burst like a
hurricane into the first room he came to. Luckily it was the right one.
It took him some time to rouse the old farmer and to make him understand
what was happening, and when that was accomplished nothing would satisfy
him but that he must dress as fully as on every other morning, and then
rouse the household in that part of the house.

Paul quivered with impatience. "Quick! quick!" he groaned. "He may go up
and murder mother or Stella while we are here." But the farmer had never
been quick in his life, and did not know the meaning of the word.

"Plenty of time," he said, and Paul groaned with anguish. "Plenty of
time, sir. That there lock'll keep un quiet for a brave bit, and I ain't
going to trust myself in that place without plenty to back me up."

"I must go back alone, then," said Paul at last, in an agony of
impatience; "I promised father I'd take care of them." And he began to
descend the stairs, hoping by his departure to accelerate the movements of
the others. But his hope was a forlorn one, and he went back by himself,
in spite of the farmer's repeated injunctions to "wait a bit."

He hoped by being equally swift and silent to escape the notice of the
thief again, but the man was no longer in the office. Whether he had
succeeded in robbing the safe or not Paul did not know, but he soon
gathered that he had gone upstairs; in fact, as Paul himself reached the
landing, he heard him raise the latch of Stella's door and creep into the
room.

"Who are you--what do you want?" gasped Paul. He was rendered well-nigh
speechless at coming suddenly face to face with the burglar.

The man turned on him like a hunted animal at bay. "If you make a sound
I'll shoot you!" he snarled, and with the same he whipped a revolver from
his pocket. "If you'll hold your tongue and say nothing no harm'll come
to anybody, but if you give the alarm I'll--"

But he did not complete his sentence, for their voices had wakened Stella,
and at the sight of the stranger she started up in bed with a scream.

Frantic and desperate, the man turned from Paul to her. "Stop that noise,
will you?" he hissed