nd, and shading his eyes from the lamplight, he wrote on. In a
few minutes the springs of Tom's bed creaked violently as he
dropped down on it, and soon the sound of his heavy breathing in
the room above showed that he was dead to the world.

Ralph's eyelids began to droop drowsily. In vain he struggled to
keep them open. He put his head down on the table, with a sigh,
and before he realized it he was asleep.

The next thing he knew was that he found himself sitting up, wide
awake. He had a distinct impression that he had been roused by the
sound of a human voice. How long he had slept he could not tell.
The lamp had gone out and the room was in inky darkness. As he sat
listening, all at once he heard a sound of some one moving about
the room.

"Wonder if we forgot to lock the kitchen door?" was his first
thought. Then he spoke aloud: "Who's there?"

No answer.

"Who is it?" Ralph demanded, in a louder tone. "What are you doing?
What do you want?"

Still no answer. Only an impressive and uncanny silence.

Reaching out for his walking stick, which lay on the table beside
him, Ralph got up from the chair without noise or further ado,
and took a few steps forward. As he did so, a burly form crashed
against him in the darkness, knocking him down. Unhurt, though
considerably startled, Ralph sprawled upon the carpet and stared
quickly up at the window, by which the intruder would have to pass
in order to reach the doorway leading into the kitchen. At the
same moment, he raised his voice and called out:

"Tom! Arthur! Come down here! Oh, Tom!"

"Curse you!" muttered a harsh voice. "Shut up, or I'll-----"

"Tom!" yelled Ralph, defiantly. He would have risen at once and
grappled with the intruder, only, with a weak ankle, he did not
care to run the risk of a nasty blow or a bad fall. He yelled
lustily instead, and in a minute he heard Tom spring out of bed
and come tearing down the stairs.

But his mysterious assailant lost not a moment in making a getaway;
he did not even wait to slip out by the rear door, through which
he must have entered. Springing to the window, he smashed it
with a kick, and was in the act of crawling through and dropping
to the ground outside, when Tom flung himself upon him and dragged
him back into the room. Fear of cutting himself on the broken
glass evidently made the scoundrel yield more readily than he
would otherwise have done. As it was, he put up a game fight,