le stifled sob, turned back into the room and found
herself face to face with her startled chums.

"Nan! you look like a ghost," cried Bess, flinging an arm about the
girl and drawing her to the bed.

"We thought we heard a man's voice," added Rhoda, staring with
fascinated eyes from Nan to the half-opened bag on the bed.

Grace was plainly frightened. "Nan! was that man here?"

"Yes," said Nan faintly. "He was here and he--oh, girls, it was
dreadful! I can't talk about it." And she broke down with a sob and
buried her head on Bess's shoulder.

CHAPTER XXV

MOONLIGHT

When Nan told her story to the Masons a little later they were not only
indignant but very genuinely worried. Walter declared that he would
"catch that man and wring his neck before the day was up," which boast,
though extremely extravagant, brought strange comfort to Nan, shocked as
she had been by the events of the morning.

Mr. Mason wanted to shadow the man, but Nan begged him not to do that
until after they had had a chance to look up Mrs. Bragley's property for
her and see what it was worth.

"If that's the way you feel," Mr. Mason decided sympathetically, "it
seems to me the best thing to do is to get to Sunny Slopes as soon as
possible, take a look at this land, and employ an attorney, if need be,
to be sure her title is clear. Then if this man is illegally trying to
wrest the land from its rightful owner, we will employ a detective and
see that the fellow is brought to justice. I want to lift the load from
these young shoulders," he said, looking down at Nan with the nice smile
that made everybody like him. "They are too young to carry the troubles
of other people yet."

Nan smiled up at him gratefully, and perhaps the interview might have
ended there had Walter allowed it to. But Walter was still tremendously
worried about Nan.

"But Dad," he said, turning to his father accusingly, "you certainly
can't mean that you are going to let that man wander around loose so
that he can worry Nan all he wants to. Why, this is four or five times
already that he has nearly frightened her to death. Why," he continued,
waxing more excited as he thought about it and glaring at the anxious
group of people as though it were in some way all their fault, "he isn't
going to stop when he so nearly got what he wanted to-day. He may come
back again to-night----"

"That is very unlikely," Mr. Mason broke in, in a cheerful,
matter-of-fact tone. "