and, unless some spying
eye should see her enter, its existence could never be suspected.

She tipped softly into the kitchen, walked to the door of the
living-room and listened to the even, heavy breathing of the man on the
couch.

Once more the faint echo of a sob in the shed beyond came to her keen
ears. She stood for five minutes. It was not repeated. She had only
imagined it. The girl was still asleep.

She turned noiselessly back into the kitchen, put a box of matches in
her pocket, felt her way to the low shelf on which she had placed the
battered lantern, picked it up and shook it to make sure the oil was
sufficient.

She stepped lightly into the yard, pushed open the gate of the
split-board garden fence, walked along the edge to the corner and
selected a spade from the tools that leaned against the boards.

Carrying the spade and unlighted lantern in her left hand, she glided
from the yard into the woods. Her right hand before her to feel for
underbrush or overhanging bough, she made her way rapidly to the
swift-flowing mountain brook.

Arrived at the water whose musical ripple had guided her steps, she
removed her shoes and placed them beside a tree. She wore no stockings.
The faded skirt she raised and tucked into her belt. She could wade knee
deep now without hindrance.

Seizing the spade and lantern, she made her way slowly and carefully
downstream for three hundred yards and paused beside a shelving ledge
which projected half-way across the brook.

She paused and listened again for full ten minutes, immovable as the
rock on which her thin, bony hand rested. The stars were looking, but
they could only peep through the network of overhanging trees.

Feeling her way along the rock until the ledge rose beyond her reach,
she bent low and waded through a still pool of eddying water straight
under the mountain-side for more than a hundred feet. Her extended right
hand had felt for the stone ceiling above her head until it ran abruptly
out of reach.

She straightened her body and took a deep breath. Ten steps she counted
carefully and placed her bare feet on the dry rock beyond the water.

Carefully picking her way up the sloping bank until she reached a
stretch of soft earth, she sank to her hands and knees and crawled
through an opening less than three feet in height.

"Thar now!" she laughed. "Let 'em find me if they can!"

She lighted her lantern and seated herself on a boulder to rest--one
h