The moonlight shone in through the sides of the barn, and
Huldah had a feeling that eyes were at all the chinks, watching her.

To try to forget the rats and mice and not to see the eyes, she
nestled down in the straw, with one bundle at her head and another at
her back, and hoped she would soon fall asleep and forget everything.
But though she was so tired, or, perhaps, because she was overtired,
sleep when it did come was not sound or pleasant. Every time Dick
rustled the straw, she awoke. Every time a bird called or an owl
hooted, she started up wide awake. She woke once from a dream of her
uncle, with, as she thought, his voice echoing in her ear.
Another time she felt certain he was banging at the barn door, trying
to get in, to beat her and Dick, and take them both back.

"Oh, I wish it was morning!" she sighed, and sat up on her straw bed,
to see if daylight was beginning to dawn yet.

But all was dark still; even the moon had gone. She was just about
to lie wearily down again, when a real, not a dream sound, caught her
ear. The sound of nailed boots on stones, and stealthy footsteps.

"It really is someone climbing the wall and coming up the garden,"
she thought to herself, and her mouth and throat grew dry with
terror, and her heart beat suffocatingly. "Dick!" she gasped, in a
low voice. "Dick, they're coming, they've found us. Listen!"

Dick raised himself on his haunches, with his ears cocked. Huldah
was seized with sudden fear that he would growl, and so betray their
hiding-place, for her uncle would recognise Dick's growl in a moment.
She laid her hand on his collar firmly. "Quiet!" she commanded,
firmly, and knew that he would obey. She tried to peer out through
the chinks, but it was hard to move without rustling the straw, and
all without was black as pitch.

Then suddenly, quite close to her on the other side of the planking,
sounded a whisper, and Huldah never knew afterwards whether she was
most frightened or relieved--frightened by the nearness of somebody,
or relieved that the somebody was not her "uncle."

"Bill, where's the sack?" the voice asked, impatiently.

"I dunno!" answered another voice, sourly. "You had it. I've cut my
knee on that there wall; I can feel the blood running down my leg."

"You always manages to do something," was all the sympathy Bill got.
"We've got to 'ave the sack, so you'd better find it. How're we to
carry the birds without it? In our hats?"