"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Peggy to herself, "what shall I do?"

She looked about her as if seeking for information from her surroundings.
All at once she became aware that two men had emerged from the wood
behind her and were watching her closely.

Plucky as the girl was, she felt her heart beat a little quicker as she
gazed. There was something so very piercing in their scrutiny.

Suddenly one of them stepped forward, and Peggy saw, to her astonishment,
that she knew him. More astonishing still, the man was trembling and
whitefaced as if in alarm at something.

It was Morgan, the butler at Mrs. Bancroft's.

"Why, Morgan, whatever are you doing here?" exclaimed Peggy as she
breathed more freely.

The man hesitated. His companion, whom Peggy could now see was an employe
about the Bancroft stables, came to his rescue.

"Why, miss, we've been doin' a bit of trapping in the woods there."

"Yes, miss, that's hit," struck in Morgan, a stout, puffy-faced
Englishman with "side burns."

"A bit o' poaching, as you might say, miss. I 'opes you won't tell on
hus."

"Good gracious, no," laughed Peggy, immensely relieved to find that the
two men were not strangers. "I thought you looked scared when you saw me,
Morgan."

"Yes, miss. You see, I haint used in hold England ter see young ledies a
flyin' round like bloomin'--bloomin' pertater bugs, hif you'll pardon the
comparison, miss. But 'as yer 'ad han h'accident?"

"I have," rejoined Peggy, restraining an impulse to say "I 'ave." "It's
not much. If there was a blacksmith shop round here I could get it fixed
in a jiffy. It's just this rod that's snapped."

"Why, miss," puffed Morgan, "Gid Gibbon's place isn't more than a few
paces, as you might say, from 'ere. Why don't you take that rod there?
Hi'll h'escort yer."

"Why, that's so," agreed Peggy, "how stupid of me not to have thought of
it. Gid can fix it in a few minutes."

Selecting a small wrench from the tool box Peggy deftly unbolted the
broken rod, and then, with Morgan and his companion as guides, she set
off across the fields for Gid's shop, which she now recalled was a short
distance up the road, but hidden from the spot where the Butterfly had
dropped by a patch of woods.

"By the way, Morgan," the girl asked, suddenly, "has anything more been
heard of the missing jewels?"

To Peggy's astonishment the man started and stammered.

"Yes, miss--that is--no, miss. I means, miss, that there ain't been no
new