them, please," and with the words he dived under the hedge
to emerge a moment later with his arms full of unwieldy packages, which
he laid at my feet in a row.

"Why, what on earth have you got there, Imp?"

"This," he said, pointing to the first, "is jam an' ham an' a piece of
bread; this next one is cakes an' sardines, an' this one is
bread-an'-butter that I saved from my tea."

"Quite a collection!" I nodded. "Suppose you tell me what you mean to
do with them."

"Well, they're for my outlaw. You remember the other day I wanted to
play at being outlaws? Well, two days ago, as I was tracking a base
caitiff through the woods with my trusty bow and arrow, I found a real
outlaw in the old boat-house."

"Ah! and what is he like?" I inquired.

"Oh, just like an outlaw--only funny, you know, an' most awfull'
hungry. Are all outlaws always so very hungry, Uncle Dick?"

"I believe they generally are, Imp. And he looks 'funny,' you say?"

"Yes; I mean his clothes are funny--all over marks like little crosses,
only they aren't crosses."

"Like this?" I inquired; and picking up a piece of stick I drew a
broad-arrow upon the path.

"Yes, just like that!" cried the Imp in a tone of amazement "How did
you know? You're awfull' clever, Uncle Dick!"

"And he is in the old boat-house, is he?" I said, as I picked up an
armful of packages. "'Lead on, MacDuff!'"

"Mind that parcel, please, Uncle Dick; it's the one I dropped an' lost
the sausage out of--there one trying to escape now!"

Having reduced the recalcitrant sausage to a due sense of law and
order, we proceeded toward the old boat-house--a dismal, dismantled
affair, some half mile or so downstream.

"And what sort of a fellow is your outlaw, Imp?"

"Well, I spected he'd be awfull' fierce an' want to hold me for ransom,
but he didn't; he's quite quiet, for an outlaw, with grey hair and big
eyes, an' eats an awful lot."

"So you saved him your breakfast and dinner, did you?"

"Oh, yes; an' my tea, too. Auntie Lisbeth got awfull' angry 'cause she
said I ate too fast; an' Dorothy was frightened an' wouldn't sit by me
'cause she was 'fraid I'd burst--so frightfully silly of her!"

"By the way, you didn't tell me what you have there," I said, pointing
to a huge, misshapen, newspaper parcel that he carried beneath one arm.

"Oh, it's a shirt, an' a coat, an' a pair of trousers of Peter's."

"Did Peter give them to you?"

"'Course not; I took them. You