hn had got out in time
to save Red Robin; but the robber had escaped. Somehow, he had taken
alarm before John got there. Red Robin was standing in the stable
untied; but the robber had disappeared.

After meeting the people all came and questioned Ann. "He was a very
tall man, in a gray cloak," said she. "He turned his face, or I saw
it, just for one second, when I looked. He had black eyes and a dark
curling beard."

It seemed very extraordinary. If it had not been for Red Robin's
being untied, they would almost have doubted if Ann had seen rightly.
The thief had disappeared so suddenly and utterly, it almost seemed
impossible that he could have been there at all.

There was much talk over it after meeting. "Are you _sure_ you saw
him, Ann?" Mrs. Polly asked.

"Yes; I am _sure_," Ann would reply. She began to feel rather
uncomfortable over it. She feared people would think she had been
napping and dreaming although Red Robin _was_ untied.

That night the family were all in bed at nine o'clock, as usual; but
Ann up in her snug feather-bed in her little western chamber, could
not sleep. She kept thinking about the horse-thief, and grew more and
more nervous. Finally she thought of some fine linen cloth she and
Mrs. Polly had left out in the snowy field south of the house to
bleach, and she worried about that. A web of linen cloth and a horse
were very dissimilar booty; but a thief was a thief. Suppose anything
should happen to the linen they had worked so hard over!

At last, she could not endure it any longer. Up she got, put on her
clothes hurriedly, crept softly down stairs and out doors. There was
a full moon and it was almost as light as day. The snow looked like a
vast sheet of silver stretching far away over the fields.

Ann was hastening along the path between two high snowbanks when all
of a sudden she stopped, and gave a choked kind of a scream. No one
with nerves could have helped it. Right in the path before her stood
the horse-thief, gray cloak and all.

Ann turned, after her scream and first wild stare, and ran. But the
man caught her before she had taken three steps. "Don't scream," he
said in a terrible, anxious whisper. "Don't make a noise, for God's
sake! They're after me! Can't you hide me?"

"No," said Ann, white and trembling all over but on her mettle, "I
won't. You are a sinful man, and you ought to be punished. I won't do
a thing to help you!"

The man's face bending over her was ghas