No answer came, and the dim buzz of the wire sounded emptily back to her anxious ear. At last she gave it up, and went out to the street to look up and down. If she only knew which way was Park Avenue! She could hear the engine now, clattering along with the hook and ladder behind; and dark, hurrying forms crossed the street just beyond the next corner, but no one came by. She hurried out to the corner, and called to a boy who was passing; and he yelled out: "Don't know, lady. Up Park Avenue somewhere." Then the street grew very quiet again, and all the noise centred away in the distance. A shot rang out, and voices shouted, and her heart beat so loud she could hear it. She hurried back to the house again, and tried to get the telephone operator; but nothing came of it, and for the next twenty minutes she vibrated between the street and the telephone, and wondered whether she ought not to wake up Cherry and do something else. It seemed perfectly terrible to think of those two children handling a burglar alone--and yet what could she do? Pretty soon, however, she heard the fire-engine returning, with the crowd, and she hurried down to the corner to find out. "It wasn't no fire at all, lady," answered a boy whom she questioned. "It was just two men breakin' into a house, but they ketched 'em both an' are takin' 'em down to the lockup. No, lady, there wasn't nobody killed. There was some shootin', sure! A girl done it! Some college girl in a car. She see the guy comin' to make a get-away in her car, see? And she let go at him, and picked him off the first call, got him through the knee; an' by that time the fire comp'ny got there, and cinched 'em both. She's some girl, she is!" Julia Cloud felt her head whirling, and hurried back to the house to sit down. She was trembling from head to foot. Was it Leslie who had shot the burglar? Leslie, her little pink-and-silver butterfly, who seemed so much like a baby yet in many ways? Oh, what a horrible danger she had escaped! If she had escaped. Perhaps the boy did not know. Oh, if they would but come! It seemed hours since they had left. The midnight train was just pulling into the station! How exasperating that the telephone did not respond! Something must be out of order with it. Hark! Was that the car? It surely was! CHAPTER XIX How welcome a sound was the churn of the engine as it came flying up the road and turned into the driveway! Julia Cloud was at the door, waiting to receive them, straining her eyes into the darkness to be sure they were both there. Leslie sprang out, and dashed into her arms.