"She's all of that, Cloudy! She saved my life!" It was Allison who
spoke, standing tall and proud above his sister and looking down at
her tenderly. "Come now, kiddie, don't give way when you've been such
a trump. I knew you could shoot, but I didn't think you could keep
your head like that. Cloudy, she was a little winner, the cool way she
aimed at that man with the other one coming right toward her and
meaning plainly to get in the car and run away in it. He'd have taken
her, too, of course, and stopped at nothing to get away. But, when he
saw the good shot she was, and heard his pal groaning, he threw up his
hands, and turned sharp about for me. He knew it was his only chance,
and that whoever was shooting wouldn't shoot at him while he was all
tangled up with me; so he made a spring at me before I knew what he
was doing, and threw me off my feet, and got a half Nelson on me, you
know----"
"Yes, Cloudy, he was fiendish, and I couldn't do a thing, for fear of
hitting Allison; and just then I heard a motor-cycle chugging by the
car. I hadn't heard it before, there was so much going on; and a big,
strong fellow with his hair all standing up in the wind jumped off,
and ran toward them where they were rolling on the ground. Then I
thought of the flash-light, and turned it on them; and that
motor-cycle man saw just how things were, and he jumped in, and
grabbed the burglar; and then all of a sudden the yard was full of men
and boys and a terrible noise and clanging, and the fire-engine and
hook and ladder came rushing up, Cloudy! You didn't tell them there
was a fire, did you? I didn't. I told that telephone girl there was a
burglar and to send a policeman. But somehow she got it that the house
was on fire. And Jane Bristol was in the house, with the baby in her
arms and the other little children asleep in their cribs; and she
didn't know what was happening because she didn't dare to open the
window."
Into the midst of the excitement and explanations there came a loud
knock on the door, and Allison sprang up, and went to see who was
there. A young man with dishevelled garments, hair standing on end,
and face much streaked with mud and dust stood there. A motor-cycle
leaned against the end of the porch.
"Pardon me," he said half shyly. "I saw the light, and thought some
one was up yet. Did the lady drop this? I found it in the grass when I
went back to hunt for my key-ring. It was right where she stood."
He held forth his hand, and there dropped from his fingers a slender
white, gleaming thing.
Allison flashed on the porch-light, and looked at it.
"Leslie, is this yours?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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