almost overwhelmed him, as it resounded again and again. He had lost control of his nerves. He stumbled over the empty boxes and barrels in the room beneath the store, tumbled up the ladder, and as he clambered from the door beneath the counter he realized for the first time that the room was built, as were many of the meaner cabins of the region, without a window, depending on the door for ventilation and light. This was a matter of precaution with Taft, and being a not uncommon feature in the district occasioned no surprise; but Larrabee trembled as he remembered that it was Taft's cautious habit to lock the door when he himself was not in the store. Feeling that the bars were in place against the battens, he was apprised that it had been thus secured by the worthies down at the still, and perchance the key was now in Copley's pocket. His only resource would be to retrace his way, all the toil and risk of his escape to be repeated. But no, the bolt turned in his hand, and as he stepped into the passage outside his eyes were dazzled almost to blindness by a tallow dip blazing in the hand of little Cornelia Taft, summoned by the noise to investigate its source. Behind her, looking over her head, was Joe's round, careless, plump face. Larrabee was little less staggered by the monition that there might be other persons at hand in the house than by the expression of Cornelia's prim, disapproving, unfriendly, intelligent little countenance. The next instant he cared for neither; a salient change in the aspect of the cabin claimed his attention. The open passage between the two rooms had been boarded up, and a stout door fitted in, barred and bolted, on which gleamed a strong new lock. There was no key visible. He gazed at the lock with greedy eyes, silent, till the girl's question had been twice repeated. "Me--doin' hyar? Oh, I been doin' some work fur yer dad," he said, more at ease, for he had seen her occasionally as he came and went, presumably in the character of customer, and he detected recognition in her calm and non-committal countenance. "I got shut up in thar,--mought hev been noddin',--an' I war 'feared the door war locked." He advanced upon the outer door. "Ye can't git out'n that one," said the little girl coolly; "hit's locked on the outside, an' dad hev goned away ter the cross-roads with the key in his pocket." Larrabee's first impulse was to try his strength to burst it open, and once more that salutary monition of the probable presence of others in the house controlled him. He turned toward the door of the opposite room, partly to settle this doubt, and partly to discover--it had never before occurred to him to notice--whether it had a window. The room was vacant, and his eager eyes ranged the walls in vain for an aperture. "It's like a trap," he muttered, as he sunk exhausted into a chair. "What ails 'Renzo ter lock up the house an' make off with the key, an' leave you-uns inside by yerse'fs?" he demanded.