"I've got him," he said, happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, and it's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slips through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to tell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars." Shad laughed riotously at the recollection. "Did you call up Han Hicks?" Kit nodded, looking out at the corn-crib. The midsummer sun beat down upon it pitilessly, at the end of the lane behind the barn. "Do you suppose he'll survive, Shad? I'll bet a cookie it's a hundred and six inside there." "Do him good," retorted Shad. "Probably it's the only chance he's ever had to meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky as I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch a good holt on him." "Oh, Shad," exclaimed Kit. "I didn't want you to touch him, you know." "I didn't," Shad laughed. "I just gave him a bit of sound scripture reasoning, aided by fist persuasion when he was inclined to put up an argument. I'll stand guard over him until Han comes along, and takes him quietly off our hands. I reckon he didn't think we had any majesty of the law here in Gilead." Kit looked after his retreating figure somewhat dubiously. It was one thing to act on the impulse of the moment and quite another to face the consequences. Now that the prisoner was safe in the corn-crib, she wondered somewhat uneasily just what her father would say when he found out what she had done to protect the berry patch. But just now he was safe in the upper orchard with old Mr. Weaver, deep in apple culture, and she thought she could get rid of the trespasser before he returned. Mrs. Gorham was in the kitchen putting up peaches. Her voice came with droning, old-fashioned sweetness through the screen door. "When I can read my title dear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes." Kit slipped around the side drive behind the house out to the hill road. Mr. Hicks would have to come from Gilead Green in this direction, and here she sat on one of the high entrance posts, waiting and cogitating. The woodbine that clambered over the two high, white posts was still green, but scrambling along the ground were wild blackberry runners just turning a rich brown crimson.