"I won't leave you alone. What do you mean by locking me in that room? I'm no more crazy than you are. What's this?" as she stumbled over the hat which the tramp had put beside the chair, and into which he had deposited the silver spoons from the table. "Oh, I see, you are all in league to rob me of my gold and precious stones!" and catching the hat up on the muzzle of the gun she gave it a whirl which sent the spoons glittering in every direction; then, advancing upon him, she thrust hat and gun into the face of the horrified man. With a volley of oaths he sprang backwards, upsetting his chair and falling over it. "Oh, don't kill him, Cassie! don't kill him!" "We'll have a merry time," gaily dancing about him and prodding him sharply with the gun, as he tried to scramble to his feet. "Keep off with that gun, can't you!" he yelled. "Can't you hold her, you screaming idiots?" and half crawling, half pushed, he gained the kitchen door, which had stood partly open since he had entered. "Where are you going, my pretty maid? Don't you try to get away," shouted Cassie, as she lilted lightly after him. The tramp stayed not to answer her question nor to obey her command, but clearing the door fled wildly away through the dusk. "Here's your hat; I'll fire it after you," she called, and a sharp report rang out on the quiet evening air, then all was still. The three girls stood for a moment in the door, watching the dim outline fleeing across the meadow in the direction of the highway. "He'll think twice before inviting himself to supper another time," quietly remarked Cassie with a satisfied smile. "Oh, Cassie, darling, you have saved our lives," cried Florence, flinging her arms around her sister. "I don't know about that; but I've saved the spoons, anyway." "There, there, baby," going to the still afflicted boy; "don't cry any more. Sister Cassie was just making a dirty old tramp hop; she didn't really shoot him, she was just playing shoot." "Oh, Cassie, you splendid, brave girl! How _did_ you ever happen to think to go crazy?" asked Rose, as she looked over her shoulder from the door which she was barricading. "Well, I knew something had to be done, and that just popped into my mind. I was doing 'Ophelia' the other day up in my room, so I was in practice; and didn't I make a sweetly pensive maniac? Now I hope you girls will never again make disrespectful comments upon any little private theatricals of mine. If I had never cultivated my dramatic talents, what would have become of you, I'd like to know?" It was some time before the tidal wave of excitement subsided sufficiently for the girls to settle down for the evening, or for the baby to go to sleep. Again and again they thought they heard footsteps, and, although the door was locked and double-locked, they drew up into battle line whenever the autumn wind shook down a shower of leaves upon the roof.