He pushed at the bigger boy. "Come on, you addlebrained ox! Help me look. I'm not letting her get away, no sirree! When I get hold of her--" Davey's usually vacuous face twisted in a scowl. "You're always making me do something, Sammy. I'm not going to run after Fran all day long. Why're you always after her? Whyn't you leave her alone?" "She's a girl," Sammy returned. "Don't you know what girls are for, you bonehead?" His voice grew taunting. "Hey, you sweet on Fran? Golly, that's a tickler! Wait'll I tell the fellows in town. Davey's sweet on Fran! Davey's mooning over the orphan!" "You ... you stop that, Sammy!" Davey blurted. "You stop it or I'll hurt you." "You hurt me and I'll tell the old man. I'll tell the fellows in town about Fran, too." Sammy became slyly truculent. "You better help me look. I'll tell on you." "Aw, whyn't you leave me alone?" Davey muttered. His big shoulders slumped in defeat and listlessly he turned away to resume his part of the search. * * * * * Branches crackled near Fran, and she grew rigid within her meager hiding place. They mustn't find her, she thought again. They mustn't find her! The crackling came nearer. She saw Sammy's head and shoulders as he made an opening in the brush curtain with his hands. For an instant he seemed to look directly at her. The breath seemed to catch in her throat and her heart gave a sickening lurch. Sammy looked mad, not laughingly devilish as he usually did when bent upon persecuting her. She was afraid to think of what Sammy would do when he was mad. But incredibly he drew back and walked away. It seemed a miracle to her that she had escaped being seen. Her dress was of a nondescript shade, but her hair and the pale gleam of her skin should have given her away. A little wonderingly she glanced at one of the slender arms that were pressed tightly against her sides. She stared, puzzled. The color of the skin was a dull brownish-gray, blending almost indistinguishably with the hue of the rock that touched it. A trick of the light she thought, it had to be that, for it had tricked Sammy. The voices and the sounds made by the two boys grew fainter, dying away with distance. She peered cautiously from her place of concealment. Sammy and Davey had walked out of sight down the far end of the ravine. She waited until certain that Sammy had not set a trap of some sort, then slid out of the crevice and hurried toward the ravine's opposite end. Her legs ached protestingly, but she forced herself to run. She realized she had been away from the house much too long. Big Luke would be angry--and his anger manifested itself in heavy blows of his big, bony hands. * * * * *