Jack and Walter each lighted a candle. They then undertook a systematic search. Closets, cupboards, corners and stairways were ransacked, every door was opened and closed, to make sure no one swung on the hinges. Then the searching party went upstairs. The same thoroughness was observed on the second floor, but no hint of whom the intruders might be was brought to light. It took some time to go over all the smaller rooms, and, when every nook had been finally explored, Cora sat down for a moment on the hall seat. "Listen!" she whispered. A sound from the dining room had caught her attention. "It's the girls," said Walter, as he, too, heard something downstairs. "They would never come in until we assured them everything was all right," objected Cora. "Let's go down," said Ed, at the same moment, almost falling over the bannister in his haste to get down quickly. "There they go!" called Walter, who was just back of Jack, and, as he said this, a figure darted out the rear door, and made away, before the boys could get out of the house to follow. "This way!" shouted Jack to Ed, as they finally did reach the open yard. "I saw them go over that fence." A light from the street at the rear of the cottage was now to be seen. "An auto!" yelled Ed. "They are ready to start! Quick, Walter! Head them off at the corner!" But the first buzz of the strange machine was of that determined quality that usually indicates great power, capable of spurting some rods away with one great, grand whizz! The car was out of sight, and out of sound, while Walter was struggling with the stickers of a barbed wire fence. A dark stretch of road, that at once united and separated two summer resorts, made the flight of the intruders' car too simple to speculate upon. "If our garage was not so far away," complained Walter, returning from the fence with bleeding fingers, "we'd have a race." "Hanged funny, isn't it?" commented Ed. "As if that--person--we saw get away was a robber! Why, that was a girl--she crawled under the fence!" declared Walter. "She may have left me a bunch of violets," remarked Jack with a sigh, as they all three went back to the cottage, where, at the steps, Cora was waiting. "Say, sis," her brother went on, "let's go in and look over things now. I have an idea that our visitor came to wash up more dishes!" "And I also have an idea that the visitor--had been here before," replied Cora. "They--he--she, or it--knew how to open that funny catch on the screen door!" Re-entering the house the boys made all sorts of fun of each other, for each and all of them allowing the "burglar" to escape. "But, joking aside," said Cora, "I know I heard the noise in the dining room, and I'm going to look there first." "For my violets," whimpered Jack, with a sniffle. "June violets!" mocked Cora. "Well--daisies then. I saw daisies as we came out, and I'd just as soon have daisies."