Dick broke into a run, with Tom at his heels. Entering the garden by a rear gate, they soon reached the vicinity of the kitchen. A window stood wide open, and through this they beheld somebody inside the apartment with a blazing match in his hand trying to light a candle. "Hi, there, who are you?" cried Tom, before Dick could stop him. At the sound of the call the man in the kitchen jumped as though stung by a bee. Then he wheeled around, with the lighted candle in his hand, and both boys saw that it was Josiah Crabtree. CHAPTER V A STRUGGLE IN THE DARK "Crabtree, you rascal!" ejaculated Dick. "Who--who is that?" spluttered the former teacher of Putnam Hall, in dismay. "It is I--Dick Rover. What are you doing here?" "I--I came to call upon the Widow Stanhope," stammered Josiah Crabtree. He was so astonished he knew not what to say. "You came to rob her, more likely," sneered Tom. "You just broke in at the window." "No, no--it--it is all a mistake, Rover. I--I am stopping here for the night." "Indeed!" gasped Dick, almost struck dumb over the man's show of "nerve," as he afterward expressed it. "Yes, I am stopping here." "With Mrs. Stanhope's permission of course." "Certainly. How could I stop here otherwise?" "What are you doing in the kitchen all alone?'" "Why, I--er--I was up in my room, but I--er--wanted a glass of water and so came down for it." "Then Mrs. Stanhope and Dora have gone to bed?" "Yes, they just retired." "Have you become friends again?" asked Dick, just to learn what Josiah Crabtree might say. "Yes, Rover, Mrs. Stanhope is once more my best friend." "Then she doesn't know what a rascal you were out in Africa." "My dear Richard, you are laboring under a great delusion. I was never in Africa in my life." "What!" roared Dick aghast at the man's audacity. "I speak the truth. I have made an investigation, and have learned that somebody went to Africa under my name, just to take advantage of my--ahem--of my exalted rank as a professor." "Great Scott! how you can draw the long bow!" murmured Tom. "I speak the plain truth. I can prove that for the past six months I have been in Chicago and other portions of the West. "Well, if you are a guest here, just stay with Tom while I call the Stanhopes," said Dick, and leaped in at the window. "Boy, you shall do nothing of the kind," cried Josiah Crabtree, his manner changing instantly. "Why not? If you are friends, it will do no harm." "Mrs. Stanhope is--er--is not feeling well, and I will not have her disturbed by a headstrong youth like you." "We'll see about that. If you--" Dick broke off short, for just then a voice he knew well floated down into the kitchen from upstairs. "Who is talking down there? Is that you, Dick?" It was Dora speaking, in a voice full of excitement. "Yes, Dora, it is I--and Tom. We have caught Josiah Crabtree here in your kitchen." "Oh!" The girl gave a little scream. "What a villain! Can you hold him?"