"And crumpled horns," Nare continued. "But this isn't our way, Mr. Nare." The girl spoke in a protesting tone, but without giving any sign of a desire to stop. Indeed, she went rather faster and did not look behind her. The Alderney was a little behind them now. "Don't you think we ought to----" "G-r-r-r-r!" A noise, thunderous and snarling, interrupted her in the middle of a sentence. Nare was looking back. "How horrible!" "Perhaps it wants to be milked"--Nare spoke without turning his head--"or it's hungry. I think you'd better go into the Mill, please." "You'll come?" "Yes." [Illustration: "MISS CORCORAN GATHERED UP HER SKIRTS AND RAN."] And with that Miss Corcoran gathered up her skirts and ran. Nare followed with one eye on the enemy in the rear. The beast had stopped in its circling and was glaring after them. "As fast as you can!" The girl heard Nare talking to her, and felt in a dream. A second growl rose and seemed to shake the rotten timbers of the Mill as she ran into it. "Up the ladder!" There was a nine-foot ladder, shaky, with rat-gnawed rungs, leading through a trap on to the first floor of the Mill from the ground. And Miss Corcoran went up it swiftly, with gratitude in her heart to the rats for not having gnawed it through, since there was no door to the Mill wherewith to bolt out undesirable company. The Mill seemed to be echoing still with that growl as she turned at the top and, kneeling, found Nare ascending after her through the narrow hole. She said nothing until he had got up and tried to unfix the ladder without success. Then, as he desisted:-- "Mr. Nare," she said, "was it a--a--tiger?" Nare put down his picnic basket with an injured air. "If it wasn't," he said, "I don't know what it was. But I'm beginning to think you're right, and that I don't know the country. I certainly thought tigers were extinct. If they're not, I don't think it's fair to ask an unfortunate Londoner out into the wilds and arm him with nothing better than a picnic basket." He rattled on to give the girl time to recover herself. He was a little afraid of hysterics, which would have been pardonable but unavailing. She seemed to suspect his fear, for she mustered a smile and said:-- "I don't think I'm going to be foolish. Tell me, please, what do you think we ought to do?" That was exactly what Nare did not know. Looking down through the trap, he was conscious of a pair of fierce yellow eyes glaring up at him. "A good deal depends on the tiger," he said. "As this is one from a menagerie it may know how to behave itself in company, but--isn't there a top floor to this Mill?" There was, and another ladder leading to it. And Miss Corcoran, followed by Nare, reached it in less time than it takes to tell. The tiger had reared its paws on to the lower ladder and delivered itself, of another terrific growl. "I--I didn't know they could climb," said Miss Corcoran, faintly. "Oh!"