Suddenly Mr. Daddles held up his hand,-- "Sh-h-h-h-h!" We stopped everything and listened. For a minute or two we had quite forgotten that we were midnight burglars, and we were going on as if we were right at home. "Sh-h-h-h-h-h-h!" said Mr. Daddles again, "don't you hear something?" We all did hear something that very instant. No one could help hearing it. It was the strangest sound,--as much like the sawing of wood as anything I can think of. Except that toward the end of the stroke it seemed to run into some tough knots in the wood, for it made two or three funny, little noises, like "yop, yop, yop." Then it stopped for a second or two, and then there was another long stroke, with "yop, yop" on the end. "Do you s'pose it's another cow?" whispered Jimmy. Mr. Daddles shook his head, and held up his hand again for silence. The noise continued with perfect regularity for half a minute,--then it stopped altogether. "It's in the wall," I suggested, pointing. "P'r'aps it's a mouse gnawing." "It's more like a buffalo gnawing," said Ed Mason. "Sh-h-h-h-h-h!" said Mr. Daddles, "we ought to have looked about the house a little before we began to eat. I think that's only the branch of a tree, or something like that, scraping against the house outside. Anyhow, we'd better investigate." He got up, and lighted one of the candles on the side-board. Then he very carefully opened the other door of the dining-room, and we all followed him out into a hall. There we listened again, but could hear nothing. He led the way up the back-stairs, and we tip- toed behind him. The candle which he carried flickered, and cast a dim light into two rooms which opened off the landing. One was a nursery, with children's blocks, stuffed elephants, and Noah's Ark animals on the floor, and on a couch. The moon, which had come out of the fog, shone in at a window, and its light fell right on a white rabbit sitting under a doll's parasol. He had tea-cups and saucers on the floor in front of him, but he was perfectly quiet. The noise did not come from him. The room on the other side of the landing was an ordinary bed-room, quite empty. We stole along the landing toward the front of the house. Here were two more large bed-rooms. The beds were smooth and undisturbed, and both rooms were quiet as the grave. "Nothing here," whispered Mr. Daddles, "we'll go down the front stairs."