"An' what, may I ask, are you doin' with a bag of gunpowder in my brook? Plannin' to blow up my cows, I reckon." "No! No, indeed we're not!" protested Mary. "We wouldn't hurt your cows for anything, Miss Webster," put in Eliza. "Humph! You wouldn't? Still you don't hesitate to dam my brook up with enough gunpowder to blow all my cattle higher'n a kite." "We were only tryin' to----" began Mary; but Jane swept her aside. "Hush, Mary," she said. "You an' 'Liza keep still an' let me do the talkin'." Drawing herself to her full height she faced Ellen's evil smile. "The day before yesterday, when we were cleanin' the attic, we found a little door under the eaves that we'd never come across before," she began desperately. "We discovered it when we were movin' out a big chest that's always stood there. We were sweepin' behind all the trunks an' things, an' long's we were, we decided to sweep behind that. 'Twas then we spied the door. Of course we were curious to know where it went to, an' so we pried it open, an' inside we found this bag together with an old rusty rifle. It must 'a' been there years, judgin' from the dust an' cobwebs collected on it. We were pretty scared of the gun," declared Jane, smiling reminiscently, "but we were scared a good sight worse when after draggin' the bag out we saw 'twas marked _Gunpowder._" She waited an instant. "We didn't know what to do with it," she went on, speaking more hesitatingly, "because you see my brother doesn't like us to turn the house upside-down with cleanin'; he hates havin' things disturbed; an' we were afraid he would be put out to find what we'd done. So we decided to wait till some time when he wasn't round an' make way with it." Jane caught her breath. "We've tried lots of ways," she confessed wearily, "but none of 'em seemed to work. First I thought of hidin' it up near Pine Ridge, but I was afraid some woodsman might happen on it; then I started to take it down to the river in our wagon; but Elias Barnes would get in an' light his pipe, and I was so afraid a spark from it might----" "I wish it had!" interpolated Ellen Webster with fervor. "In order to get rid of him I had to turn round an' come back," narrated Jane, paying no heed to the interruption. "Then we tried to bury it, but afterward we dug it up for fear Martin might plow it up sometime an' get----" "'Twould 'a' been an almighty good joke if he had!" again piped Ellen. "So there didn't seem to be any other way," concluded Jane with dignity, "but to drop it in the brook; an', as you never seemed to use this end of your pasture, we decided to sink it here." The narrative was true, every word of it. Ellen knew that. No one who looked into Jane Howe's frank face could have doubted the story. But Ellen was an ungenerous enemy who saw in the present happening an opportunity to put a screw upon those who had been thus compelled to throw themselves upon her mercy.