If Uncle John doubted it, he did not say so, but that was an important day for all of them. Just a little after dinner time, Rodney and his mother were in their store. It was getting to look very business like and several customers had been waited on and had gone out, while Billy looked hard at the things in the show window and remarked, repeatedly: “Ba-a-a-beh!” Nobody else was there, therefore, when Millie came hurrying up the back stairs and dashed in, exclaiming: “Mrs. Nelson! Rodney! One of the men told father the police have found out! Jim’s up in the back room, now. They’ve caught three of the other boys that were with him. Father says he mustn’t come back to the shop!” “He must get out of town!” said Mrs. Nelson, excitedly. “Rodney can go along and help!--He must jump!” “So they all say,” gasped Millie, all out of breath. “Father and the men gave him ten dollars. He hasn’t any time to spare. They’re watching the shop!” Rodney had rushed for the back room and there was Jim, looking pretty cool but with a very determined expression gathering around his mouth. “Jim!” exclaimed Rodney. “I’ll be ready in a minute. I can show you how to get out, if we’re quick about it.” “All right,” said Jim, and he added, to himself: “I want to see Aunt Betty once more, and tell her I didn’t do it. Then I’ll go somewhere else, where they don’t know me. I won’t let them take me back to the Island.” In the store, Millie was saying: “I’ve come to ’tend shop while Rod’s gone. I’d rather, a hundred times, any day, than stand and set type.” “You stay here, then,” said Mrs. Nelson, “while I go and get a luncheon-tin filled for them to take along. They mustn’t catch Jim!” It was hardly any time at all before all was ready, but the good-byes were said in a hurry, for Rodney remarked to Jim: “We can do it, if we’re off before any of ’em see us go. We can catch a train and then we’re all right.” They had evidently talked it all over before hand, because it was likely to happen, and so they were not altogether taken by surprise when it came. It was not very late in that afternoon when a pair of young fellows were walking along a country road and one of them turned to the other, saying: “This road takes us right around the village, Rodney. I guess we won’t meet anybody but we can cut across a field if we do.” “We can cut before they know who it is,” said Rodney, but he felt a great deal more nervousness than Jim was showing, and he looked at him with open admiration. “I say, Rodney,” remarked Jim, half a mile further on, “this isn’t night, it’s daytime, but it kind o’ feels as if the House of Refuge dormitory was only a little way behind me----” “Hope it isn’t catching up,” said Rodney. Jim said nothing, but it was not long before he led the way through a front gate, around through a shrubberied houseyard, and right in at a kitchen door. “Aunt Betty?” he exclaimed.