"You cannot have my children," said Sarah again, her heart pounding like a trip-hammer. "Well, then," called Aunt Mena furiously, as she went away. Jacob Kalb lingered. If Mena Illick refused to take the twins, Swartz might be compelled to leave them all there. Then Jacob could not have the house. "You ought to be srashed!" he shouted to Sarah. "You are a bad girl. You put Albert out here." Then Jacob began to pound on the door. It was five minutes later when Sarah came upstairs. Her face was white and her hands shook. Yet she was laughing. "Why don't you tell him if he don't go away you will shoot him with the gun?" demanded Louisa Ellen. Sarah laughed hysterically. "That was just what I did tell him," she said. CHAPTER III UNCLE DANIEL STEALS A MARCH Stammering, frightened, shouting something to Aunt Mena which she did not understand, Jacob Kalb fled from the Wenner farmhouse across the fields toward the Swartzes'. He burst into the kitchen, where Aunt 'Liza was putting the supper on the table, like a wild man. Aunt 'Liza was still explaining to her angry husband how Albert got away. "He was here, and then he wasn't here," she said almost tearfully. "And nobody was here to go after him, and I didn't know what to do, and--and I believe perhaps she came after him." Aunt 'Liza was willing to lay the blame of Albert's escape almost anywhere but where it belonged, on herself. Then she was frightened by the look of rage in Uncle Daniel's face. "Did you see _her_ here after Albert?" "No, no, I didn't _see_ her here after him. But I thought--" "Thinking is now no good," answered Uncle Daniel. Then he got upon his feet. "There, they're coming. I can hear them." Before he reached the door Jacob Kalb burst in. "Sh--she will--she will sh-shoot me!" he cried wildly. "She was going for to fetch the shot-gun to shoot me!" Aunt 'Liza threw herself against the door, shutting it almost in Aunt Mena's face. "Where are you shot, Jacob?" she demanded. "I am not yet shot," answered Jacob. "But I will be shot. I--" He felt suddenly his master's grip on his arm. "Ow! What is the matter?" "Where is Albert?" asked Uncle Daniel. "She has no gun to shoot with. What are you talking about? Where is Albert, I say?" "She wouldn't give him to me," gasped Jacob. "They yelled at me, the zwillings yelled at me. They wouldn't give him to me. She is after me with a gun. She--" There was suddenly a loud pounding at the door. "I tell you she is after me. She--" Uncle Daniel strode to the door, and flung it wide. He, at least, was not afraid of being shot. "What do you mean?" he shouted. Then he saw that it was Aunt Mena who stood without. "I mean that if Ellie and Weezy don't come along home with me to-night, they are not to come at all," said Aunt Mena hotly. "I cannot be running the whole time over the country for them." "Ellie and Weezy," repeated her brother. "Are they not by you?"