But Cuff wouldn’t be still.  She was very glad to see him, and was determined to tell him so.

“Mew, me-aw,” called Billy, the mocking-bird, from his cage above.

“Dear me,” thought Bert, “they’ll wake father up as sure as the world.”

But it was not unusual for Billy to sing in the night.  Indeed, his midnight music was sometimes overpowering.  Bert stood very still for a moment, but could hear no one stirring.  He walked on a few steps, Cuff purring loudly, and rubbing her soft gray sides against him.

[Illustration:  The Cat]

“Bow, wow, wow, wow,” barked the faithful watch-dog.

“Be quiet, Prince.  Stop your noise!”

Prince knew his young master’s voice, and, like Cuff, was delighted to be near him, and so gave expression to his feelings in a succession of loud quick barks.

[Illustration:  "Me-aw,” called Billy.]

“Hadn’t you better go down, John?” asked Bert’s mother, anxiously.  “I’m afraid some one is trying to get in.”

“They can’t get farther than the shed,” was the careless reply.  “I left that open.”

In a few moments all was quiet again.  Prince lay down at Bert’s feet, and Cuff stretched herself out beside him.  Time was passing.  The boys would surely be there before him.  Very carefully he crept toward the door, hardly daring to breathe, in his anxiety.

[Illustration:  “Bow, wow, wow.”]

But Prince had not been asleep.  No, indeed!  Restarted up at the first sound of his master’s footsteps.  It was very evident that something unusual was going on, and he was determined to be “in it.”

“I must run as fast as I can,” said Bert to himself.  “Hit or miss, there’s nothing else for me to do.”

He was preparing to suit the action to the word, when Snow, the old family horse, who for a few days past had been allowed to wander about among the clover fields, put her white nose just inside the door and gave a loud and fiercely prolonged neigh.

“What next!” muttered Bert, between his teeth.  “I shall expect to see some of the cows soon.  I don’t care if all the animals on the place come,—­I’m going.”

He was walking defiantly from the door, when he heard his mother’s voice at her window.  “I never can sleep, John, with a horse crying around.  I wish you’d go down to see what the trouble is.  And do lock the shed door.  I haven’t slept five minutes to-night.”

[Illustration:  “The old family horse.”]

What was Bert to do now?  To go forward in the moonlight, with his mother watching from above, would be foolish, indeed.  To remain in the shed, to be discovered by his father, seemed equally unwise.

[Illustration:  “Bert came into the shed, and watched his father as he mended an old harness.”]

He had very little time to think about the matter, for at that moment he heard the well-known footsteps on the stairs.  He darted over to the shed closet, shut the door, and tremblingly awaited the result.