Down-stairs she sped with the news.  Doris was out at the barn negotiating peace terms with a half-grown calf that she had been trying to tame for days, and which still persisted in butting its head every time she came near it with friendly overtures.  Jean and Helen had gone up to Norwich with Mrs. Robbins for the day, and her father was out in the apple orchard with Philemon Weaver, spraying the trees against the attacks of the gypsy moths.  Leastwise, Philemon held to spraying, but Mr. Robbins was anxious to experiment with some of the newer methods advocated by the government.

All unconscious of Kit’s intentions or Shad’s eagerness to abet them, the two rambled off towards the upland orchards.  Kit had started Shad after the trespasser, while she went back to telephone to Mr. Hicks.  The very last thing she had said to Shad was to put the vandal in the corn-crib and stand guard over him until Mr. Hicks came.

“Don’t you worry one bit, Miss Kit,” the constable of Gilead Township assured her over the wire.  “I’ll be there in my car in less than twenty minutes.  You folks ain’t the only ones that’s suffering this year from fruit thieves, and it’s time we taught these high fliers from town that they can’t light anywhere they like and pick what they like.  I’ll take him right down to the judge this afternoon.”

Kit sat by the open window and fanned herself with a feeling of triumphant indignation.  If Jean or Helen had been home, she knew perfectly well they would have been soft-hearted and lenient, but every berry on every bush was precious to Kit, and she felt that now was the appointed hour, as Cousin Roxy would have said.

Inside of a few minutes, Shad came back, perspiring and red faced, but filled with unholy glee.  He dipped a tin bucket into the water pail.

“I’ve got him,” he said, happily, “safe and sound in the corn-crib, and it’s hotter than all get out in there.  He can’t escape unless he slips through a crack in the floor.  I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to tell me, Miss Kit?  He said he was looking for caterpillars.”  Shad laughed riotously at the recollection.  “Did you call up Han Hicks?”

Kit nodded, looking out at the corn-crib.  The midsummer sun beat down upon it pitilessly, at the end of the lane behind the barn.

“Do you suppose he’ll survive, Shad?  I’ll bet a cookie it’s a hundred and six inside there.”

“Do him good,” retorted Shad.  “Probably it’s the only chance he’s ever had to meditate on his misdoings.  Don’t you fret about him.  He’s just as husky as I be, and twice as hefty.  It was all I could do to ketch a good holt on him.”

“Oh, Shad,” exclaimed Kit.  “I didn’t want you to touch him, you know.”

“I didn’t,” Shad laughed.  “I just gave him a bit of sound scripture reasoning, aided by fist persuasion when he was inclined to put up an argument.  I’ll stand guard over him until Han comes along, and takes him quietly off our hands.  I reckon he didn’t think we had any majesty of the law here in Gilead.”