“Yes, I am.  If there’s a burglar in the house I’m going to find him!”

“We mustn’t wake papa.”

“No, nor mamma either.  You stay here if you want to——­”

“Let’s call Hedrick,” suggested the pallid Laura; “or put our heads out of the window and scream for——­”

Cora laughed; she was not in the least frightened.  “That wouldn’t wake papa, of course!  If we had a telephone I’d send for the police; but we haven’t.  I’m going to see if there’s any one there.  A burglar’s a man, I guess, and I can’t imagine myself being afraid of any man!”

Laura clung to her, but Cora shook her off and went through the hall undaunted, Laura faltering behind her.  Cora lighted matches with a perfectly steady hand; she hesitated on the threshold of Laura’s room no more than a moment, then lit the lamp.

Laura stifled a shriek at sight of the bed.  “Look, look!” she gasped.

“There’s no one under it now, that’s certain,” said Cora, and boldly lifted a corner of it.  “Why, it’s been cut all to pieces from underneath!  You’re right; there was some one here.  It’s practically dismembered.  Don’t you remember my telling you how it sagged?  And I was only sitting on the edge of it!  The slats have all been moved out of place, and as for the mattress, it’s just a mess of springs and that stuffing stuff.  He must have thought the silver was hidden there.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” moaned Laura.  “He wriggled——­ugh!”

Cora picked up the lamp.  “Well, we’ve got to go over the house——­”

“No, no!”

“Hush!  I’ll go alone then.”

“You can’t.”

“I will, though!”

The two girls had changed places in this emergency.  In her fright Laura was dependent, clinging:  actual contact with the intruder had unnerved her.  It took all her will to accompany her sister upon the tour of inspection, and throughout she cowered behind the dauntless Cora.  It was the first time in their lives that their positions had been reversed.  From the days of Cora’s babyhood, Laura had formed the habit of petting and shielding the little sister, but now that the possibility became imminent of confronting an unknown and dangerous man, Laura was so shaken that, overcome by fear, she let Cora go first.  Cora had not boasted in vain of her bravery; in truth, she was not afraid of any man.

They found the fastenings of the doors secure and likewise those of all the windows, until they came to the kitchen.  There, the cook had left a window up, which plausibly explained the marauder’s mode of ingress.  Then, at Cora’s insistence, and to Laura’s shivering horror, they searched both cellar and garret, and concluded that he had escaped by the same means.  Except Laura’s bed, nothing in the house had been disturbed; but this eccentricity on the part of a burglar, though it indeed struck the two girls as peculiar, was not so pointedly mysterious to them as it might have been had they possessed a somewhat greater familiarity with the habits of criminals whose crimes are professional.