But Russ seemed to grow braver by the minute. And Rose of course could not fail to be inspired by his show of courage. They walked along the path hand in hand, and although they did not speak much for the next few moments, when they did speak it was quite cheerfully.

"I wish she would yell again," said Russ at last. "For we must be getting near to where she was."

"We-ell, if she isn't a ghost----"

Just then the silence of the wood was broken again by the cry. The boy and the girl halted involuntarily. No matter how brave Russ might appear to be, there was a tone to that scream that made shivers go up and down his back.

"Oh, Russ!" cried Rose.

"Oh, Rose!" stammered her brother.

The scream came from so near that it seemed worse than before. And now Russ was shaken in his proclaimed opinion. It did not seem that any woman, no matter how great her distress might be, could make such a terrible sound.

"I guess we'd better go back," confessed Russ after a minute.

Rose was eager to do so. They turned and, hand in hand, began to run.

And in their haste they somehow missed the path they had been following.

Or else, it had not been a path at all.

At least, after running so far that they should have reached the burned cabin they came out into quite a different clearing! They both knew that they had missed the way, for in this clearing stood a little cabin with a pitched roof that neither of the Bunker children had ever seen before. Nor was the wide brook in sight.

"I guess we've got turned around," Russ said, trying to hide his disappointment and fear from his sister. "We've got to go back, Rose."

"Do you know which is back?" she asked.

"We've got to hunt for that old path."

"Don't you leave me, Russ Bunker!" cried Rose, as her brother started away.

And just then both of them saw the tawny, long tailed, slinking beast in the edge of the thicket.

"Oh! It's a bear!" shrieked Rose.

"Bears don't look like that," gasped Russ, staring at the great, glowing eyes of the animal. "It looks more like a cat."

"There never was a cat as big as that, Russ Bunker, and you know it!"

"Come on, Rose," said her brother promptly. "We'll go into that house and shut the door. It can't get us then, whatever it is."

In a moment the two children had dashed into the cabin and pulled to the swinging door. The door had a lock on the outside, and when Russ banged the door shut he heard the lock snap.

"Now it can't get at us!" cried Russ with some satisfaction. "We're safe."

"But--but I don't like this old house, Russ Bunker," complained Rose.

"There is no window."

"All the better," was the brave reply. "That cat can't get at us."

Then the screech sounded again and the boy and girl clung together while the sound echoed through the lonesome timber.

"It's that thing that makes the noise," whispered Rose. "Oh, Russ! if Daddy Bunker doesn't come after us, maybe it will tear the house down."

"It can't," declared Russ.

"How do you know it can't?"

"Why, cats--even big ones--don't tear houses to pieces, Rose. You know they don't! We'll be safe as long as we stay in this place."

"But how long shall we have to stay here?"

"Until that thing goes away," said Russ confidently.

"And maybe it won't go away at all. We'll have to stay here till the folks come to find us, Russ. I--I want--my mo-mother!"

"Now, Rose Bunker, don't be a baby!" said her brother. "That thing can't get at us in here----"

Just then something thumped heavily on the roof of the hut. Russ could not say another word. They heard the great claws of the big cat scratching at the roof boards.

Rose screamed again and this time her brother's voice joined with hers in a hopeless cry for help.

CHAPTER XXIV

AN EXCITING TIME

Russ and Rose Bunker had slipped out of the house on the hill without saying a word to anybody as to where they were going. Since coming to the Meiggs Plantation there had been a certain amount of laxness in regard to what the children did. They had a freedom that Mother Bunker never allowed when they were at home.

Because the Armatage children went and came as they wished, the little Bunkers began to do likewise. The house was so big, too, that the children might be playing a long way from the room in which their mother and father and Mr. Frane Armatage and his wife sat.

The servants who were supposed to keep some watch upon the children were now all in the quarters. Servants in the South seldom sleep in "the big house." And perhaps Mother Bunker forgot this fact.

At any rate, when she came to look for her brood late in the evening she found the four little ones fast asleep in their beds, as she had expected them to be. But Rose was not with Phillis and Alice Armatage, and Russ's bed was likewise empty.

"Where are those children?" Mother Bunker demanded of Daddy, when she had run downstairs again. "Do you know? They should be in bed."

"They were in the library earlier in the evening," Mrs. Armatage said.

"I think they were writing again."

"Writing?" repeated Mother Bunker. "Making more of those signs to set up at the burned house?"

Mr. Armatage chuckled. "Those won't do much good. Sneezer never could read writing."

"Let us ask Mammy. Rose and Russ may be with her," suggested Mrs.

Armatage.

Upstairs went the two ladies and into Mammy June's room. There was a night light burning there, but n.o.body was with the old woman.