Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/195

 But Mehitable called him back. "Tell me more, first, dear—Hitty does not want the bad men to tie her, too!" she commanded. Then, as the little boy returned obediently to her, she patted his arm. "Tell Hitty all about it!" she coaxed.

"I went up the broken stairs after him—Hitty, why does no one live in that funny old house?—and—and—the two men tied Captain Freeman to a bed," answered the child. "And then—I ran away, because they were going to light their tinder boxes, they said, and—and—burn the poor captain all up, and—and—I did-dunt want to be burned!"

Mehitable sprang to her feet. "Come, let us go! Show Hitty the way!" she cried, and with the little fellow running on before her, she flew down Broad Street and around corners until he stopped and pointed triumphantly.

It was, as the child had said, a deserted old house. But in an upper window the girl caught sight of a light. Swiftly she turned to her little companion. "Dear, can you act like a big, big man?" she asked, kneeling down once more before him.

"Aye, Hitty!" He nodded his curly head. "Aye, I can!"

"Then run for help! Stop the first men ye come to—so they be not red-coats—and ask them to come and get poor Captain Freeman out o' danger!" She placed her hands, folded together as