Page:The adventures of Ann; stories of colonial times.djvu/85

Rh was a thief. Suppose anything should happen to the linen they had worked so hard over!

At last, she could not endure it any longer. Up she got, put on her clothes hurriedly, crept softly down stairs and out doors. There was a full moon and it was almost as light as day. The snow looked like a vast sheet of silver stretching far away over the fields.

Ann was hastening along the path between two high snowbanks when all of a sudden she stopped, and gave a choked kind of a scream. No one with nerves could have helped it. Right in the path before her stood the horse-thief, gray cloak and all.

Ann turned, after her scream and first wild stare, and ran. But the man caught her before she had taken three steps. "Don't scream," he said in a terrible, anxious whisper. "Don't make a noise, for God's sake! They're after me! Can't you hide me?"

"No," said Ann, white and trembling all over but on her mettle, "I won't. You are a sinful man, and you ought to be punished. I won't do a thing to help you!"