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I reported this to Tish, and I saw that she was uneasy, although she merely remarked that he still had two legs, and that she had not asked him to follow us. All she had set out to do was to see that he didn’t get married before he registered, and she was doing that to the best of her ability. The rest was his affair.

It was six o’clock by that time, and Tish had had nothing to eat since five in the morning, and none of us had had any luncheon. Although a woman who thinks little or nothing of food, I found her, shortly afterwards, in the pantry, looking into jars. There was nothing, however, except some salt, a little baking powder and a package of dried sage. But Aggie, going to an attic window to look for the policeman, discovered about a quart of flour in a barrel up there, and scraping it out, brought it down.

“I might bake some biscuits, Tish,” she suggested. “I feel that I’ll have to have some nourishment. I’m so weak that my knees shake.”

“Myrtle,” Tish said abruptly, with that quick decision so characteristic of her, “you might tell that worthless young man of yours to look in the granary. Sometimes the Knowleses’ hens come over here, and I daresay they’ve eaten enough off the place to pay for the eggs.”

But Myrtle, after a conference from the window, reported that Mr. Culver had said he would get the eggs, if there were any, on condition that he get his pro rata share of them.

“If there are ten eggs,” she said, “he wants two. And if there is an odd number he claims the odd one.”

This irritated Tish, but at last she grudgingly consented. In a short time, therefore, Mr. Culver knocked at the kitchen door.

“I am leaving,” he said, “eleven eggs, eight of undoubted respectability, two questionable, and one that I should advise opening into a saucer first. Also some corn meal from the granary. And if you will set out a pail and come after me if I am wounded, I shall go after a cow that I see in yon sylvan vale.”

His voice was strangely cheerful, but, indeed, the prospect of food had cheered us all, although I could see that Tish was growing more and more anxious, as time went on and no policeman appeared in the Knowleses’ machine. However, we worked busily. Myrtle, building a fire and setting the table with the Biggses’ dishes, and Aggie making biscuits, without shortening, while Tish stirred the corn meal mush.

“Many a soldier in the trenches,” she said, “would be grateful for such a frugal meal. When one reflects that the total cost of mush and milk is but a trifle—-“

Here, however, we were interrupted by Mr. Culver outside. He spoke in gasps and we heard the pail clatter to the porch floor.

“I regretfully report—-” he said, through the keyhole. “No milk. Wrong sex. Sorry.”

Ten of the eggs proving good, we placed two of them on a plate with three biscuits and a bowl of mush, and Tish carried it out, placing it on the floor of the porch, much as she would have set it out for the dog.

“Here,” she called. “And when you have finished you might go after that accomplice of yours. He’s probably asleep somewhere.”

“Dear lady,” said Mr. Culver, “I would, but I dare not. A fiery creature, breathing fury from its nostrils, is abroad and—-“

But Tish came in and slammed the door.

It was after supper that we missed Tish. She was nowhere in the house, and the kitchen door, which had been bolted, was unlocked. Aggie wrung her hands, but Myrtle was quite calm.

“I shouldn’t worry about her,” she said. “She’s about as well able to take care of herself as any woman I ever saw.”

It was now quite dark, and our fears increased. But soon afterwards Tish came in. She went to the stove and pouring out a cup of hot water, drank it in silence. Then she said: