The Hopper, feeling his way cautiously round the fringes of New Haven,
arrived presently at Happy Hill Farm, where he ran the car in among the
chicken sheds behind the cottage and carefully extinguished the lights.

"Now, Shaver, out ye come!"

Whereupon Shaver obediently jumped into his arms.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]





III


The Hopper knocked twice at the back door, waited an instant, and knocked
again. As he completed the signal the door was opened guardedly. A man and
woman surveyed him in hostile silence as he pushed past them, kicked the
door shut, and deposited the blinking child on the kitchen table. Humpy,
the one-eyed, jumped to the windows and jammed the green shades close into
the frames. The woman scowlingly waited for the head of the house to
explain himself, and this, with the perversity of one who knows the
dramatic value of suspense, he was in no haste to do.

"Well," Mary questioned sharply. "What ye got there, Bill?"