"Oh, some'pm; and don't you forget it." Sube did not yet know what it was to be himself; but an idea soon sprouted. He went into the house for a sheet of paper and an envelope. Then with the aid of Gizzard and the stump of a lead pencil he wrote the following letter to the sheriff:
"What's he got to disguise himself like a ol' woman for?" asked Gizzard.
"If we make it too easy," Sube explained, "he wouldn't pay any 'ttention to it. And besides, a man there on the church steps might scare her away."
The boys had no way of knowing how much of an uproar the receipt of their letter precipitated in the sheriff's office. And they would have been decidedly uneasy if they had known with what celerity the sheriff exhibited their letter to Mr. Cane, who was acting as Mr. Whiting's counsel. But they remained in a state of beatific ignorance; and shortly after nine o'clock that evening, cramped and uncomfortable from their two hours' vigil among the branches of a large evergreen tree in front of the Presbyterian Church, they were silent witnesses of a scene that for a time baffled everybody, not excepting themselves.
They saw a heavily veiled woman dressed all in black who came slowly down the street and seated herself on the church steps. Shortly afterwards they heard hurried footsteps and a second woman came into view. She turned in at the church and went directly up to the silent figure on the steps. For a moment all was still. Then a bass voice cried out:
"I got y'u!"
A woman screamed. Men seemed to rise out of the ground on all sides. The boys had a suspicion that the Resurrection was at hand, until the sheriff flashed a light in the face of the prisoner and exclaimed in chorus with several others:
"Good heavens! It's Miss Lester!"
The silence that followed was shattered by Miss Lester's voice. She had recognized Mr. Cane, and at once began to accuse him of being the author of a plot to compromise her. The boys were not clear as to the exact nature of her charges, but it was apparent to them that she was very angry at Sube's father.