She stood a few moments to enjoy the soft summer scene, for it was not yet quite time to meet the girls, when from the direction of the rain-barrel she head a whine, a cat’s cry, surely.
“Some poor cat maybe caught in briars,” Nancy decided promptly, as again came a piteous meaow of a kitten or a cat.
Following the call Nancy hurried in its direction.
“Here puss?” she called. “Kitty-kitty-kitty!”
The cry stopped as her voice called to it. It was not near the rain barrel, Nancy now decided, but over by the cistern. Quickly she turned in that direction, but when within a few feet of the square little box that covered the artificial well, she was suddenly startled by a noise—a queer noise.
“What’s that?” was her unspoken question.
She listened. It was a man’s voice, singing!
“Where, where—can that be!” she murmured half aloud, meanwhile unconsciously walking toward the cistern.
Then a hammering! A buzzing!
“Oh!” screamed Nancy in alarm, now realizing that she had been hearing something very strange indeed. “Oh, I must—get—away!” was her wild determination, as she turned and dashed down the hill, making her way this time through the opening in the fence where the cedar tree had fallen.