The outside of the tiger's den was highly satisfactory, and 'Tilda Jane smiled in weary stoical humour. Now to find the particular corner in which the tiger himself abode. The house was dark, except for one feeble glimmer of light on the ground floor. She had rapped at the front door, she had rapped at the back door without getting any response, and now she returned to the latter to see if perchance it had been left unfastened.
It had, and lifting the latch cautiously, she went in. She knew Mr. Dillson was an old man, she knew he was lame, and possibly he heard her, but could not come to her rescue. Passing through a small porch where she stumbled against some heaped up pans, she turned the first door-knob she touched in passing her hand around the dark wall.
She found herself in a kitchen. The table in the middle of the floor, the chairs, the dresser, were all illumined by a feeble, dying glow in a small cooking stove, and by the beams of a candle struggling through an open door.
Poacher and Gippie crept after her as she proceeded slowly in the direction of this light. They felt that there was something mysterious afoot.
'Tilda Jane paused at the bedroom door. Here was the lair of the tiger, and there was the tiger himself,—an old man with white hair, red eyes, and a night-cap. A candle was on a shelf by the head of the bed, and a pair of crutches was within reaching distance, and the old man was lifting his head from the pillow in astonishment.
'Tilda Jane could not help laughing aloud in her relief. This was not a very dangerous looking person. He seemed more amazed than vexed, and she laughed again as she noted his clutch of the bed-clothes, and the queer poise of his white head.
"'Scuse me, sir," she said, humbly, "for comin' this time o' night, but I thought you'd like me to report first thing. I hope you've heard from your son I was comin'?"
The old man said nothing. He was still open-mouthed and dumb, but something in his face assured 'Tilda Jane that he had heard—he had received some news of her, apart from the telegram sent by Mr. Jack.
"I've had lots o' speriences," she said, with a tired gesture. "I'll tell 'em some other time. I jus' wanted to 'nounce my 'rival, an' tell you I'm goin' to wait on you good—I guess I'll go to bed, if you'll tell me where to get a candle, an' where I'm to sleep."