Entering, she found that the cottage consisted of but two rooms.  The front one was absolutely bare, but the back one contained an old stove, a broken-down sink and a rickety chair.  At one side was a good-sized closet.  Opening it, Grace found nothing save a dilapidated old coat.  Just then she caught the sound of rough voices just outside the cottage.

“I tell ye, Bill, we’ve got to do the job to-night and hike for the West on that train that goes through Oakdale at 3.15 in the morning,” said a voice that was almost a growl.

“I’m wid yer, Jim,” answered another voice in correspondingly savage tones.  “Even to layin’ a few out stiff if dey gets in de way.”

Grace listened.  She heard heavy footsteps, and, peeping into the room, she saw a burly figure outlined in the front door in the act of entering.  She glanced toward the back door.  It was closed and fastened with a bolt.  If she could slip out that way, she could make a run for the picnic grounds, but she dared not try to pass the two men who had just appeared.  The few words of their conversation proved them to be lawless.  Noiselessly she slipped into the closet and drew the door almost shut.  She would hide until they had gone.  They were not likely to linger long in the cottage.

Minute after minute went by, but the intruders showed no signs of leaving.

“What shall I do?” Grace breathed, wringing her hands.  “They’re real, downright burglars of the worst sort, and they’re planning a robbery.  It’s getting late, too, and the girls will soon be going back.  Oh, I must get out of here, but I won’t try to go until I find out whose house they’re going to rob.”

The men talked on, but, listen as she might, Grace could get no clue.

“There ain’t a soul on the joint except the judge and one old servant,” growled Bill.  “The rest o’ the bunch’ll be at the weddin’ of one o’ the girls.  I laid low and heard ’em talkin’ about it to-day.  The judge’s got money in the house, too.  He always keeps it around, and that old Putnam place is pretty well back from the road.”

Grace waited to hear no more.  She had obtained the information she sought.  They were going to rob and perhaps murder good old Judge Putnam.

Slipping quietly out of the closet, she approached the back door and cautiously took hold of the bolt.  To her joy it moved easily.  Exercising the greatest care in sliding it back, she lifted the latch.  It made no sound, and, holding her breath, she softly swung open the door and ran on tiptoe around the corner of the house.  Throwing away her bouquet as she ran, she made for a clump of underbrush at one side of the cottage.  Here she paused, and hearing no disturbance from inside, she continued her flight.  But she had lost her sense of direction, and after fifteen minutes’ wandering was about to despair of finding her way, when she espied the honeysuckle bush that she had stripped earlier in the afternoon.  This put her on the right track, but she was farther away from the picnic grounds than she had supposed, and when tired and breathless she at last reached them, it was only to find them deserted.  The party had gone back to town without her.