“Foolish child!” Helen was scolding. “You have no business to be getting around at all to-day. Serve you right if you were laid up for a week after this escapade——”
“Sh-h!” warned Ruth, her fingers tightening nervously on Helen’s arm. “There are voices inside the cabin. Listen—a man’s voice!”
They stood still and listened, holding their breath so as not to lose the slightest sound from the cabin.
They were close now. There was the low, heartbroken sound of a girl sobbing—Ellen probably—another passionately raised woman’s voice and the threatening growl of a man.
“A little closer!” urged Ruth, pulling Helen toward the window where they might gain a glimpse of the room.
Cautiously they approached the house, avoiding the door so that no sudden rush from within might take them by surprise. Stealing to one of the windows they peered in and saw a tableau that might have chilled the stoutest heart.
Ellen was crouched in the far corner of the cabin, on her drawn young face an expression of terror. Characteristically, Mary bravely held the old shotgun, but her hands shook so—with excitement as much as, or more than, with fear, Ruth decided—that they could scarcely bear the weight of it.
The third figure was that of a man. The girls outside could not see his face, but even with his back to them he suggested sickeningly the beast of prey, stalking his victim relentlessly and about to spring.
“Lieberstein!” whispered Ruth.
She shrank back from the window and faced Helen, a fierce light in her eyes.