“Rose!” Anne’s sharp whisper interrupted her thoughts. “If I could get up to that window I could get out and go after help. The window isn’t so very high; it isn’t as if we were up-stairs.”
At that very moment the big door swung open, and the man entered. He had a candle in one hand and carried an armful of rough gray blankets which he dropped on the floor beside the girls, and instantly, without a word, departed, and the girls heard the bolts shot on the outside.
“Those blankets are for us to sleep on. Oh, Anne, what has he done to my dear father?” and Rose began to cry bitterly.
“Rose, he’s coming back!” warned Anne, but the girl could no longer restrain her sobs and their jailer entered, this time carrying the big lunch basket which Aunt Hetty had put under the seat when they drove off so happily from Brewster.
“Here’s your own grub,” said the man roughly. “Your father’ll have to put up with what I give him.”
“You—you—won’t kill my father, will you?” sobbed Rose.
“Oh, no, no!” answered the man, and then apparently regretting his more friendly tone added, “But I reckon I ought to, coming here a-peekin’ an’ a-pryin’ into what don’t concern him,” and he set the basket down on the iron chest with such a thud that it fairly bounced.
“Oh, he wasn’t; I was the one who peeked at the guns,” said Anne.
“Oho! Peekin’ at the guns! Well, I’ve got you now where you can’t peek much,” came the gruff answer.
“Won’t you leave the candle?” asked Rose.