“That’s all right,” said Bob, modestly. “We couldn’t very well have done anything else, you know. I hope,” he added with a glance at the shivering girls, “that the girls won’t take cold.”
“They will if I don’t get them home quickly,” said Mrs. Salper, adding, with a worried frown: “I wish we hadn’t come so far from the house.”
It was then that Joe broke in.
“I tell you what,” he said, eagerly. “It isn’t far to Mountain Rest——”
“And there’s sure to be a fire in the grate up there,” Bob finished for him.
“And it’s a fire that will warm you up in a jiffy,” added Herb with his most friendly smile.
“If we can only make it,” sighed Mrs. Salper.
The radio boys knew of a short cut from this spot to Mountain Rest and along this they led the others as swiftly as they were able to travel. And on the way they learned how it was that the girls had happened to be in such a predicament.
“I shouldn’t have let them do it.” It was Mrs. Salper who told the story. The two girls were still too shaken from their adventure to say anything. All they could think of was the comforting shelter of a room and an open grate fire.
“They wanted to climb up that little hill to see what was on the other side of it,” the lady went on to explain. “I didn’t want them to, for I saw that the snow was deep. But they were in wild spirits, wouldn’t listen to me, said I didn’t need to come if I didn’t want to—which I didn’t!—and off they went.