They waited until the noise they had heard had completely died away. Then Lieutenant Lawton sprang to his feet, ran to Miss Jenny Ann and took both her hands. "Your appearing on this island is like a miracle!" he exclaimed. "Tell me how you happen to be here? I would never, never have let you run the risk of trying to save me if I had known you were girls instead of boys."
Madge laughed. "Mr. Lawton, girls are equal, nowadays, to any situation that a boy can master."
The little party had not gone on much farther before they heard the noise of swift feet in pursuit. Instead of walking, as our party of friends had lately done, in order to rest, they broke into a run. Still their pursuer gained on them.
Lieutenant Lawton thrust the three women behind him. He stood at bay with a stick in his hand as his only weapon.
A wild figure burst upon them. It was Jeff, whom they had forgotten! The poor lad's clothes were torn, as though he had received a severe beating.
Jimmy Lawton dropped his stick. He turned red with shame. "Poor old Jeff!" he cried. "We ought never to have run off without you. Of course, you would get the blame of my escape."
In the days of his imprisonment Jimmy Lawton had learned to understand a few words that the boy could spell on his fingers.
Jeff now managed to explain to them that Lieutenant Lawton's jailers had returned to the house a little while after they made their escape.
They found the prison house in flames and their prisoner gone! The gypsy woman told the story of the appearance of the two girls and their chaperon, and the aid they had given to the prisoner. She made no accusation against her son. But the boy's master demanded to know in what direction his prisoner and the women had run. Jeff would not tell. He had managed to escape from the angry men and, guided by some instinct, he had found his friends in the woods.
"Jeff declares he will show us a way through the island that no one will be able to follow," announced Lieutenant Lawton to Miss Jenny Ann. "Will you allow him to go on with us? The boy has been so good to me that I am going to look after him for the rest of my days."