But Mrs. Ray stood forth like a modern Medusa in her rage.
"I've been expecting it all along," she exclaimed wrathfully. "I'm a great judge of character, and I never looked for nothing else. Now, how can they be arrested? We must catch 'em!"
"If we can catch 'em!" said Josiah Bates.
"If we can catch them!" said Mrs. Ray,—"if! Young man, they'll be caught. You wait and see!" She hastily threw her shawl over her head, and rushed wildly out with the excited crowd. It is proverbial that there are times when a common sentiment merges all classes into one.
CHAPTER XXII
AFTERMATH
The excitement broke up into wide-spreading waves. All divided at once into two distinct parties,—those who wanted to discuss the matter further, and those who were filled with the hunter instinct and so craved to set off at once in pursuit of "the foxy pair." Mrs. Ray justly remarked that "they couldn't possibly get more than twelve hours' start, in just one night," and as it was incredible to suppose that they would return in the direction from which they had originally come, it followed that there was only two-thirds of the horizon to scour in any case. Elmer Hoskins and his dog lost no time, but set forth at once.
Mary Cody walked back down the hill telling a deeply interested circle the story of how, etc. (and that for the fifth time in ten minutes); another group stood excitedly on Mrs. Ray's porch; another set off to break the news to Ledgeville, and still others spread here and there, after the manner of distracted bees into whose hive some great and disturbing force has suddenly penetrated.
"We won't be able to begin to get this in Uncle Purchase's head for two days, at least," mourned Mrs. Wiley; "and Uncle Purchase is so awful fond of knowing things, too."