"Why, Nan!" he cried, "what is it? You—why, you've been crying!"
"W-with rage," said Nan, a sob rising in her throat. "It's those men, Walter. They searched me! Oh, I'll never get over it—never!"
This time she broke down completely and Walter ran to her, putting a protecting arm about her, glancing about him at the same time as if he hoped to see the men who had frightened her and wreak vengeance then and there.
"Searched you! Who?" he demanded; then, before she could speak, he added as though answering his own question: "It was those men, Nan. You told me. Where are they? Quick! Which way did they go?"
But Nan only shook her head and clung to him a little as though she found comfort in his being there.
"You couldn't catch them—they have had too much of a start," she said. Then, with a shudder of remembrance, she drew herself from Walter's grasp and looked at him wildly. "Walter!" she cried. "There are all our bags in the auto—Mrs. Bragley's papers—and those—those—beasts around loose! Oh—oh——" Before she had finished she had started toward the road on a run with Walter in close pursuit.
They met the rest of the anxious party on the way, but nothing less than an earthquake could have stopped Nan then. She waved to them and Walter shouted something unintelligible as he raced past, and they had nothing else to do but to follow the young lunatics—for that is what they called them.
When Mr. and Mrs. Mason and the girls arrived at the spot where they had left their car they found Walter and Nan sitting on the running board and Nan holding something in her hand which she waved wildly at them.
"They're safe! They're safe!" she called, as Rhoda, Grace and Bess ran up to her and then stopped short at the disheveled picture she made.
"Why, Nan Sherwood!" began Bess, amazed, "what——"