“Come on!” he shouted at last, as a deep bay from the dog announced that he was off again and now running silent, since he had found the trail.
We made splendid progress now, and, by hasty calculation of the time, which must have been brief before the alarm was given, we concluded that we were without a doubt rapidly gaining on the abductor.
It was growing darker and darker as we went out of the lights of the main road into a deeper recess of the woods. Our little pocket flashlights were too puny for such work.
Just then along the dirt road back of us came tearing a car. As it pulled up the driver flashed his spot-light ahead and it cut through the blackness like a bull’s-eye.
“I heard you had gone this way,” shouted a voice from the darkness. “Here, let me drive behind and light you ahead.”
In the shaft of light we could see a single figure of a man, staggering along with some heavy burden in his arms, and behind, several hundred yards away, Kennedy swiftly following with the hound.
As the light played on them, the figure seemed to realize that escape was now hopeless, unless he dropped his burden.
He paused just an instant, as though calculating something desperate. Just then I raised my gun and fired. I had no hope of hitting him in the fitful light and at the distance. But at least the shot had its effect.
He dropped Winifred and bolted.
At that moment the car came abreast of me. I turned quickly. The man in the car with the spot-light was Sanchez!