“No, no!” said the professor calmly. “The boys were not spying. They happened to see a man and a woman on the shore of the lake last night, and they thought it might have been you.”
“It was me,” said the woman. “I was trying to prevent him from coming and killing you all in your sleep.”
The boys began to feel a queer creepy sensation run up their spines, as if some one had poured cold water down their backs.
“It’s true,” the strange creature went on. “I will tell you all about it. Listen to me,” and she sat down on a stump.
“Perhaps we had better go where there is shelter,” suggested Jerry, for it was raining hard again, though the boys and the professor in their rubber coats did not mind it. The woman was drenched.
“No,” she said. “I can go to no place save these woods. I am safe from him here.” She seemed nervous and excited, and her eyes seemed unnaturally bright.
“The old man is a hermit,” she went on. “He has lived near this lake for many years. He kills travelers and takes their money. He tried to kill me but I escaped from him because I can run fast. Since then he has been after me. Last night he started for your camp, but I got a big club and stopped him. Then he ran away.”
“What was in the bag?” asked Ned.
“What bag?” asked the woman.
“The one the old man had on his back?”