Behind her, Dorothy heard a shout, and that shout lent wings to her feet. Scared as she was, she grinned. For she was probably doing the only thing her would-be assailants had not counted on. She was running away from the red lights and home, sprinting down the road the way she had come. Overhead, tall elms met in an archway, and from the darkness at her back came the quick patter of footsteps. Suddenly they stopped.
Dorothy gave a sigh of joyous relief, for around the bend in the road she saw the double gleam of headlights, shining through the wet. Stopping short in the middle of the road, she switched on her flashlight again and waved it frantically from side to side.
“Daddy!” she cried as the big car drew up. “I was sure you weren’t far away. Gee! but I was glad to see your lights.”
Mr. Dixon snapped open the door and Dorothy slipped in beside him.
“Why, what are you doing out here? Have a breakdown?”
“H-holdup,” she panted. “My car’s down the road. Step on it, Dad—maybe we can catch them.”
“An ounce of discretion is sometimes worth forty pounds of valor,” he began, throwing in the clutch.
Dorothy cut him short. “Look!” she cried excitedly, and for all Mr. Dixon’s cautious announcement, the car jumped forward with a jerk. “See, Daddy! There’s my tail light! They’ve turned it on again. And the red lights have disappeared.”
“What red lights?”
“Tell you in a minute. Better slow down. My car’s out of gas. I’ve got a piece of hose in the rumble. We can siphon enough from your tank into mine to get me home.”