“Hadn’t we better stop the machine here under cover, and sneak up on them?” suggested Bob.
“Nix!” replied John. “We drive right up to the house; we’re going to claim them—not steal ’em back again. I guess they’ve already heard our engine, anyway.”
Boldly, Jack drove directly to the front of the house, or rather, until a rickety fence barred further progress, and suddenly applied the brakes. A dirty, mongrel hound came racing out from the back, barking furiously. But the boys never hesitated. Before the machine had come to a halt, John was out of it; and not waiting to pass through the gate, he vaulted the fence with a bound and strode across the intervening space of yard to the door, keeping his hand on the revolver in his side pocket. Nor were the other two boys far behind him. Unmindful of the mangy cur which noisily threatened an assault upon their legs from the rear, they were at John’s heels when he sprang up the steps of the porch.
The widow Brown, having heard them approach and thinking all the while that it was the old man who had returned, appeared suddenly in the doorway just as John had raised his clenched hand to pound upon the door.
John was somewhat taken aback upon being thus unexpectedly confronted by a woman when he had expected to see a man, and with his fist arrested in mid-air, he blurted out,
“Where—where—we want the two girls who are prisoners here! Where are they?”
The woman shrank back in consternation before the look of righteous wrath on the face of the young man who, with upraised hand, appeared about to strike her. She trembled violently, and wondered whether she should call to her brother, who was out in the stable and had evidently not heard the quiet motor of the big machine when it approached. But, knowing her guilt, her terror at the determined attitude of the three boys prevented her from uttering a sound, and before she could even stammer a reply to John’s question, Marjorie and Lily, having heard his stern voice demanding them, came bounding down the stairs.
“Why—why—sir—oh, do have mercy!” begged Mrs. Brown, sinking in a heap at the boys’ feet. But the girls, hardly noticing her, stepped over her, and rushed toward the boys.
“Thank Heaven!” cried Marjorie, flinging her arms around her brother’s neck, and laughing and crying at the same time. Frieda, in her turn, grasped the hand of the unknown scout, and squeezed it gratefully.
“Let’s get away at once!” begged Marjorie. “I can’t stand it here another minute!”