"Josiah Crabtree broke out of the Plankville jail and ran away."
"Oh, Dick!" and Dora grew suddenly pale. "Do you really mean it?"
"When was this?" demanded Nellie.
"Tell us all about it," supplemented Grace.
"We can't tell you any more than what we have heard," answered Sam. "We just got word ourselves this morning."
Then the boys told their story and answered innumerable questions which the girls put to them.
"This will be bad news for mother," said Dora, to Dick. "She is afraid of Josiah Crabtree, and always has been—because of his strange hypnotic power."
"I don't think he will dare to show himself—at least, not for a while, Dora," he answered. "He knows only too well that the jail is waiting to receive him."
"That strange man with the bushy eyebrows and the pointed chin must have helped him to get away," was Nellie's comment.
"So we think," answered Tom.