“Get in. Where do you want to go in Gettysburg?”
“I want to see Colonel Thomas,” she explained. Already the car seemed to be leaping down the hill. “I live up here and the mountaineers have threatened to do us harm. They hold a fancied wrong against us and they have carried off my brother.”
The stranger stared. The story was, indeed, fantastic beyond belief.
“What mountaineers?”
“They’re people that have always lived up here far back in the woods. They’re outlaws. I had been warned by them, but I couldn’t believe they’d do what they threatened.”
“Whom will Colonel Thomas get to help you?”
“There are State police in this neighborhood,” said Elizabeth.
“Good,” said the stranger.
They had reached the level plain, and the machine seemed to leap into a speed greater than that at which they had come down the hill. Elizabeth told, gasping, a few of the details of her trouble. The stranger glanced at her in amazement, no longer doubting her sanity. He leaned over his wheel, watching the road with a trained eye.
“I’ll take the constabulary up,” he offered.