“What in thunder are you doing, riding over the country alone?” her father demanded over the telephone.
“Now, don’t you mind. I’m all right,” said Hester, tartly. “I’m coming home now—by the way of the Sitz place and Robinson’s Woods. We’ve done all we can to rouse up the farmers.”
And she shut her angry father off before he could say more, and ran out to the car—to find her companion senseless in the bottom of the tonneau, and a local doctor bending over him.
[CHAPTER XV—THE KEYPORT GAME]
“These are bad burns,” said the physician, looking up at the wide-eyed crowd. “And I believe he is hurt internally. Where did he come from?”
“This gal brought him in her car, Doc,” said the storekeeper, who had forgotten trade for the moment.
“Who is he?” asked the physician, with his hand on the man’s pulse, but looking curiously at Hester.
“I don’t know—oh, yes! I remember! He said his name was Billson.”
“Jeffers-pelters!” ejaculated the storekeeper. “I‘d never ha’ knowed him. His whiskers is burned off, that’s a fac’.”
“Then you know all about him, Carey?” pursued the medical man.