“Look! Look!” cried Ruth, pointing at them. “They’re the same ones!”
“The men we saw at the lock?” asked Neale.
“Yes, and the men who robbed us—I am almost positive of that!” cried the oldest Corner House girl.
“The rascals!” exclaimed the lawyer. “They’re going to escape us again! Fate seems to be with them! Every time we come upon them they manage to distance us!”
This was what was happening now. The tramps—such they seemed to be, though the possession of a motor boat took them out of the ordinary class—with never a look behind, speeded away.
“How provoking!” cried Agnes. “To think they have our jewelry and we can’t make them give it up.”
“You are not sure they have it,” said Mr. Howbridge, as the motor craft passed out of sight beyond a tree-fringed point.
“I think I am,” said Ruth. “If they are not guilty why do they always hurry away when they see us?”
“Well, Minerva, that is a question I can not answer,” said her guardian, with a smile. “You are a better lawyer than I when it comes to that. Certainly it does look suspicious.”
“Oh, for a motor boat!” sighed Neale. “I’d like to chase those rascals!”