“I reckon they’ll help us if we make it worth their while,” said the boy, with assurance, peering through the rain to try to make out the faces of the two on the wagon seat.
“Be careful, boy,” said Mrs. Heard. “Don’t show them much money. We don’t know what sort of men they may be. Peddlers——”
Neale reached back into the car and seized a heavy wrench. “Nothing like ‘preparedness,’” he said, with a grin.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Agnes, giggling suddenly, “they’ll think you are a highway robber.”
“I’m going to hold them up all right,” returned Neale O’Neil, with assurance.
The wagon was evidently hung with a large supply of tinware and the like, but all under the canvas cover. Yet it came down the hill at such a pace that the horses must not have found their load a heavy one to draw.
Of course the two strangers saw Neale, and the stalled car could not be overlooked, either. The one driving pulled in his team. Neale could make out the features of neither, for the turned-down brims of their hats hid their faces.
But the one driving called out in a very pleasant and unexpectedly cultivated voice:
“Hello there! What’s the matter? In a hole?”
“That’s just what we are in,” Neale responded, and immediately tossed the wrench back into the car. He knew they had nothing to fear from a man with a voice like that.