It seemed perfectly terrible to think of those two children handling a burglar alone––and yet what could she do?
Pretty soon, however, she heard the fire-engine returning, with the crowd, and she hurried down to the corner to find out.
“It wasn’t no fire at all, lady,” answered a boy whom she questioned. “It was just two men breakin’ into a house, but they ketched ’em both an’ are takin’ ’em down to the lockup. No, lady, there wasn’t nobody killed. There was some shootin’, sure! A girl done it! Some college girl in a car. She see the guy comin’ to make a get-away in her car, see? And she let go at him, and picked him off the first call, got him through the knee; an’ by that time the fire comp’ny got there, and cinched ’em both. She’s some girl, she is!”
Julia Cloud felt her head whirling, and hurried back to the house to sit down. She was trembling from head to foot. Was it Leslie who had shot the burglar? Leslie, her little pink-and-silver butterfly, who seemed so much like a baby yet in many ways? Oh, what a horrible danger she had escaped! If she had escaped. Perhaps the boy did not know. Oh, if they would but come! It seemed hours since they had left. The midnight train was just pulling into the station! How exasperating that the telephone did not respond! Something must be out of order with it. Hark! Was that the car? It surely was!
CHAPTER XIX
How welcome a sound was the churn of the engine as it came flying up the road and turned into the driveway!
Julia Cloud was at the door, waiting to receive them, straining her eyes into the darkness to be sure they were both there.