"How badly bit are you?" demanded Dodge.
"I'll last all right until I get to Gridley," Harry predicted, "if you fellows don't keep me talking too much."
"I didn't intend going to Gridley to-night," Dodge replied.
"Yes, you will," Hazelton replied firmly. "I must go to Gridley. You drive straight there. I'll hold you responsible, if you don't."
Bert began to believe that he would be held accountable if he failed to take Hazelton to Gridley, so he gave in without protest. At any rate, both Dodge and Bayliss wanted to get as far as possible from the recent "horror," and as speedily as they could do it.
"There's no chance of our being attacked on the road to Gridley?" asked Bayliss by and by, in a quavering voice.
"No," replied Hazelton. "The lake will be between us and the trouble makers."
It was rough going most of the way. Hazelton was disinclined to talk. Bayliss' nerves were too shattered for him to feel like indulging in conversation. Dodge, white-faced, his cap pulled well down over his eyes, showed all that he knew about running a car carefully and as speedily as was possible over such rough roads.
It was after two o'clock in the morning when the car turned into the stretch of Main Street, Gridley.
"We'll go to the police station with the fearful news," proposed
Bert Dodge.