“Yes!”
“Stay here. Don’t venture out, unless I call you, Joe. But I’m going to try to get out and stop that machine. The Alvarez crew wouldn’t, or oughtn’t, dare do anything too ugly with other folks at hand. I’m going to risk it, anyway.”
An instant later Tom Halstead’s body was half-way out of the hole, though still concealed by the friendly thicket. He waited until he judged that the approaching automobile was close at hand on the nearby road.
Just as he was about to spring forth Halstead realized that even the auto might be a part of the Alvarez equipment. Yet, on the one last breath of a chance nothing was to be wasted by hesitation.
Judging the sound intently, Captain Tom suddenly leaped forth from the hole, out of the thicket, and sprinted headlong for the road. Nor had he misjudged his time. A touring car was coming along, less than fifty feet away, as Halstead reached the low stone wall. There were, including the man at the steering wheel, four men in the car.
“Stop! stop!” shouted Tom, waving his cap. “It’s fearfully important!”
As the car rolled to a stop, and the men in it leaned forward, Captain Tom experienced another great throb. One of the men in the rear seat he recognized as an officer who had joined in the search on the first day of Ted’s disappearance.
“Oh, Mr. Warren, get out here, quick!” appealed the young skipper. “There’s real and swift work in your line as deputy sheriff!”
Halstead’s excited manner and white face were enough, in themselves, to carry conviction. Warren and another man leaped from the tonneau, each reaching carelessly at a hip pocket as though to make sure that a weapon was securely there.
“Yes, yes!” cried, the delighted young motor boat skipper. “Get your pistols out. You may need ’em.”