Evidently Peggy was thinking the same thing, as the next moment they heard her appealing again to Miss Prudence to decide on that route. While Miss Prudence was still wavering about her decision, Jo Ann drove past the Brownsville road, but stopped as soon as Florence told her she had seen the sign. “We’ve got to decide right now,” she ended.
CHAPTER III
THE HITCH-HIKER
Just as Florence was speaking, she and Jo Ann saw the car that had been following whiz by them with only the two men in civilian clothes in it.
“Oh, there goes the mystery man!” Jo Ann exclaimed. “He’s going the Laredo road. I wish I could follow and see if anything happens to him.”
Miss Prudence spoke up quickly: “We’re not going to follow anybody who’s expecting to be murdered any minute. We’d better go the Brownsville road. Back to that filling station and ask if the road’s good.”
Jo Ann obediently backed the car to the filling station, though a queer feeling now possessed her that she ought to have kept on the Laredo road. “I can’t help feeling as worried over that man as if I’d known him for a long time,” she told herself. “I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”
By this time Miss Prudence was talking to the service-station man about the road.
“I think the road’s okay, but”—he nodded toward a man in uniform—“he’ll know. He’s a coast guard and goes back and forth often that way. He’s waiting to catch a ride to Brownsville now.”
Miss Prudence inspected the tall blond young man closely, then remarked low-voiced, “It might be a good idea to have him go with us: coast guards are used to protecting people.”
“I hope she asks him to ride with us,” Jo Ann whispered to Florence. “He might know about the mystery man, since he’s been riding in the car with him.”