"But remember, the leader of the night-raiders is Jade Beddow. He will surely do you an' Milt all the injury he can. Oh, Sally, don't think of running such a risk! Let's find Billy West an' ask him to go."
"You're really not in earnest, Sally Brown!"
"It wouldn't be as safe as for me to go," demurred Sally. "I'm not afraid. They're not goin' to hurt me. Let me have your father's pistol when we get back. I'll take it along, an' use it, too, if there's need."
As the two girls excitedly discussed the situation, Sally decided that she would not go back home as she had first intended. There were too many chances of missing her sweetheart by so doing. Besides, if the two girls separated, Sally would not know whether her friend had seen Milt or not. This was a point they had both overlooked.
It was agreed, then, that the safer plan would be for Sally to remain at Mr. Saunders' until late bedtime, then, if Milt had not come, she would manage, with Sophronia's help, to slip quietly out of the house, saddle Joe and go direct to the old abandoned quarry where the farce of a trial would be held.
When bedtime came, and no sign of Derr, the two girls succeeded in slipping out of the house without detection, when they quickly saddled the patient Joe, and later parted in the darkness, Sophronia still urging her companion to think once again before starting forth on so perilous a journey.
Unshaken by her friend's forebodings, the toll-taker set out courageously into the lonely night, bent on accomplishing her sweetheart's release. She was familiar with the location of the dirt lane, at which she must turn off in order to reach the quarry, yet, in the haste of her mission and the perturbation of mind under which she was laboring, she turned into the wrong lane, and had gone some distance before discovering her mistake. By the time she had retraced her way many valuable moments were lost.
The night was wearing on. In the hilly and sparsely settled region through which she rode, it seemed already past midnight, and her road was solitary and forbidding. Even the rocks, and trees and clumps of bushes along the way took on grotesque and often threatening shapes to her excited imagination as she passed them in the semi-darkness.