"I believe she locked him in," said Nyoda, laughing in the midst of her bewilderment, "and she doesn't mean to produce us until we've paid for that breakfast. It's too bad to disappoint her, but necessity comes before choice."
"What do you mean to do?" I asked.
Margery was as pale as a ghost. "It's my uncle after me," she gasped. "Oh, don't let them get me!"
I was too stupefied to say another word. That the nice young man with the light hair should turn out to be a police agent after us was too much for my comprehension.
Nyoda held up her hand for us to be silent and led us on tiptoe into a room which opened off at one side of the hall. She led us to the window, and we could see that it overlooked the yard on the other side from the dining-room and, that it opened out on a porch roof. A little way off we saw the Glow-worm standing under the trees. Nyoda crept out of the window and swung herself down to the ground by means of a flower trellis and we followed, helping Margery. Then we raced across the yard to the Glow-worm and started it just as a car drove by tooting its horn for dear life so that the sound of our engine was drowned in the noise.
We reached the road without going past the house and Nyoda opened the throttle wide. The last glimpse we had of the house where the tourists were "took in" was of a motorcycle leaning up against the porch. Our one thought was to get Margery safely to Chicago before the detective got her and took her back to her uncle. Nyoda had friends in Chicago who would take Margery in until she could go safely to Louisville in the event we could not take her with us. We knew that it would not be long before the man on the motorcycle would find out that we had escaped and would take the road after us, and we must not lose a minute. Lafayette flew by our eyes a mere line of stores and houses; we hardly slackened our speed going through, and then we began the long run northward to Chicago. We saw people turn to look at us as we rushed along, and then their faces blurred and vanished from sight. Now and then a chicken flew up right under the very wheels and once we ran over one. But we went on, on, unheeding. Then we struck a stretch of soft road and thought for a minute we were going to get stuck.
"Would you get through any better if you threw me overboard?" asked Nakwisi. "I'm pretty heavy." Nyoda only smiled and put on more speed and we went through. Margery's face was chalk white and her eyes were wide with fear; but excited as I was, I was enjoying the flight immensely. This was life. I thought of all the famous rides in history that I used to thrill over; Paul Revere's Ride, How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, Tam o' Shanter's Famous Ride, and all the others. Sahwah will regret to her dying day that she missed it.
Halfway to Chicago, Nakwisi, who was keeping a sharp lookout with her spy-glass, reported that there was a motorcycle chasing us about half a mile behind. The Glow-worm leapt forward a trifle faster under Nyoda's steady hand, but she never flicked an eyelash. Nyoda is simply a marvel of self-control in an emergency.
Soon we could all see the pursuer without the aid of the glass. He was gaining on us rapidly. We were approaching a railroad crossing and there was a train coming. If we had to wait until it went by we would be overtaken surely. Nyoda measured the distance between the train and the crossing with a swift eye and put on the last bit of speed of which the Glow-worm was capable. We bumped across the tracks just as the gates were beginning to go down. A minute later the way behind us was cut off by one of those interminably long, slow moving freight trains, and one the other side of the barrier was the impotent pursuer.
But the time gained by this lucky incident merely postponed the inevitable end of the chase. When did a loaded car ever outrun a motorcycle? We watched him approaching, helpless to ward off the thing which was coming, yet running on at the top of our speed, hoping against hope that his gas would give out or he would run into something. But none of these things happened and he drew alongside of us and caught hold of the fender.