“You’d better not!” said Ree emphatically, peering into the dark corners. “I cannot be mistaken, but if I should be—well we don’t care to be laughed at.”
Not a sound was heard as both boys remained perfectly quiet. Then on tip-toe Ree went to all the corners of the room, his left hand outstretched before him while his right held a pistol ready for instant use.
“John, did you sneeze?” he demanded as a smothered “kerchoo” came from the direction of his friend.
“He’s under the bed, Ree! He’s under the bed! Call help!” This was John’s answer and his tone was sharp with excitement.
In a trice Ree was at the foot of the bed and looking beneath it. A dark object there moved slightly.
“Come out of that!” Ree sternly demanded, and the click of his pistol as he cocked the weapon sounded loud and clear. At the same moment the object beneath the four-poster began to crawl and soon coming forth, stood erect—the stranger the boys had met at supper.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” ejaculated Ree with an inflection of contempt in his voice; but the next instant the intruder’s hands were about his throat.
“Help! Help!” yelled John Jerome.
Finding the young man he had seized, a much harder problem than he was prepared to handle, and frightened by John’s cries, the stranger gave Ree a shove and sprang toward the window.
“Help! Robbers!” yelled John again, and now the stranger had one leg out of the window. But he got no further. Ree seized him about the body; the robber seized him in turn, and his foot striking the ladder by which he had climbed up, it went tumbling to the ground. With a frightful oath the fellow endeavored to throw Ree after it. For a second they both balanced on the window sill at the very verge of falling. Then John seized the robber’s hair, and dealt him a blow with the butt of his pistol. He raised the weapon to strike again, but Ree had now secured his release from the villain’s grasp and fired at him just as the fellow plunged to the ground, leaving a bunch of his black hair quivering in John’s hand.