"I'm trying to think. If I could get word to Miss Eleanor, she'd know what to tell us, I'm sure. I'm afraid she'll be wondering what's become of me—and maybe she'll think I just ran away, and think I was wrong to do it."
"But she'll understand when you tell her about it, Bessie, and if you hadn't come I never would have got away by myself. I'd have been afraid even to try, if there'd been a chance."
"The worst part of it is that if Farmer Weeks really has any right to keep you, or if you were wrong to run away, it might get Miss Eleanor into trouble if they could find out that she's been helping you to get away."
They were walking along the road, but now Bessie, who had forgotten the need of caution in her consternation at the thought of the new plight they faced, pulled Zara after her into the bushes beside the highway.
"I heard wheels behind us," she explained. "We mustn't take any chances."
They stopped to let the wagon they had heard pass by, but as it came along Bessie cried out suddenly.
"That's Paw Hoover!" she said. "And I'm going to speak to him, and ask him what he thinks we ought to do. I'm sure he'll give us good advice, and that he's friendly to us."
She hailed him, and the old farmer, mightily surprised at the sound of her voice, pulled up his horses.
"Whoa!" he shouted. "Well, Bessie! Turning up again like a bad penny. What's the matter now?"
Breathlessly Bessie told him what had happened, and of Zara's escape from Farmer Weeks, while Zara interrupted constantly to supply some detail her chum had forgotten.