“Quick! Hide!” she cried. “Somebody’s comin’!”
The watchers had barely time to gain the shelter of the trees when a thick-set figure loomed up through the gloom. A man brushed past them, a man with hunched shoulders and a week’s growth of stubble on his face.
This person stumped around to the rear of the house, a door opened and closed, and soon the two voices within the room were joined by a third.
“Hello, you cats at it ag’in, scratchin’ and clawin’? Where’s my dinner? That’s what I’d like to know. When are you goin’ to git me some grub?”
Billie turned to her companions. They could see her eyes shining in the dull light.
“We’ve heard enough!’” she whispered. “Let’s be getting back.”
They fairly ran down the road to Three Towers Hall. They were scarcely aware that they were cold and dishevelled and pretty well soaked by the misty drizzle. In their minds two facts loomed paramount. They had positively identified Maria Tatgood as the thief, and two hundred dollars of the Gift Club fund still remained in the custody of the unsavory Tatgood family. If they hurried, they still might save that two hundred dollars.
Up the steps of the school they rushed and into the hall, to be met by a group of horrified girls.
“Where have you been?”
“To the wars, if looks count for anything!”