There they sat down and tore their skates off, asking questions all the while.
"Did you say it was just the other side of the gate?" Chet asked. "Say, if we hurry, fellows, we may have a chance to find him. Who would ever have thought of that old Codfish turning up again?"
"Don't talk—work," cried Teddy, getting rid of his skates and stamping his numbed feet to get the blood back into them. "We missed that fellow once before, and we're not going to miss him again if we can help it. Ready, fellows?"
"You bet!" Ferd and Chet cried, and the three were off on a run, the first of the boys to start. Behind them the girls were still fumbling with numbed fingers at their skates.
CHAPTER XX
CHET PLAYS THE HERO
The boys stopped at the gate of Three Towers Hall, not knowing just what to do next. All they knew was that Miss Race had been held up and robbed only a few hundred feet from the gate and that the robber had disappeared in the bushes at the left-hand side of the road.
"We'll have to spread out," Teddy said in an excited voice. "Probably the fellow doesn't expect to be followed, because he thinks there are only women and girls around Three Towers and he's probably around near here somewhere counting over his loot.
"There are five of us," he went on quickly, noticing that two more boys had come up from the lake on a run. "And if we go in the woods one at a time and circle about we ought to find the thief."