She was interrupted by a familiar whistle from somewhere outside, and the girls ran over to the window. Sure enough, there were Chet and Teddy, looking, to the girls, like a couple of heaven-sent messengers, standing underneath the window, skates flung over their shoulders, looking up toward them expectantly.
"Wait a minute," Laura called down, "Don't dare go away from there. You're angels, and have come just when we wanted you most."
She turned a radiant face to the girls and began to speak hurriedly.
"I had it all figured out last night, girls," she said, while they listened eagerly. "When you told me you knew Miss Walters' address, Rose, I thought of the boys right away. There was just a chance that they might come over this morning or this afternoon. And now they're here."
"Well?" they asked, puzzled.
"Oh, don't you see?" Laura clapped her hands impatiently. "The 'Dill Pickles' won't let any of us send word to Miss Walters, but the boys can do it for us."
Before she had finished a dozen girls were scrambling for pencil and paper, Laura was pushed into a chair by the table and was commanded to write and write quickly.
And Laura obeyed while the girls fairly hung over her, offering suggestions, and all talking at once until it was a wonder she could write anything at all.
She told the boys briefly what had happened and begged them to send word to Miss Walters at once. Then they tied the precious piece of paper around an inkwell—who cared for the wreck of a mere inkwell at a time like this?—and threw it out of the window.
Teddy picked it up wonderingly and unwound the paper, while Chet peered over his shoulder and the girls watched breathlessly from above. When Teddy came to the part about Billie's capture he was all for storming the castle, meeting the "Lions in their den, the Pickles in their hall," and rescuing the heroine without delay. But Chet held him back.