For just as they reached the station platform a figure that looked very familiar turned the corner and came rushing down toward them as if bent on running a Marathon.
"There's Ferd—and here's the train," announced Teddy, as a shrill whistle made them jump and look eagerly down the track. "Not much time to waste at that."
The young folks were so taken up in the leave taking that they failed to notice two girls who got on the train just after them. Even if they had not been able to see the faces of these newcomers, an overheard sentence or two would have given them the clue to their identity.
"Isn't it just like them, the stuck up things," one of the girls said to the other, "to bring all their relations to see them off?"
"Never mind," said the other with a malicious grin. "I guess I gave them rather a jolt the other day when I told them I was going to Three Towers too. I guess they thought they owned the place and ought to have it all to themselves."
However, the boys and girls were perfectly unaware of this conversation concerning themselves; although it probably would not have bothered them very greatly if they had heard it.
They were still leaning out of the window, calling to those left on the platform and answering injunctions "not to get killed" from their mothers and to "please be careful and not get into any more scrapes than they could help" from their fathers, when the guard shouted a warning and the train started off.
They waved until the station and the people on it were out of sight, then settled back in their seats "to view the prospect o'er," Chet said.
For a moment they all felt a little lost and queer, though nothing in the world could have made them confess to the feeling. But the little wave of homesickness soon passed off, swallowed up by the vision of the amazing adventure ahead of them.
Before the little party had stowed away their baggage and taken off their wraps, several boys and girls they had known at school came over to greet them and talk things over, and Billie, leaning over to rescue a box of chocolates that had fallen at her feet, suddenly looked up and right into the beaming face of Nellie Bane.