He glanced at the man’s sinewy throat around which ran a deep red scar.
With one stride Jim Bowles reached the other side of the automobile and seized Mr. Moore’s hand.
“Wuz you the gennelman? Stranger, git in and take it easy. We won’t do no harm to these ladies. But we’d like to git a lift. I knowed you wuz a brave man as soon as I seen you, and no one kin ever say Jim Bowles forgits a favor.”
Daniel Moore climbed in behind with Miss Helen and the girls who huddled down somehow, while the robbers pressed themselves into the front and Billie started the machine.
CHAPTER XV.—IN THE ROBBERS’ NEST.
For an hour the Comet had been toiling upward by a circuitous and intricate way. But he had not lost in speed. Billie had made up her mind not to linger. If they must see these men into a safe hiding place it was well to get it over with as soon as possible.
They had not been permitted to light the Comet’s one illuminating eye, but had gone silently and swiftly along. It was now eight o’clock by the motor timepiece, but it was still light enough to see the road winding in front of them like a white ribbon in the blue gray atmosphere.
“We are most there now, young Miss,” Jim Bowles observed respectfully. He admired intensely this intrepid young woman who drove a car better than most men.
“Most where?” she asked calmly, but with inward quaking. “It’s better,” she thought, “to let him think I’m not frightened, but I am just the same.”
“Most to the place we’re goin’ to,” he remarked mysteriously.