Peter laughed again.
Just then a drove of cattle passed, and at intervals vehicles and motor cars followed; also men on horseback and some walking.
“This is County Court Day,” observed Barney. “They’re all goin’ to the next town. Shall we turn the thief over to some of them or take him ourselves? One of you ladies will have to appear against him later.”
Miss Campbell looked uncomfortable.
“Dear, dear,” she exclaimed. “That means we shall have to go to court and give testimony and all that sort of thing. It may delay us ever so long.”
“No it won’t,” called the implacable Billie, who was now hard at work repairing the Comet. “We can just turn him over as an escaped convict.”
Peter looked at her with an expression of weary amusement, but said nothing. She did not trust herself to return his glance just then, but after that, every time she caught the cool brown look of his eye, like two clear pools in a forest, she felt a strange disturbance.
Miss Helen Campbell was of two minds and both minds were aggrieved. Nancy was all on Billie’s side. Elinor was still undecided. She was trying to be perfectly just, but it did seem to her that Peter Van Vechten, as he called himself, was in a very unfortunate predicament.
As for little Mary, her eyes had become two wells of pity and she was afraid to speak lest she betray her sympathy for the young man.
All morning Billie and Mary worked over the Comet. The thief, whether Peter or another, had repaired the machine enough for it to run with a good deal of rattling and rumbling, but the girls were not satisfied and they worked as hard over it as two young mechanics. The company lunched early from the contents of the hamper, and the prisoner’s hands were unbound in order that he might feed himself. Then he was bound again.