“And you’re all right? You’re safe?” cried Ben, counting them over. “And Mr. Hook has been protecting you? Thank heavens for that.”
“My dear young man,” observed Miss Campbell with some irritation, “will you please to turn around and look at that front door or slide or whatever you call the thing? I wish you to know that we have had one of the most exciting evenings of our lives. This house was attacked and broken into by a dozen ruffians and if it hadn’t been for Alberdina, there, who has the mind of a general and knew exactly how to build a barricade with trunks, Phoebe would certainly have been tarred and feathered, even before Mr. Hook came to our rescue——”
“He heard my bugle,” announced Elinor.
“I wished for him,” thought Billie.
“I prayed for him,” said Phoebe in a low voice.
“If Richard Hook had not appeared and permitted himself to be shot by Billie without uttering a sound——”
“Oh, I let out a yell,” broke in Richard.
“We would have all been murdered, like enough.”
“But where are your sister and Miss Swinnerton?” asked Ben.
“I suppose I had better be getting back to them,” said Richard, who had quite forgotten that he had left two unprotected maidens asleep in a traveling van on a ledge half a mile below.