Betty and the other girls hung back in a frightened group. The maid's voice continued to ring out, and now Mrs. Nelson could be heard demanding to know what was the matter.
"Around to the side, fellows!" commanded Allen. "There's an outer door they'll probably try for."
"But who'll guard the front here?" asked Amy's brother.
"Let Percy do that!" Allen flung back over his shoulder. "He probably won't come with us, anyhow," he added.
The three young men hastened around to the side of the cottage, while Percy, hardly knowing what to do, remained with the girls in front. At the side was an old-fashioned, slanting cellar door, the kind celebrated in song as the one down which children slide, to the no small damage of their clothes.
As Allen and his chums reached a point where they could view this door, they saw it suddenly flung up with a bang, and three men spring up the stone steps.
"There they are!" yelled Roy.
"After 'em!" shouted Henry Blackford.
"It wasn't a false alarm, anyhow," added Allen. "Hold on there!" he cried. "Stop! Who are you? What do you want? Stop!"
But neither the commands nor the questions halted the men. They ran on, with never a word of answer or defiance flung back—dogged shadows fleeing through the moonlight to the shrubbery-encompassed grounds of Edgemere.