"It's Percy!" gasped Allen, trying not to laugh. "He's acting as home guard!"
"I wonder if he has his wrist watch on," laughed Roy.
"It's all right," called Henry, not wishing his sister and the other girls to be needlessly frightened. "We're coming back."
"Did you get them?" asked Betty, from the darkness.
"No, they got away in a boat," answered Allen. "Is anyone hurt?"
"No, but the servants and mother are quite frightened. Could you see who they were?"
"No. Evidently tramps, or fishermen. We'll have to have a look at those——"
Allen did not complete the sentence, but they all knew to what he referred.
"So you—er—missed them?" questioned Percy, when the two groups were together again. "Too bad! I was just coming to join you. I had to have a weapon, you know, and I found—this."
He showed a little stick which he had picked up.