"I should have hit them with it had I gotten near enough," he went on, seriously—for him.
"It's a good thing you didn't," spoke Roy. "You might have killed one of them with that, Percy."
"Oh, so I should! I—I can strike very hard when I am angry. I am just as well pleased that there was no need for desperate measures. I really am!"
But no one paid any attention to him now, though he tried to walk beside Betty. Allen and Roy had taken this vantage place, one on either side of the Little Captain.
"Betty, where are you?" called Mrs. Nelson, from the darkness.
"Here, Mother. Don't worry. It's all right. The men got away in a boat. We are coming in to hear all about it."
The story was soon told.
One of the maids, going down cellar to get something from the food store-room, had surprised a man prowling about with an electric flashlight.
The girl screamed, and her cries were augmented by the yells of another domestic in the kitchen.
Then the first girl saw two other men come from some part of the cellar and join the first one. They ran out just as the boys came up, and the fruitless chase resulted.