“The Galloping Snail!” I yipped, scooting for the front door. Nor was I surprised to learn, after all, that the man we had seen on the road was the one this woman was watching for. Her talk about their “poor automobile” had put me wise, though it was a puzzle to me where the man had been all this time.
“It’s Pa and Miss Ruth!” the woman cried, taking after us. “They’ve come at last.”
Suddenly all sounds of the car ceased. And that was queer, we thought. Running down the moonlit graveled drive, we found the car on its side just outside the stone arch, where the driver, in poor work, had tried to swing out of the sandy ruts.
Thrown from the car, and getting his head cut, the old man was sort of staggering around like a groggy sailor. Then, before we could get to him, he keeled over in a dead faint.
“He’s hurt!” the woman cried, and though, with her white face, she looked as though she were going to keel over herself, she kept up. “Help me, and we’ll carry him into the house.”
Poppy wiped away the blood.
“It isn’t a deep cut, Mrs. Doane. He’ll be all right in a minute or two.”
It was then, I think, that the woman discovered that the car had brought only one passenger.
“Why!...” she cried in new alarm. “Where is Miss Ruth?”
The injured man began to mumble like one in a dream.