“I guess that’s right,” laughed the other; “just wait a jiffy while I lay down this gun of mine and I’ll give you a hand.”
He stepped over and put down a wicked-looking pistol on the rough bench on which Peggy lay. Then he turned and began to help his companion. The two worked by the light of a dark lantern which they had brought with them on their rascally expedition to ruin the Golden Butterfly.
But suddenly a slight noise behind him made Jukes turn his head. As he did so he gave a startled yell. Peggy, her eyes bright and wild-looking, was standing up behind them. In her hand was the pistol which Jukes had laid down beside her when she had seemed to faint a few moments before. But Peggy’s faint had been a simulated one. Realizing that harm was meant to the Golden Butterfly, she had imitated unconsciousness as a means to possible escape and giving the alarm.
“Don’t move, either of you,” said Peggy, in a firm voice. “I’m only a girl, but I can use a pistol.”
But Jukes and his companion, with a wild yell, made a dash for the door.
“Good gracious, I can’t shoot them,” thought Peggy.
“Help! help!” she began to cry at the top of her voice.
But the next instant the whirr and roar of a motor from the road apprised her that the two rascals had made their escape in an auto and that pursuit was useless. Thus it was that when the aroused household came pouring excitedly out of the house they found a brave, if a rather tremulous, girl awaiting them with a pistol in her hand on the stock of which were engraved the initials “F. H.”
“So that’s who Jukes’s companion was,” exclaimed Roy, angrily. “Oh, if you had only awakened me, sis.”
“My dear Roy,” rejoined Peggy, with dignity, “don’t you think that I am capable of taking care of myself?”