Cora was pale and frightened. Jack and Ed had already reached the office of the country squire, where that official had taken the sulky prisoner. Walter went back to the cottage to assure the young girls there that everything would ultimately be all right.
From under dark, shaggy eyebrows the man stared at Cora. He seemed to know of the gypsy woman's threat, and was adding to it all the savagery that looks and scowls could impart. But Cora was not to be thus intimidated—to give in to such lawbreakers.
"Do you recognize the prisoner?" asked the officer.
"As well as I can tell from the opportunity I had of seeing him," replied the girl, in a steadied voice.
"What about him do you remember?"
"The beard, and the fact that he is lame. I must have hit him when I fired to give the alarm."
The man looked up and smiled. "Humph!" he grunted, "fired—to give—the alarm!"
"Pretty good firing, eh?" demanded the squire. "Now, Miss Kimball, please give us the whole story."
Again the man cast that swift, fierce look at Cora, but her eyes were diverted from him.
"The first time I saw him—I think it was he—was one evening when we were returning from a motor ride. I saw a man creeping around the cottage. He had that peculiar stoop of the shoulders."