Not to be left behind, Penny quickly followed her father, overtaking him before he had gone very far into the forest.
“Penny, you shouldn’t have come,” he said sternly. “There may be trouble, and I’ll not have you taking unnecessary risks.”
“I don’t want you to do it either,” she insisted. “Which way did the men go?”
“That’s what I wonder,” Mr. Parker responded, listening intently. “Hear anything?”
“Not a sound.”
“Queer that all three of them could disappear so quickly,” the editor muttered. “I’m sure there’s been no attack. Listen! What was that?”
“It sounded like a car being started!” Penny exclaimed.
Hastening to the edge of the woods, she gazed toward the parking lot. The Parker car stood where it had been abandoned, but the gray sedan was missing. A moving tail light could be seen far down the road.
“There go our friends,” Mr. Parker commented rather irritably. “Their sudden departure probably saved me from making a chump of myself.”
“How could we tell they didn’t mean to rob that other man?” Penny asked in an injured tone. “You thought yourself that they intended to harm him.”