As the car climbed the steep incline, Kathleen suddenly reached for the door handle.
“I wouldn’t do that!” Diethelm ordered sharply. “Stay in this car!”
“You’re making us prisoners?” Kathleen gasped, shaken by the ranger’s treachery.
“You asked for this,” Diethelm retorted. “If you’d kept to your own affairs, no one would have bothered you. Now you’ve poked your pretty little noses in, you’ll have to take the consequences!”
“Which are—?” interposed Judy. She was no longer frightened, but smoldered with a deep, burning anger.
“I’ll drive you some distance from here and dump you in the woods,” Diethelm informed her. “By the time you find your way out, we’ll be over the state line. This is our last haul.”
“So you’re one of the hi-jackers!” Kathleen accused shrilly. “A disgrace to the ranger uniform!”
“I’ve not been in the service long,” Diethelm said. “It means nothing to me. I adopted the uniform only to serve my own purpose. For six months it’s been a cinch to run cargo through, but lately the state highway patrol has bottled up most of the roads. We’ll move on to another state.”
The car had reached the main highway. Judy could see Calico Cottage through the morning mist, but there was no sign of her aunt, or of any help.
Everything was painfully clear now! The trucker she and Kathleen had seen the previous night at the restaurant, had indeed been Joe Pompilli. Either he, or his runners now were at the cave, awaiting a chance to slip their cargo over the state line. And with the road block soon to be lifted, that chance might come very soon!