“No, I don’t think so, because his car isn’t in the barn. The one you see there belongs to me.”
Osceola gave Bill a meaning look. “It is the car—or rather its license—that brought us up here,” he went on. “About two o’clock this morning, my fiancee, Deborah Lightfoot, was kidnapped from Mr. Dixon’s residence in New Canaan. The kidnappers were forced to leave their car behind, and we have learned that it belongs to your neighbor, Mr. Kolinski. There were evidently two groups, and the first got away with Deborah in one car, but we arrived in time to forestall the others, though we weren’t able to capture them and they got away on foot.”
“What a dastardly business!” exploded Mr. Davis. “And you say Kolinski’s car was left behind?”
“Yes, Mr. Dixon, who was in Hartford at the time, is on his way over here with a cordon of state police. They ought to arrive within an hour or so.”
“Have you fellows got guns?”
Bill patted the holster under his left arm. “We have—and there are a couple of rifles in my car.”
“Wait till I get mine and slip on a pair of boots—” Mr. Davis made for the house. “I’m going up the hill with you.”
“He’s a good hombre!” declared Osceola to Bill, as Davis disappeared.
“He is that! Let’s corral the rifles.”
In a very few minutes, Davis reappeared. The only visible change in his costume consisted of a pair of high trapper’s boots laced to the knee. He wore a cartridge belt slung over one shoulder, and in the hollow of his right arm he carried a repeating rifle.