"No, sir!" said Miss Forbes, with equal distinctness. "I'm not going to be left here alone—with all these trees. I'm going with you."
"There may be a dog," suggested the young man, "or, I was thinking if they heard me prowling about, they might take a shot—just for luck. Why don't you go back to the car with Fred?"
"Down that long road in the dark?" exclaimed the girl. "Do you think I have no imagination?"
The man in front, the girl close on his heels, and the boy with the buckets following, crawled through the broken gate, and moved cautiously up the gravel driveway.
Within fifty feet of the house the courage of the chauffeur returned.
"You wait here," he whispered, "and if I wake 'em up, you shout to 'em that it's all right, that it's only me."
"Your idea being," said the young man, "that they will then fire at me. Clever lad. Run along."
There was a rustling of the dead weeds, and instantly the chauffeur was swallowed in the encompassing shadows.
Miss Forbes leaned toward the young man.
"Do you see a light in that lower story?" she whispered.