“And I’d like to know what’s got Billy Speedwell!” rejoined her chum. “Do you suppose these awful men have stolen the boys’ new iceboat?”
“Oh! they’re wicked enough to do anything,” gasped Mildred.
Mr. Parker was staggering to the sheriff’s assistance. But before he reached him he dropped the pistol in the snow. In the darkness and storm it was not easy to find the weapon again; and while he was scrambling about on all fours to obtain it, two figures dashed out of the smother and fell upon him. The second robber and his mate had returned.
They overpowered Mr. Parker in a moment. Then they hauled Mr. Kimball off the prostrate ex-convict; but in that minute the sheriff had choked the fellow into subjection.
He could not rise to help his comrades. Mr. Parker and the sheriff faced but two of the gang, but the latter had the advantage.
Mr. Parker was not used to such rough work. The sheriff, however, was a quick and agile man, ready for almost any emergency which might arise.
He was, too, one of those men who “never give up till the last gun is fired.” He kept on fighting, and the two robbers found him hard to subdue. Suddenly Mr. Parker went down under a swing of the blackjack that had previously felled him.
“Oh! my father! My father!” shrieked Lettie, who was peering over the back of the sleigh. “Billy! Billy Speedwell! Why don’t you help us?”
She screamed this last question at the top of her voice, and it did not go unanswered. First aroused by the explosions of the motor iceboat engine, and led on by the shouting of the girls and their guardians in the sleigh, the two Speedwell boys and Dummy had come near to the scene of the battle in the snow just as the sheriff fired his pistol.
The boys recognized the girls’ voices, and also Mr. Parker’s.