"We must keep very quiet. He is afraid of being seen," whispered Madge, putting her handkerchief away. But she could not help feeling rather mortified that Lewis had not trusted to her discretion only to wave when his companion was looking the other way. She was not in the habit of doing stupid things, and Lewis might have known it.
After a great deal of running up and down, the gray-bearded man seemed to consider it a hopeless task ever to catch Jack, so he changed his plan and tried to drive the goat into a little shed in the corner of the field. This was a much easier feat to accomplish, and in ten minutes more Jack was safely imprisoned and the door shut. Then the gray-bearded man, evidently much exhausted by his exertions, walked off to the garden, fanning himself with his black felt hat as he went. Lewis lingered behind his companion for one moment, and rapidly made a mysterious series of signs. First he pointed at the door of the shed where Jack was inclosed, then drew his hand across his own throat several times. Lastly he shook his fist violently at the back of the gray-bearded man as he followed him out of the field.
"What did Lewis mean by making all those funny faces?" asked John, when, the enemy being quite out of sight, the children dared once more speak and move.
"I don't know," said Madge. "It looked as if he were angry with that man—"
"No!" interrupted Betty. "It's worse than that! Lewis was trying to show us that the gray-bearded man is going to hurt poor Jack. I believe he has gone for a knife to cut his throat!"
There was a horrified silence after these words, for the more the children thought over them the more likely did it appear that Lewis's signs had really contained some such terrible meaning. Madge as usual was the first to come out with a heroic resolution.
"If that terrible man comes back with a knife to murder Jack," she said, "I shall jump off the wall and attack him with a stick. Very likely I shall break both my legs, but I don't care. I can't leave Jack to his fate."
Betty and John listened with uneasy admiration. They were just as sorry about Jack as Madge was; almost in tears at the idea of his possible death. But they did not feel brave enough to jump off the wall and risk breaking their legs. If it had been one leg between them perhaps they might have faced it, but four legs were too many for even brave twins to sacrifice.
"Why do you think you will break them both if you jump?" asked Betty anxiously, hoping against hope that there might be some miscalculation.
"Because I know you can break one leg if you only fall five or six feet, and this is double that height," replied Madge promptly.