"Then the impression was mutual," said Matt. "If I hadn't read honesty in your face, along with a desire to help me, I'd have made a rush out of that room in the Hoyne Street place the moment I read your warning on the fly leaf of the book."
"It was well you didn't do that. You'd have been caught. Pete was behind the window curtain all the time. That was why I had to write what I wanted you to know, and call your attention to it indirectly. If you had——"
The girl was interrupted by a distant rustle of bushes. Stifling the words on her lips, she sprang erect.
"Dad's coming this way," she whispered. "I don't think he has the least idea where we've gone, but he seems to be blundering in the right direction. We'll have to hurry on."
Once more they resumed their flight, Matt carrying the bag and carefully following in his companion's footsteps.
The way became increasingly difficult, and the bushes even denser than they had been at the point where they had entered the swamp. Then, too, the hummocks which offered them foothold became farther apart so that it was necessary to leap almost blindly through the brush in getting from one to another.
Occasionally they halted and listened, but were unable to hear any sound behind them to indicate that Brady and Grove were still on the right track.
Just as Matt was congratulating himself that they had again eluded their pursuers, a cry from the girl, muffled but full of distress, reached him.
Between him and her a screen of bushes intervened, and the cry had come a moment after she had taken a headlong plunge through the leafy tangle.
Not knowing what could have happened, and fearing the worst, Matt shifted the bag to his other arm, drew his leather cap well down over his forehead so that the visor would protect his eyes, and leaped boldly after the girl.