If Helen had obeyed a strong impulse that was tugging within her to hold her back, she would have refused to enter. Perhaps the reason she did not obey that impulse was the fact that a desperate effort to think of another reasonable method of procedure was fruitless and she must either go ahead as she had started or turn away in confusion and leave the little girl in her distress and without an explanation. The latter opened the door and Helen followed her inside.
It was difficult for the visiting Camp Fire girl to figure out any reason why she should be fearful of anything this slip of a child might do, and yet the first act of the latter after they were inside sent through her a chill of terror. Slipping around her like an eel, the little emissary of trouble pushed the door to and turned the key in the lock. Helen was certain also that she heard the key withdrawn from the lock.
Still her conductress, clever little confidence girl that she was, spoke words of reassurance that dispelled some of her victim's fears.
"Wait," she said; "I dropped my match. I'll have to go in the kitchen for another."
Helen's eyes followed the dim form of the child, as the latter moved across the room, and observed for the first time a line of light under what appeared to be a door between the front room and the kitchen. A moment later the door swung open, and she was considerably relieved when she saw lying on the floor the apparently limp and unconscious form of a woman.
Instantly the rescuer's Camp Fire training in the reviving of a person from a faint stimulated in her a sort of professional interest in the task before her, and she started forward to begin work at once. First she must loosen her patient's clothing to make it as easy as possible for her to breathe. Then she must get her in a supine position with her head slightly lower than any other part of her body in order that the brain might get a plentiful supply of blood. The air in the house was heavy and stuffy—the front and rear doors must be thrown open. She must dash cold water upon the face and chest of the patient and rub her limbs toward her body. She ought to have some smelling salts or ammonia, but as these were lacking she must get along without them, unless the daughter of the unconscious woman were able to supply something of the sort.
These things flashed through Helen's well-trained mind as she moved rapidly toward the kitchen. All apprehension of treachery left her as she beheld the evidence corroborating the story of distress that had brought her into the house. Then suddenly the whole apparent situation was transformed into one of the most terrifying character.
A slight noise to her right caused her to turn. Then a piercing scream escaped her lips as she saw a door open and beheld the dim outlines of two burly men approaching her. At the sound of her cry of alarm, they dashed forward like two wild beasts.
The first one seized her around the neck to shut off further alarm. As those muscular fingers closed in upon her throat, it seemed suddenly as if her head were about to burst. Then as the thumping in her ears almost completed the deadening of her auditory nerves, she indistinctly heard these words uttered in a hoarse voice: