what I
think when we get out of this!"

"They are coming, I believe!" said Ruth glancing back. "Don't you see a
light? Look!"

Mrs. Cameron was looking, too, through the little back window. Now she
spoke quietly:

"Wouldn't it be better to get out and slip up in the woods till they have
gone by?"

"No, mother!" said Cameron quickly, "just you sit quiet where you are and
trust us."

"Something awful might happen, John!"

"No, mother! Don't you worry!" he said in his gentle, manly tone. Then to
Ruth: "There's a big barn ahead there on your left. Keep your eye out for
a road around behind it. If we could disappear it's too dark for them to
know where we are. Would you care to turn out all the lights and let me
run the car? I don't want to boast but there isn't much of anything I
can't do with a car when I have to."

Instantly Ruth switched out every light and with a relieved "Please!"
gave up the wheel to him. They made the change swiftly and silently, and
Ruth took the post of lookout.

"Yes, I can see two lights. It might be someone else, mightn't it?"

"Not likely, on this road. But we're not taking any chances," and with
that the car bumped down across a gully and lurched up to a grassy
approach to a big stone barn that loomed above them, then slid down
another bank and passed close to a great haystack, whose clutching straw
fingers reached out to brush their faces, and so swept softly around to
the rear of the barn and stopped. Cameron shut off the engine instantly
and they sat in utter silence listening to the oncoming car.

"It's they, all right!" whispered Cameron softly. "That's Passmore's
voice. He converses almost wholly in choice profanity."

His mother's hand stole out to touch his shoulder and he reached around
and held it close.

"Don't tremble, mother, we're all safe!" he whispered in a tone so tender
that Ruth felt a shiver of pleasure pass over her for the mother who had
such a son. Also there was the instant thought that a man could not be
wholly "rotten" when he could speak to his mother in that tone.

There was a breathless space when the car paused on the road not far away
and their pursuers stood up and looked around, shouting to one another.
There was no mistaking their identity now. Ruth shivered visibly. One of
them got out of the car and came toward the barn. They could hear him
stepping over the stony roadside. Cameron laid a quiet hand of reassuring
protection on her arm that s