At this point the drunken wretch began to cry, but he still held the two girls tightly by the wrists.

"I tell you I'll take a ransom for you and nothing less. I'll get out of the world all it's taken from me, and your father will have to do the paying. Come on!" he cried in a tone of command, to his trembling wife.

At this critical moment Miss Stuart and the motor cyclist came running to the scene.

There was a look of immense relief on Miss Sallie's face when she saw the courteous stranger at her heels. She had been about to speak, but was silent.

"Oh, ho!" cried the tramp, "so you've got a protector, have you? Well, come on! I'll fight the whole lot of you, women and men, too, and with one hand, at that!"

He loomed up like a giant beside the small, slender cyclist, but he was a drunken giant nevertheless and not prepared for what was about to happen.

However, at first, it appeared to them all that a little persuasion might be better than force.

"If you will let the young ladies go, my good man," said the cyclist, "you will not regret it. You will be well paid. I would advise you to take a sensible view of the matter. You cannot kidnap us all, and it would not take long to get help. Would you prefer a long term in jail to a sum of money?" And the cyclist drew a leather wallet from his coat pocket.

"You think you are mighty smart, young man," sneered the tramp, "but I can kidnap all of you, and n.o.body ever be the wiser. Do you think I'd let a chance like this go? My pals are right over there." He pointed with his free hand to the woods back of him.

"You will be sorry," said the cyclist.

With an oath, the tramp put his finger to his mouth and gave a long, shrill whistle.

But in that moment he was off his guard, and the cyclist leaped upon him like a leopard on a lion. One swift blow under the jaw and down tumbled the giant as Goliath fell before David.

The poor woman, who was crouching in terror behind a tree, jumped to her feet.

"Run!" she cried in a frightened whisper. "Run for your lives!"

The cyclist seized Miss Sallie by the arm.

"She is right. It is better to run. The others may be coming."

And they did run. Terror seemed to lend wings to their feet. Even Miss Stuart, a.s.sisted by their rescuer, fled over the gra.s.s as swiftly as her charges.

Ruth and Barbara reached the automobile first. In an instant Ruth had cranked up the machine while Barbara opened the door.

Another moment, and they were off down the road, the black-clad cyclist following. Glancing back, they saw two other rough-looking men helping their comrade to rise to his feet. Then they disappeared in the woods while the woman, with many anxious backward glances, followed her companions.

n.o.body spoke for some time. The girls were too much terrified by the narrow escape to trust to their voices. The bravest women will weep after a danger is past, and all five of these women were very near the point of tears.

Presently the cyclist came up alongside of the automobile, which had slowed down somewhat when they reached the main road.

"I will go ahead and inform the police," he called over his shoulder, "but I fear it will not be of much use. Men like that will scatter and hide themselves at the first alarm."

Miss Sallie smiled at him gratefully. Touching his cap, which was fastened under his chin with a strap and could not be lifted without some inconvenience, the stranger shot ahead and soon disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Miss Sallie was thinking deeply. She wished that Major Ten Eyck and the boys had not left the hotel that morning. She felt need of the strong support of the opposite s.e.x. She felt also the responsibility of being at the head of her party of young girls.

Should they dare start off again next day into the wilderness after such an experience? Of course, as long as they were in the automobile, going at full speed, nothing could stop them except a puncture, and punctures on country roads were not as frequent as they were on city streets. What would her brother say? Would he sanction such a trip after this fearful experience? And still she hesitated.

The truth was, Miss Stuart was as eager as the girls to accept the invitation that had been so unexpectedly made. She did not wish to revive the romance of her youth, but she did have an overweening desire to see the ancestral home of her old lover, and to talk with him on the thousand subjects that spring up when two old friends come together after many years.

It was, therefore, with half-hearted vehemence that she said to the four rather listless girls:

"My dears, don't you think it would be very dangerous for us to go over to Major Ten Eyck's, to-morrow, after this fearful attack?"

Everybody looked relieved that somebody had had the courage to say the first word.

"Dear auntie, we'll leave it entirely to you," replied Ruth. "Although, I don't believe we are likely to be kidnapped as long as we keep the automobile going. The fastest running tramp in Christendom couldn't keep up with us, even when we're going at an ordinary rate. From what Major Ten Eyck said, the road is pretty good. We ought to get there in an hour, since it's only fifteen miles from here, and the last mile or so is on his estate."

The other girls said nothing, it being a matter for the chaperon to settle.

"Very well, my dear," answered Miss Sallie, acquiescing so suddenly that the others almost smiled in spite of the seriousness of their feelings at the moment. "But I do feel that we had a narrow escape this morning.

If it had not been for the young man on the motor cycle I tremble to think what would have been the consequences. And I certainly believe if we are not going back to New York, the sooner we get into the society of some male protectors the better for us. I am sorry that fifteen miles separate us. I wish those boys had thought to motor back and get us to-morrow."

"Oh, well," observed Barbara, "fifteen miles is a mere bagatelle, when you come to think of it. Why, we shall be there before we know it."

CHAPTER V-THE MOTOR CYCLIST

By this time the automobile had reached the hotel. Miss Sallie led the way to the dining room and they formed rather a weak-kneed procession, for they were beginning to experience that all-gone feeling that comes after a fright.

The luncheon hamper full of good things had been carried back into the hotel, since there had been neither time nor opportunity for the picnic party the girls had planned.

"I think a little food is what we really need, now," exclaimed Ruth.

"Cheer up, Mollie and Grace. Bab, smile for the ladies. It's all over.

Here we are, safe, and we are going to have a beautiful time at Major Ten Eyck's. Please, dear friends, don't begin to take this gloomy view of life. As for the anarchist person who attacked us in the woods, you may depend upon it that he and his friends are so frightened they will be running in an opposite direction from Tarrytown for another week. As for the foreign young man who stepped up to the rescue, he should certainly be thanked."

Ruth had by nature a happy temperament. She quickly threw off small troubles, and depression in others made her really unhappy.

"It was truly a daring deed," replied Barbara, "and all the more daring considering that the tramp would have made about two of the cyclist. But the blow he gave was as swift and sure as a prize fighter's."

"Did you notice that the poor woman was rather pretty?" commented Mollie.

"My dear child," cried Miss Sallie, "I really believe you would notice people's looks on the way to your own execution. Now, for my part, I could not see anything. I was almost too frightened to breathe. I felt that I should faint at any moment."

"Why, Aunt Sallie, you are more frightened now than you were then,"

exclaimed her niece. "You were as calm as the night. As for Grace, she looked like a scared rabbit. Mollie, darling, I'm glad you had the presence of mind to scream. If you hadn't Aunt Sallie and the motor cyclist might have looked for us in vain."

While she was speaking the cyclist came into the dining-room.

As soon as Miss Stuart saw him she rose from the table in her most stately manner and walked over to meet him.

"Sir," she said, and Ruth gave the merest flicker of a blink at Bab, "you did a very brave thing to-day, and I want to thank you for all of us. If you had not been there my niece and her friend would undoubtedly have been kidnapped. You perhaps saved their lives. They might have been killed by those ruffians. Won't you give us your name and address? My brother, I am sure, would like to write to you himself. We shall be indebted to you always."

The young man's face flushed with embarra.s.sment.