"Throw who off the track?" "You scared? Want to go home?" "Oh, no! But who? There's nobody chasing us. Nobody." "No. We've got them fooled. It's some evening."[Pg 21] [Pg 21] "Willard, where are the paddies?" That was the question Judith had been wanting to ask more and more, for an hour, but it came in a choked voice, and nobody heard. They were plunging into a rough and stubbly wood lot, and hushing each other excitedly. Twigs caught at Judith's skirt, and it was hard to see your way, with the moon, small and high above the trees in Larribee's woods, only making the trees look darker. The wood road was little used and overgrown. "If they get us in here!" "They won't, Willard." Judith's voice trembled. "Cry-baby!" "I am not." "Here, buck up. We're coming out right here, back of the carriage house. If Ed catches you crying he'll send you home." But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You girls stay here with the baskets. Don't move. Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is clear." "If they get us——" If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the gravel, awesome silence set in, and Rena and Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed.[Pg 22] Four May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; dark cross-streets chosen instead of Main Street and no danger pursuing them there. If there was no danger in the whole town, why should there be in one little strip of woods, though it was dark and strange, and full of whispering noises? Judith had clung to Willard's hand in terror, turning into the cross-streets, and nothing came of it. She was not to be fooled any longer. There was no danger. [Pg 22] Not that
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