While they had thought the man was still in the hut he had come softly up behind them and had overheard the last, at any rate, of what they had said. Billie, as usual, was the first to recover herself.

   “Will you take us to Three Towers now?” she asked in a voice that she hardly recognized as her own. “Do you know the way?”

   “Yes,” he answered, adding moodily, as though to himself: “Hugo Billings ought to know the way.”

   Billie caught at the name quickly, for she had been wondering what this strange person called himself.

   “Hugo Billings!” she said eagerly. “Is that your name?”

   The man had started on ahead of them through the dark woods, but now he stopped and looked back and Billie could almost feel his eyes boring into her.

   “Did I say so?” he asked sharply, then just as quickly turned away and started on again.

   “Goodness, I guess he must be a crazy criminal,” thought Billie plaintively, as she and her chums followed their leader, stumbling on over rocks and roots that sometimes bruised their ankles painfully. “I suppose there are some people that are both. Anyway, he must be a criminal, or he wouldn’t have been so mad about my knowing his name.”

   The rest of that strange journey seemed interminable. There were times when the girls were sure the man who called himself Hugo Billings was not taking them toward Three Towers Hall at all. It seemed impossible that they could have wandered such a long way into the woods.

   Then suddenly their feet struck a hard-beaten path and they almost cried aloud with relief. For they recognized the path and knew that the open road was not far off. Once on the open road, they could find their way alone.

   Abruptly the man in front stopped and turned to face them. Once more the girls’ hearts misgave

   them. Was he going to make trouble after all? Why didn’t he go on?

   And then the man spoke.

   “I won’t go any farther with you,” he said, and there was something in his manner of speaking that made them see again in imagination the tired slump of his shoulders, the wild, haunted look in his eyes. “I don’t like the road. But you can find it easily from here. Then turn to your right. Three Towers is hardly half a mile up the road. Good night.”

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