Page:Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil.djvu/176

166 started for the Saunders farm, and as the day was warm and the patches of shade few and far between, she let Clover take her own time. In a lonely stretch of road, out of sight of any house or building, two men stepped quietly from some bushes at the side of the road, and laid hands on Clover's bridle. Betty recognized them as the two men dressed in gray whom Bob had followed on the train, and who had interviewed him while the aunts were ill.

"Don't scream!" warned the man called Blosser. "We don't go to hurt you, and you'll be all right if you don't make trouble. All we want you to do is to answer a few questions."

Betty was trembling, more through nervousness than fright, though she w^as afraid, too. But she managed to stammer that if she could answer their questions, she would.

"That fresh kid we saw with you the other day, back at the Saunders farm," said Blosser, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the three hills. "Is he going to be there long?"

Betty did not know whether anything she might say would injure Bob or not, and she wisely concluded that the best plan would be to answer as truthfully as possible.

"I suppose he will live there," she said quietly. "He is their nephew, you know."

Fluss looked disgustedly at his companion.