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"We need some kind of ammunition, Nancy," she said. "If only this rifle was loaded." "Did you look through the barrel?" asked Nancy, slightly more experienced with firearms than Billie. She seized the rifle and held it up before a lamp that Alberdina had set in a corner of the gallery, cocked it and looked through with one eye professionally squinted. "Why, it is loaded," she announced.
Lupo, tamed and domestic, to take Alberdina's place at the camp, and Alberdina was to come at once to the cabin. Mrs. Lupo could give no reason; that was all the message stated, except that the patient was doing well. The doctor went down the path to meet them, when the car stopped under the brow of the hill.
They were not so merry on the journey back as they had been on the trip of the morning before. For one reason those who had slept in open camp had not had off their clothes for twenty-four hours, and all of them felt the crying need of baths after the two dusty journeys. But there was another reason besides these physical ones. They were beginning to feel conscience-stricken about Alberdina.
It penetrated the stout walls of their fortress so unexpectedly that it brought them all to their feet with low exclamations. "There they are," whispered Mary. Alberdina groaned, "Mein lieber Gott," and sank upon a couch with the expression of a condemned man about to be executed. It was some moments after the whistle before the enemy made its next advance.
"Is there none here?" "I know nod," answered the girl, shaken with sobs. He lifted his old slouch hat. "I bid you good day," he said, and started away, then turning back, he exclaimed: "Perhaps I ought not to leave you here alone. But I must not stay away so long. Phoebe will be frightened. Will you come with me to my home?" Alberdina shook her head. She was half afraid of the strange man.
"I declare I hate to leave the place," said Miss Campbell, peeping through the glass window in the back curtain of the car. "It's in good hands," laughed the doctor, as the voice of Alberdina floated to them, singing in fulsome tones: "Ach, mein lieber Augustine, Augustine, Augustine!"
It will keep them off for a little longer, at any rate." Alberdina did not listen to these honeyed words of praise, however. She never paused until she had piled three trunks, one on top of the other in a very effective barricade. At the far end of the gallery, Elinor and Mary appeared to be very much occupied at a little window placed in the roof for ventilation, but now closed.
Dey have robbed dis house. Dey haf made to turn red dos vite clothes." In dead silence they descended from the motor car and filed into the house to investigate Alberdina's wild, incoherent story. There were certainly signs of an invasion in the locker rooms, everything tipsy turvy on the floor. Alberdina showed them the ropes that had bound her.
"That's why you wanted Alberdina." "Yes, I needed someone who could speak with him, and a servant would be excellent; better, really, than an educated German. Just now the man's mind is in terrible confusion.
Taking a bone-handled clasp knife from his pocket, he carefully cut the ropes wound about her. Alberdina bounded out of the chair like a big, fleshy catapult. "Ach, himmel, I thangs mag to you, sir," she cried respectfully, for there was something in this wanderer which commanded deference, although he did wear a threadbare suit and mountain brogans. "You know who did this, my girl?" he asked.
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