“Hello,” Hal cried. “Did he bite you?” The hand was bleeding.
“What? Oh, that! I hit it against a brick wall and rubbed off some of the skin. It isn’t anything.”
“I can match you!” chuckled Hal, displaying his bruised knuckles. “Say, what kind of a car is that, anyhow?” and he nodded in the direction of the garage. “Must be a new model. She wouldn’t start for me.”
“Oh, so that’s how it happened!” chuckled Neale. “I guess you forgot to cross your fingers and say ‘eenie-meenie-miney-mo’ before you stepped on the starter, didn’t you?”
“I reckon I did,” admitted Hal, with a grin.
“Luke, let me see that cut,” demanded Ruth.
“Oh, it isn’t anything. I’m not going to have any iodine put on it.”
“Yes you are!” she insisted. “And you, too, Hal. Come up to the bathroom right away. There’s nothing like treating a cut in time. There’s no telling what germs may be in it, and iodine will kill them. Come on.”
“Not for me!” answered Hal. “If you have a bit of sticking plaster——”
“The worst thing in the world!” cried Ruth. “Come! I insist! And then, Luke, I want you to tell us what you meant when you said you remembered those men.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed Neale. “You didn’t let out a word about that when we were chasing them.”
“We needn’t ask if you got them,” commented Agnes.
“That’s right—they gave us the slip,” remarked Luke, ruefully.
He and Hal suffered their hands to be treated with the iodine, and Luke created laughter by pretending to cry when the fluid stung, as it certainly did, for he had rather a deep cut, caused when his hand came in contact with a brick wall as he and Neale swung around a corner in futile pursuit of the strange men.
“Thanks,” murmured Hal, when his hand had been dressed. “I shall recommend you to the Red Cross, Ruth.”
“Oh, Ruth is a dandy little nurse,” added Luke. “I can certify to that. You ought to have her hold your hand and rub your head when it aches, Hal.”
“Oh, such a pain!” cried Hal, clasping his brow with an assumed agonized look on his face.
“Silly!” murmured Ruth, blushing as she put away the iodine. “And now, if your fever isn’t too high,” she went on with gentle sarcasm to Luke, “you might tell us what you remembered.”
“It isn’t much,” he said, modestly enough. “However, I’ll tell you all about it. As soon as you cried out about those men a little while ago, and I had a glimpse of them—I remember your telling me about the cellar mystery—it at once flashed into my mind that I had seen the fellows before.”