“Now what shall we do? She’ll stir up all the relatives. “We’ve got to stop her coming! You can’t tell but she’ll manage to get the house sold or something, and appropriate all the furniture, if we don’t stop her. Wait! I’ll go back to the telephone and telegraph in your name, Jen. I’ll say: “Your suggestion very kind but not convenient at present. We shall all be away for a little while. Just starting. Will write you later when we get back.’ How’s that, Jen?”

“Fine!” said Jennifer. “I couldn’t have done it better if I had thought all day!”

They waited in a quiver while he went into the house again to telephone the message, and when at last they saw him snap the house light out and heard the door close, they drew a breath of relief.

“Get in quick, Jerry! Let’s get off before anything else happens,” said Jennifer. “I feel it in my bones that Aunt Petra will be coming around with a hot water bottle or something to coddle us.”

Amid suppressed laughter Jerry climbed in and started the car. Stealthily it rolled down the incline of the back drive and out the gate by the garage. Then Jerry got out and fastened the gate, and they slid silently down the little back street that skirted the hedge.

Three blocks down they sailed around a corner and slipped into what Jeremy called “backer street,” and so threading a way he had carefully worked out that morning, a way that the Graeme cars did not usually travel and people would not be likely to recognize them. As they went they spoke no word, for Jennifer warned them that they might spoil the whole thing if their voices were heard. So even Robin, with his head snuggled against Jennifer’s arm in the front seat, was absolutely speechless, though his eyes were bright and alert and he kept watch of everything they passed. The naps during the day had done their work, and Robin was having the time of his life.

They had traveled thus in silence for perhaps an hour when Jeremy drew up in the shadow of a group of trees by the roadside and pointed up to a big rambling building on the top of a slope. “There’s your hospital, Try. Hop to it! Slide up to the door on the grass, and keep in the shadow. Don’t make a sound. Lay those darned flowers on the floor in the vestibule in front of the big door, then ring the bell and scoot! Sure you took the card out, Jen?”

“Oh yes!” gasped Jennifer.

“Okay then, Tryon, get around in the shadow of the building so they won’t see you even if they come out. Then you meet us down the road. We’ll stop again by that big silo, and mind you don’t get caught, or we’ll all be in the soup!”

This was a job after Tryon’s own heart, and he got out gravely and disappeared into the shadows, while Jeremy released the brake and the car began slowly to go down grade.

Silently the children twisted their necks to see when the bell was answered and tried to find Tryon in the darkness. This was the most exciting thing they had ever done. But they didn’t see Tryon again after he slid off that top step until they came out to an empty place in the road just beyond the big silo, and there was Tryon nonchalantly waiting in the road.

He climbed quietly in as if he did those things every day, and the younger brother and sisters regarded him with awe. But the silence was upon them deeply, and nobody spoke for a long, long time. There was the night to look at, and the moonlight in and out of the clouds, and the strange little back roads that Jeremy had studied out, and the strange lonely houses gone dark, and the closed filling stations with their pumps like a row of weird old men and women reaching out appealing hands.

At last Jeremy said, “We’ve come a hundred and seven miles since we left home.” He said it with satisfaction in his tone.

Then spoke Heather from the backseat.

“That means we’re safe, doesn’t it, Jerry? They wouldn’t come this far to find us, would they?” There was a tone of anxiety in the little girl’s voice that made the older ones realize that they were not the only ones who had been feeling the strain.

Jerry turned with a sorry little grin and glanced at Jennifer, and then said, “Don’t you worry, kid. We’ll be all right.”

“But, Jerry, they couldn’t find us now, could they?”

“Well, of course if they broadcasted us and sent the cops out, that would be something else again. But I don’t think they are going to find out we are gone till sometime tomorrow. Uncle Blake won’t get Jen’s letter till he gets home from New York tomorrow, and the others may not get around to go up to the house till afternoon. Of course, they might call up if they had some scheme on hand. And if we didn’t answer they’d think the servants were not doing their duty, and they’d get ready to give them a good bawling out. Boy! I’d like to be present when they find out.