d the thick woods on a run, forgetting their friend, Jeff.
So far they had not been interrupted by the men they feared.

"Look ahead!" called out Madge sharply under her breath. Her quick ears
had caught the sound of footsteps approaching.

"Hide in the thicket," Jimmy commanded. He pulled Phil down behind a
fallen log. Madge and Miss Jenny Ann crouched behind some thick bushes.
They waited in absolute silence.

Now, for the first time, Lieutenant James Mandeville Lawton opened his
eyes and surveyed his deliverer!

He stared and blinked, and stared and blinked again, until Phil wanted
to laugh aloud in spite of their danger, the young man's expression was
so ludicrous.

"Great Scott!" he muttered. "I never dreamed my rescuers were girls."

Phil put a warning finger on her lips.

They waited until the noise they had heard had completely died away.
Then Lieutenant Lawton sprang to his feet, ran to Miss Jenny Ann and
took both her hands. "Your appearing on this island is like a miracle!"
he exclaimed. "Tell me how you happen to be here? I would never, never
have let you run the risk of trying to save me if I had known you were
girls instead of boys."

Madge laughed. "Mr. Lawton, girls are equal, nowadays, to any situation
that a boy can master."

The little party had not gone on much farther before they heard the
noise of swift feet in pursuit. Instead of walking, as our party of
friends had lately done, in order to rest, they broke into a run. Still
their pursuer gained on them.

Lieutenant Lawton thrust the three women behind him. He stood at bay
with a stick in his hand as his only weapon.

A wild figure burst upon them. It was Jeff, whom they had forgotten!
The poor lad's clothes were torn, as though he had received a severe
beating.

Jimmy Lawton dropped his stick. He turned red with shame. "Poor old
Jeff!" he cried. "We ought never to have run off without you. Of
course, you would get the blame of my escape."

In the days of his imprisonment Jimmy Lawton had learned to understand
a few words that the boy could spell on his fingers.

Jeff now managed to explain to them that Lieutenant Lawton's jailers
had returned to the house a little while after they made their escape.

They found the prison house in flames and their prisoner gone! The
gypsy woman told the story of the appearance of the two girls and their
chaperon, and the aid they had given to the prisoner. She made no
accusation against her son