“Now we have him, what are we going to do with him?” whispered Mollie, a comical look of chagrin on her face.  “We can’t capture him all by ourselves, and we can hardly expect him to wait while we get some one.”

“He is huskier than I thought,” admitted Grace, adding suddenly, “Betty, what are you going to do?”

But Betty either did not hear or did not want to, for she was approaching the man without a backward glance in their direction.  Though not knowing just what was about to happen, the girls followed loyally, close at her heels.

As for Betty, she simply stepped up close to the man and stood looking at him steadily, finally forcing him by sheer concentration to straighten up and meet her eyes.

“Well, who are you?” he demanded at last, gruffly.

“That was just the question I was about to put to you,” Betty replied, and by her outward composure no one could possibly have guessed how hard her heart was beating.  “We are really quite desirous of knowing all about you.”

“May I ask,” he said, his cruel mouth sneering under the absurd moustache, “what has happened to arouse this sudden interest?”

The sneer brought a flush to Betty’s face and made her eyes glow angrily.

“You ought to know that without my telling you,” she said coldly.  “Perhaps you will remember, if I recall it to you, the day you knocked an old woman down in the middle of the road and then rode away without finding out how seriously you had injured her.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man replied, with an attempt to appear frank, which made his face more sinister than before.  “You must have mistaken me for some one else.”

“That’s impossible.”  Mollie’s voice was crisp and clear cut, and the man glanced with surprise and a shadow of alarm at this new assailant.

Then suddenly his manner of cool insolence changed, and he shot them a look that remained quiveringly in their memories long after the man himself had passed forever out of their lives.

“Whoever you are, you’re fools,” he said gruffly, menacingly.  “And if you don’t forget all about this thing you’ve been spouting about, I’ll make it pretty darned unpleasant for you.  Get me?” And, with a quick movement, he started his motor and leaped on his machine.

Betty sprang forward and desperately clutched the handle bars, calling on the girls for assistance, but he roughly pushed her aside.  At the same moment the machine leapt forward and Betty knew that he would get away again.

Then it was the first miracle happened.  Sergeant Mullins, out on a hike with some of the rookies from the camp, the sound of his approach deadened by the putting of the machine, appeared around the turn in the road, coming toward them.  To keep from running into the men, which would have meant a nasty spill, the motorcyclist was forced to put on his brake.

The men would have gathered to one side of the road to let him pass, but Betty’s shrill cry arrested them.