These things flashed through Helen’s well-trained mind as she moved rapidly toward the kitchen.  All apprehension of treachery left her as she beheld the evidence corroborating the story of distress that had brought her into the house.  Then suddenly the whole apparent situation was transformed into one of the most terrifying character.

A slight noise to her right caused her to turn.  Then a piercing scream escaped her lips as she saw a door open and beheld the dim outlines of two burly men approaching her.  At the sound of her cry of alarm, they dashed forward like two wild beasts.

The first one seized her around the neck to shut off further alarm.  As those muscular fingers closed in upon her throat, it seemed suddenly as if her head were about to burst.  Then as the thumping in her ears almost completed the deadening of her auditory nerves, she indistinctly heard these words uttered in a hoarse voice: 

“Look out, Bill; don’t kill her.”

As if surprised back into his senses, “Bill” loosened his hold on Helen’s throat.  She did not struggle or attempt to cry out again.  Evidently the purpose of the ruffians did not contemplate murder, and she realized that there was no wisdom in anything but submission on her part now.

But she was not given time to recover completely before the next move of her captors was made.  While one of them held her in a vise-like grip, the other shoved a gag into her mouth and tied the attached strings tightly around the base of her head.  Then he bound her hands together in front of her with a strip of cloth.

“There,” said the man whom the other had addressed as Bill, “you set down in that chair and keep still and you won’t get hurt.  But the instant you go to makin’ any racket you’re liable to breathe your last.  All right, Jake, go and get the machine.”

“Jake!” The exclamation, though not uttered, was real enough in her mind.  Even with the deafening pulse of choking confusion in her head, it had seemed that there was something familiar in the man’s voice when he warned “Bill” not to kill her.  Was it possible that this was Mr. Stanlock’s former automobile driver?

Jake went out the back way, closing the door between the front room and the kitchen as he went.  Helen was now left alone in darkness with Bill, who, she thankfully observed, seemed disposed to pay no attention to her so long as she remained quietly in the old loose-jointed rockingchair in which she was seated.

Ten minutes later an automobile drove up in front of the house and Jake reappeared.

“It’s almost stopped snowing, luckily,” he remarked, “or we’d have our troubles makin’ this trip tonight.  A little more snow and a little more drifting and we’d be in a pretty pickle.”

Helen was certain she recognized Jake’s voice now.  How she wished she could get a glimpse of his face in even the poorest candle light.

Bill now threw a large shawl over her head and brought it around so that it concealed both the gag over her mouth and the rag manacle on her wrists.  Then he pinned it carefully so that it might not slip awry, and ordered her to go with him quietly out to the automobile.  Jake had just made an inspection up and down the street and reported the coast clear.