Just at this moment Peggy turned out to avoid another car that was approaching them from the opposite direction.  In a second she saw that it carried Harding and Mortlake.  They both looked angry and blank.  Peggy guessed at once that they had discovered their loss.  But she resolved not to stop unless they did and asked questions.  She felt that such a despicable act as they had attempted to perpetrate deserved no help on her part.

“Hey, there!” shouted old Mr. Harding, as his car was slowed down by the chauffeur.  “Hey, stop!  I want to speak to you!”

“He’s polite about it, isn’t he?” whispered Jess.  “Are you going to tell him, Peggy?”

“Cer-tain-ly not,” rejoined Peggy, with a tightening of her lips.  “Why should I?  He tried to fasten a theft on my brother this morning, and then caps the climax by instigating Mortlake to try to steal the ideas of our aeroplane.”

“Hey, girls, seen a package on the road?” bawled old Mr. Harding, as Peggy slowed up and stopped.

“I recovered some of my own property, if that is what you mean,” said Peggy slowly, a dull flush rising to her cheeks.

“Well—­well!  What d’ye mean by that, hey?  What d’ye mean by that?”

“You may construe it any way you wish to, Mr. Harding,” was the cold rejoinder, and to avoid further questioning, Peggy sped up her machine, and soon vanished in a cloud of dust.

The old financier turned to his companion with a look of disgusted amazement.

“What d’ye think of that, hey, Mortlake?” he snapped out.  “What d’ye think of that?  Fine young girls, eh?  Nice products of the twentieth century, hey?”

“Oh, let’s get on and see if we can’t find that roll of papers somewhere along here,” rejoined Mortlake impatiently.  “I don’t think it’s likely they could have seen it.  It must have fallen from my pocket where the car broke down and I got out.”

“Hey?  Oh, yes, yes.  That’s it.  Drive on, Tom.  Drive us to where the car broke down.”

In a few seconds they reached the spot just in time to see the two tramps who had molested the girls making off.

“There they go!” shouted Mortlake, “those fellows must have found them.  I wouldn’t lose those sketches for a thousand dollars.  Put on more speed, Tom, and overtake them.”

The chauffeur did as he was bid, and the car leaped ahead.  In a few chugs it had reached the tramps’ side, they having stopped, bewildered, in the meantime.

“Why, blow me, Bill,” said one to the other, as the car came up, “if it ain’t the self-same gents as drove down the road a while ago.”

“Give me those papers, you rascals!” shouted Mortlake, almost flinging himself out of the car, “give them to me or——­”

“Hold your horses, guv’ner!  Hold your hosses,” counseled the hobo who had received the dose of ammonia, and whose eyes were still red from its effects.

“Wot papers might you be lookin’ fer?” asked this fellow cautiously, although he knew very well.