“No. I’ll go to Uncle Fredo,” she thought. “He will know what to do. I will tell him all about it.”

She was going up the field when she saw someone strange there! Who was it? Could it be that horrid man who had tied her up? She had not seen him at all clearly, and she was afraid it might be. She saw that he was talking urgently to some of the fair-folk. They were listening politely, but Jo could see that they thought he was rather mad.

She went a bit nearer, and found that he was asking where Julian and the rest were. He was becoming very angry with the fair-people because they assured him that they did not know where the children had gone.

“It’s the man they call Pottersham,” said Jo to herself, and dived under a caravan. “He’s come to find out how much we’ve told anyone about that Face.”

She hid till he had gone away down the hillside to the lane, very red in the face, and shouting out that he would get the police.

Jo crawled out, and the fair-folk crowded round her at once. “Where have you been? Where are the others? That man wanted to know all about you. He sounds quite mad!”

“He’s a bad man,” said Jo. “I’ll tell you all about him — and where the others are. We’ve got to rescue them!”

Whereupon Jo launched into her story with the greatest zest, beginning in the middle, then going back to the beginning, putting in things she had forgotten, and thoroughly muddling everyone. When she ended they all stared at her in excitement. They didn’t really know what it was all about but they had certainly gathered a few things.

“You mean to say that those kids are locked up in that tower over there?” said Alfredo, amazed. “And a spy is with them!”

“No — he’s not a spy — he’s a good man,” explained Jo. “What they call a scientist, very, very clever.”

“That man who left just now, he said he was a — a scientitist,” said Skippy, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

“Well, he’s a bad man,” said Jo, firmly. “He is probably a spy. He kidnapped the good man, up in the tower there, to take him away to another country. And he tied me up too, like I told you. See my wrists and ankles?”

She displayed them, cut and bruised. The fair-folk looked at them in silence. Then Bufflo cracked his whip and made everyone jump.

“We will rescue them!” he said. “This is no police job. It is our job.”

“I say, look — that scientitist comes back,” said Skippy suddenly. And sure enough, there he was, coming hurriedly up the field to ask some more questions!

“We will get him,” muttered Bufflo. All the fair-folk waited in silence for the man to come up. Then they closed round him solidly and began to walk up the hill. The man was taken with them. He couldn’t help himself! He was walked behind a caravan, and before the crowd had come apart again he was on the ground, neatly roped by the rope-man!