The two friends did not bore the physician by staying too long, but after he bade them good-bye at the door, Helen ran down the path giggling.
“What do you suppose he’ll say when he finds that hat on the skeleton?” she demanded, her eyes dancing.
“He’ll say, ‘That Helen Cameron was in here—that explains it!’ You can’t fool Dr. Davison,” laughed Ruth.
Ruth had taken Helen into her confidence ere this about the strange runaway, Sadie Raby, and during their call at the doctor’s, she had asked that gentleman if he had seen the tramping girl, after the latter had left the Red Mill. But he had not. Oddly enough, however, Ruth found some trace of Sadie at Mercy’s house, where the girls in the automobile next went to call.
Mercy’s mother had taken the girl in for a night, and fed her. The latter had asked Mr. Curtis about the trains going west, but he had sold Sadie no ticket.
“She was very reticent,” Mrs. Curtis told Ruth. “She was so independent and capable-acting, in spite of her tender years, that I did not feel as though it was my place to try to stop her. She seemed to have some destination in view, but she would not tell me what it was.”
“I wonder if that wasn’t what Aunt Alvirah meant?” queried Ruth, thoughtfully, as she and Helen drove away. “That Sadie is awfully independent. I wish you had seen her.”
“Maybe she’s going to find her twin brothers that she told you about,” suggested Helen. “I wish I had seen her.”
“And maybe you’ve guessed it!” cried Ruth. “But that doesn’t help us find her, for she didn’t say where Willie and Dickie had been taken when they were removed from the orphanage.”
“Gracious, Ruthie!” exclaimed her chum, laughing. “You’re always worrying over somebody else’s troubles.”