“Well, I didn’t forget. The mystery piques me, as the story writers say,” laughed Helen. “Do you know that her father is an awfully rich man?”
“Why, no. Edith doesn’t make a point of telling everybody perhaps,” returned Ruth, smiling.
“No; she doesn’t. You’ve got to hand it to her for that. But, then, to blow about one’s wealth is about as crude a thing as one can do, isn’t it?”
“Well, what about Edith’s father?” asked Ruth, curiously.
“Nothing particular. Only he is one of our ‘captains of industry’ that the Sunday papers tell about. Makes oodles of money in mines, so I was told. Edith has no mother. She had a brother——”
“Oh! is he dead?” cried Ruth, with sympathy.
“Perhaps he’d better be. He was rusticated from his college last year. It was quite a scandal. His father disowned him and he disappeared. Edith felt awfully, May says.”
“Too bad,” sighed Ruth.
“Why, of course, it’s too bad,” grumbled Helen. “But that doesn’t help us find out why Edie is so much interested in our going to Yucca; nor how she comes to be in correspondence with anybody in that far, far western town. What do you think it means, Ruthie?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” declared the girl of the Red Mill, shaking her head.