“Why, I never knew you to be hard on Tommy-boy before!” pouted Tom’s sister.
“Perhaps I never had occasion to be hard on him before,” Ruth answered. “He is only one of many. Especially many of those who were over there in France. They seem to be so unsettled and—and so careless for the future.”
“Regular female Simon Legree, you are, Ruthie Fielding.”
“But when Tom first came back he was as eager as he could be to get to business and to begin a business career. And lately, it seems to me, he’s had an awful slump in his ambition. I never saw the like.”
“Oh, bother!” muttered Helen, and started the car.
The car shot ahead, and in five minutes they passed the country inn, but saw nothing of either Wonota or the Indian chief. In a cove below the river bank, however, Ruth caught a glimpse of a small motor-boat with two men in it. And backed into a wood’s path near the highway was a small motor-car.
Was it the smart roadster Mr. Horatio Bilby had driven to the Red Mill? Ruth could not be sure. But she did not enjoy the ride with Helen and Aunt Alvirah very much for thinking of the possibility of its being Mr. Bilby’s car so close to the inn where Chief Totantora was stopping.