“This is awful, Ralph! What does Mr. Hopkins say?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t want to see him. But Mr. Adair has gone over to Shadow Valley, and perhaps he has gone to look for Cherry. My gracious! I’d like to go myself. If I hadn’t promised the G. M. that I would stick to the Midnight Flyer, I would be tempted right now to throw up my job and join any search party that may look for Cherry.”
“Are you afraid the strikers have something to do with her disappearance, Ralph?” asked his mother.
“I’m afraid of what that Andy McCarrey might do. I have said from the start that this was a personal fight between McCarrey and the super. And Hopkins can be hurt, and hurt badly, through Cherry.”
“And his poor wife ill as she is, too! It is dreadful,” repeated Mrs. Fairbanks. “I do wish you could help look for her, my boy; although I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble.”
“Oh, that would be all right. I am not afraid of trouble. But I can’t go back on the G. M. He is my best friend.”
His mother was thinking deeply.
“Ralph, my boy,” she said, of a sudden, “isn’t it true that Zeph disappeared down there in Shadow Valley?”
“That’s true enough, Mother. But Zeph is a different person. He can take care of himself. He is not a delicate girl, helpless in the hands of such villains as Andy McCarrey and his associates. Cherry——”
“I was just thinking,” said the widow, “that Zeph might have been captured and imprisoned by the same men and in the same place as the supervisor’s girl. Isn’t it possible?”