They found most of the men employes and performers of the carnival already assembled with the Bybees in the privilege car. Pop Bybee’s usually lobster-colored face was as white as putty, but his arm was gallantly about his wife’s shoulder. Mrs. Bybee still wore the black sateen petticoat and red sweater in which she had hurried from the show train to the carnival immediately after the storm. Her reddened eyes showed that she had been crying bitterly, but as the carnival family crowded into the privilege car she searched each face with fury and suspicion.
“Come here to me, Sally Ford!” she shrilled, when Sally entered the car with “Pitty Sing” riding on her shoulder.
“Now, honey, go easy!” Pop Bybee cautioned her futilely. “Better let me do the talking—”
“You shut up!” his wife commanded angrily. “Sally, you knew where I kept the money! You saw the safe! Oh, I was a fool, all right, but I wanted to show that I trusted you! Huh! Thought I’d wronged you by accusing you of taking presents from my husband! Tell him you saw the safe! Tell him!” And she seized Sally’s wrist and shook her so that the midget had to cling tightly to the girl’s neck to keep from being catapulted to the floor.
“Yes, Mrs. Bybee,” Sally answered, her voice almost dying in her throat with fright. “I saw the safe. But I didn’t tell anybody—”
“You’re a liar!” Mrs. Bybee screamed. “You told that David boy that very night! Sneaked off and went walking with him and cooked up this robbery so you two could make your get-away. Thought it was a grand way to get out of the state so the cops couldn’t pinch you, didn’t you?” she repeated, beside herself with anger, her fingers clamped like a vise on Sally’s wrist.
“Oh, please!” Sally moaned, writhing with a pain of which she was scarcely conscious, so great was her fear and bewilderment at this unexpected charge.
“Sally certainly didn’t go with him,” Pop Bybee interposed reasonably.
“Sure she didn’t!” his wife shrilled with angry triumph. “She couldn’t! She couldn’t! She was buried under the tent! If it hadn’t been for the storm she wouldn’t be here now, working on your sympathies with them dying-calf eyes of hers—”
“Better let me handle this, honey,” Pop Bybee interrupted again, this time more firmly. “Turn the child loose. Ain’t a bit of use breaking her arm. Now, folks, I might as well tell you all just what happened, and then try to get to the bottom of this matter. When the worst of the storm was over Mrs. Bybee left the show train to look for me, to see if I was hurt or if she could do anything for anyone who was. She hadn’t been out of the stateroom all evening till then—not since she’d put some money into the safe right after supper. She found the boy Dave starting out to look for Sally, and she ordered him to stay on the train to keep an eye on it, in case tramps or crooks tried to board it. There wasn’t anybody else on the train. That right, Mother?”