When she reached the car in which Mr. and Mrs. Bybee occupied a stateroom she saw the showman and his wife through the open door, talking to two strangers whom she guessed to be plainclothes policemen from police headquarters of Capital City. The two men were evidently about to leave, nodding impatiently that they understood, when Sally appeared, like a frightened, pale little ghost in green-and-white striped gingham.
She forgot that she was without make-up, that the police were looking for her as well as for the criminals who had robbed the safe. But Pop Bybee had not forgotten. Still talking with the plainclothes detectives, he motioned to her violently behind his back. She turned and forced herself to walk slowly and sedately toward the other end of the car as the detectives made their farewells and their brusque promises of “quick action.”
When the men had left the car Bybee’s voice summoned her in a husky stage whisper, calling her “Lalla,” so that the detectives, if they were listening, should not identify her with the girl who had run away from the orphanage in the company of a man wanted on a charge of assault with the intent to kill.
“Are you crazy?” Bybee demanded hoarsely when she had come running to the stateroom. “Them was dicks! Policemen, understand? They mighta nabbed you. What are you doing up? Get back to bed and try to sleep.”
“Have you found David?” she quavered, brushing aside his anxiety for her.
“Not a sign of him.” Bybee shook his head. “But I didn’t spill the beans to the dicks. I’d given you my word, and Winfield Bybee’s word is as good as his bond.”
“I’m going to look for David,” she announced simply, but her blazing eyes dared him to try to prevent her. “He’s hurt somewhere—or killed. I’m going to find him.”
And before the astonished man or his wife could stretch out a hand to detain her she was gone. When she dropped from the platform of the car she heard the retreating roar of the police car. Instinct turned her in the opposite direction, away from the city, down the railroad tracks leading into the open country.
She did not know and would not have cared that Mr. and Mrs. Bybee were following her, Mrs. Bybee muttering disgustedly but refusing to let Sally search alone for the boy in whom she had such implicit faith.
Dawn was breaking, pale and wan, in a sky that was shamelessly cloudless and serene after the violence of last night’s storm, when, over a slight hill, a man’s figure loomed suddenly, then seemed to drag with unbearable weariness as it plodded toward the show train.