Although the occupants of the other car could not hear the words, they had seen the almost affectionate way in which the words had been spoken.
Dora thought, “Aviators are evidently lightning workers.”
Jerry’s expression did not reveal his thoughts. He spoke to both Dick and Harry. “I did something last night, I reckon, I never did before. I laid my six shooter down on a rock and in all the excitement I plumb forgot it. Would you mind if we went up this road a piece—”
“Oh, Jerry,” Dora cried, “can’t we go with you all the way and see where you found the bandits?” Then, as the cowboy hesitated, Dick said, “I think it would be perfectly safe to go, don’t you?”
“I reckon so.” Jerry was about to start his car when Mary called, “Jerry Newcomb, I never once thought to ask you or Dick if there were any old men among those bandits, I mean, any who might have been the ones who held up the stage and kidnapped Little Bodil.”
Jerry replied, “I reckon not. They were too young.” Then he turned his car into the side road.
Harry, following, exclaimed, “What’s all this about a kidnapping? It sounds interesting.”
Mary was glad to have something to talk about which could not possibly suggest a compliment to her. She found it embarrassing to be so much admired by a boy who was almost a stranger to her. She told the story briefly, but from the beginning, and Harry was an appreciative listener. “That’s a bang-up good mystery yarn!” he said. “I’d like mighty well to be along when Jerry and Dick climb up into that rock house. Gruesome, isn’t it, knowing that the old duffer buried himself alive? Clever, that’s what he was, to make up a yarn about an Evil Eye Turquoise that would keep thieves all these years away from his gold.”
The side road into the mountains was in worse condition than the one they had left, and so, for some moments, Harry was silent that he might give all his attention to guiding the car over an especially dangerous spot. Then he turned and smiled at Mary. “And so you had hoped that one of those bandits who were captured last night might have been Bodil’s kidnapper. That would hardly be possible. Such things don’t happen in real life and, also, as you say, the little girl may have been dragged away to the lair of a mountain lion.”
Mary’s attention had been attracted by the car ahead. “Jerry’s stopping again,” she said.