CHAPTER XVI
SEARCHING FOR CLUES
The four young people in the loft listened as Mr. Newcomb closed the gate to the hen-yard, then, when they heard him leaving, Jerry said, “I reckon we’re alone now, so let’s get ahead with the box opening ceremony.”
“Oh, Big Brother,” Mary, quite recovered from her recent fright, exclaimed. “Let’s make a real ceremony of it, shall we? Let’s kneel on the floor; you boys at the sides and we girls at the ends. There now, let’s all lift at once and together.”
“Wait!” Dora cried, detaining them. “Just to add to the suspense, let’s each tell what we expect to find in the box.”
Mary looked across at her friend vaguely. “Why, I’m sure I don’t know. What do you hope that we’ll find, Jerry?”
“I reckon what we want to find is something that will help us locate Little Bodil,” the cowboy replied.
“And yet,” Dick put in wisely, “since Little Bodil was thrown from the stage coach forty years ago, how can anything that was already in her trunk prove to us whether she was devoured by wild animals or carried away by bandits?”
“Oh-oo!” Mary shuddered. “I don’t know which would be worse.”
Dora was agreeing with Dick. “You’re right of course,” she said thoughtfully, “but, nevertheless I’ve a hunch that we’ll find something that will, in some roundabout way, prove to us whether Little Bodil is dead or alive.”
“Now, if that’s settled, let the ceremony proceed,” Jerry announced. In the dim lantern light Mary’s fair face and Dora’s olive-tinted glowed with excited animation as they took hold of the trunk ends.