Poor dog indeed! The silky, white fur clung to her thin frame, and a piece of rope trailed from her collar. Like all dogs of her breed, she was thin when in the best of condition, but now she looked worse than that. She seemed really like a poor starved animal.
“She looks terrible,” Arden exclaimed, and disregarding the wet fur she began to stroke the regally pointed head.
“She’s hungry. Look how thin she is. Let’s give her something to eat,” Terry suggested, already starting toward the kitchen.
Tania was extremely grateful for the food Terry put before her and ate ravenously, while the girls murmured soothingly to the grateful dog.
“But how strange that she should get like this,” Terry reminded them. “Dimitri always takes such good care of her.”
“And that old rope, the end looks frayed off. Do you suppose——” Arden looked at her chums with terror in her eyes. This, coming directly after their talk, joking as it was, about murders, gave them all a shocked, sudden pause. It seemed horrible even to imagine that Dimitri——
“Oh, Arden! How awful! We haven’t seen Dimitri for a week. Do you think——” Terry was too frightened to put intelligible questions.
Arden nodded her head solemnly. “I’m afraid so,” she said in a quiet voice. “Something must have happened on board the Merry Jane.”
For the first time the girls realized how interested they had become in Dimitri. His charming manners, his accent, his appearance, and the almost mysterious aloofness he maintained, all went to make him most attractive. Now that they feared foul play might have overtaken him, it was dismaying even to guess what had happened on the lonely houseboat.
But poor mute Tania could not tell them her story.