“Something’s wrong, Lil! I know it! Tell me quick! Is it Mother—or Dad?”
“No, Marj—it’s—Queenie. But you mustn’t worry. The boys are going to do whatever can be done.”
“What’s the matter with her?” demanded Marjorie, her face pale with fatigue and alarm.
“We’re afraid she has eloped—or has run away to meet that man and elope. But luckily John guessed something of the sort, and is going to follow on her trail. I have every hope he’ll catch her.”
Marjorie dropped wearily into the seat behind her, too disheartened, too tired for words. The League championship was forgotten; nothing mattered now if Queenie was gone!
CHAPTER XXI.
THE PURSUIT.
When John Hadley came to the basket-ball game on Saturday, he brought with him some illuminating facts about Sam MacDonald’s history for Marjorie’s consideration. But the absence of Queenie Brazier from the team decided him in favor of silence—for the time being at least.
It was after Marjorie had actually started to play that he concluded that there might be a good reason for Queenie’s failure to put in an appearance—a reason connected with the young man whose record he had just traced, and which he had found to be so precarious. Without giving much attention to the game, he went over the whole situation in his own mind, deciding finally to take Mr. Richards into his confidence.
“I have found out about MacDonald—that friend of Queenie’s,” he whispered to the scout-master, “and know that he isn’t any good. That’s an assumed name—his real one is George Hinds—and he has served a term in an Ohio prison.”