Mrs. McBirney stood there among her neighbors and cast her eye first on this group and then on that.
“I must say it clear and plain,” she said in her pleasant voice; “I trust that girl like I would my own son here. She loves me and I love her, and we’re heart to heart. She’s in some kind of trouble, and I reckon I know what it is.”
“What?” demanded twenty voices.
“Them show people has stole her. They said they would, and they waited till we was off the watch, and took their chance.”
“Why, ma,” said Thomas McBirney, “they’ve been gone weeks and weeks. They had about all they wanted of this community.”
“They must have come back then,” answered Mrs. McBirney with gentle obstinacy, “for they’ve gone and took my girl.”
The words faltered in her throat, and Jimmy, who was watching her, ran to her and slipped his arms about her. It was the first time that his mother had realized that he was not a little boy. She found in that moment of sorrow that by bowing her head, she could weep on his sturdy young shoulder, and that he seemed strong to comfort her.
Hi Kitchell drew near, his eyes shining in a face that was white beneath all his tan.
“Zalie didn’t run away,” he said in his rather gruff voice, which was changing from a boy’s to a man’s, and was now in his throat and now in his head. “You can’t make me think Zalie ran away. She wouldn’t do such a mean thing.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t, Hi,” broke in the soft tones of Mrs. Carson. “She was too kind and too happy. I think we’d better drive home, each going our proper way, watching out on every side for her, and get the sheriff to send word to all the towns round about. If the show people have taken her, it ought to be an easy matter to find her, for the show is bound to go to the towns.”