Mary Louise tripped across the floor and opened the door. There was not a sound and Josie kept on frying bacon, turning it carefully and patting it down to get the twists out of it.
“What is it, Mary Louise?” There was no answer and so she turned around to see what was the occasion of such silence and there was her little partner wrapped in the arms of a tall young man in a shabby serge suit.
“Well, of all the—Mary Louise, have you gone nuts? What do you mean by such behavior, you scamp?” She came to the conclusion that Mary Louise was being murdered by a tramp, and seizing the rolling pin with which she had just been rolling out biscuit she rushed to the defense of her friend. Before she struck, however, she recognized Danny. Then she dropped the rolling pin and began to hug him herself with almost as much enthusiasm as Mary Louise.
Explanations could not be made in a moment. Danny must tell over and over how he wasn’t dead and Mary Louise must tell how she had been making her living and about Grandpa Jim. Then Danny put in a word concerning the gold pieces that had come tumbling from the old tire. The finding of the fortune did not seem to be nearly so important to those young people as some other things. Danny’s being so hungry was much more important to Mary Louise. Even Josie seemed to think the fact that she had just laid in a supply of sliced bacon and had a dozen eggs in the refrigerator and had cut out enough biscuit for two meals, which might make enough for one for Danny, was of great import.
“I could kick myself for missing the treasure,” cried Josie. “I thought I had looked everywhere. Those stupid policemen too! I’m glad they didn’t get ahead of me. Some one else had been in there too. You noticed how the cushions were all pulled to pieces didn’t you, Danny?”
“Yes, and I bet I know who had been looking for the money,” said Danny. “Hortense Markle!”
He then told of hearing the familiar voice and of his trying to place it and, finally, how it had come to him.
“I am sure it was she,” he declared.
“But it is a blind gentleman and his son,” faltered Mary Louise, who did not like to have a bad opinion even of persons whom she had never met. She had seen them once and the helplessness of the poor blind man had appealed to her.
“Yes, so they said, but I’ll wager anything the poor blind man is Markle himself—”