“What’s wrong? Did you eat too many of them?” inquired Gerry sympathetically. “I thought you suddenly seemed rather—well, glum!”
But Betty’s “glumness” was not the result of damper-cakes, as she proceeded to explain, though the explanation was not apparently easy to make. “I say, Gerry,” she burst out suddenly. “Look!” From her pocket she produced a coloured object of a ribbony texture. “It was in a bush,” blurted out Betty. “Close to the Witch’s Wood fence, you know, where we were all sitting at tea. And I suddenly saw it, and pulled it out.”
“Why,” said Gerry, staring, “one of the Daisies must have lost it. It’s a bit of our patrol ribbon.”
“That’s what I thought,” burst in Betty; “but only just at first. Look here, Gerry; listen. It may be that; but then it mayn’t. You see, it couldn’t have been lost to-day, because it’s been wet with rain and all tousled, and looks as though it had been there for weeks. And the Guides wouldn’t push ribbon into a bush, and——”
“Well?” inquired Gerry, staring. “But even if not, I don’t see——”
“It’s tied in a bow, you see,” went on Betty; “and——”
“Well?” inquired Gerry, staring still.
“And oh, Gerry, don’t you see? Why, our patrol ribbon was tied on to the Cup! In a bow, too; for I untied it and tied it up again that morning when I cleaned it. And it seems to me—” Betty stopped.
“Betty!” Gerry was staring now in good earnest. “You don’t think that the Cup’s hidden somewhere in the school wood, do you? Why, the Guides have searched, you know.”
“I don’t know what to think,” said Betty, looking more miserable than ever. “The fact is, Gerry, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve done something else silly and helter-skelter without meaning to. An idea has just come to me. I’ve never told any one at all about it, but now—” She stared from the ribbon to Gerry as though wondering what to say next, or whether to leave something still unsaid.