Linda looked at Peter questioningly.
“No,” he said quietly. “It is very probable that the matter never will be mentioned to you again, unless Judge Whiting gets hold of some clue that he wishes to use as an argument against matured Japs being admitted in the same high-school classes with our clean, decent, young Americans. They stopped that in the grades several years ago, I am told.”
Before they could start back to Lilac Valley a car stopped in the canyon and a couple of men introducing themselves as having come from Judge Whiting interviewed Katy and Linda exhaustively. Then Linda pointed out to them an easier but much longer route by which they might reach the top of the canyon to examine the spot from which the boulder had fallen. She showed them where she and Katy had ascended, and told them where they would be likely to find Oka Sayye.
When it came to a question of really starting, Linda looked with appealing eyes at Peter.
“Peter,” she said, “could we fix it any way so you could drive Katy and me home? For the first time since I have begun driving this spring I don’t feel equal to keeping the road.”
“Of course,” said Peter. “I’ll take your car to the nearest farmhouse and leave it, then I’ll take you and Katy in my car.”
Late that evening Judge Whiting came to Lilac Valley with his wife and daughter to tell Linda that the top of the cliff gave every evidence of the stone having been loosened previously, so that a slight impetus would send it crashing down at the time when Donald lay in his accustomed place directly in the line of its fall. His detectives had found the location of the encounter and they had gone to the bottom of the cliff, a thousand feet below, but they had not been able to find any trace of Oka Sayye. Somewhere in waiting there had been confederates who had removed what remained of him. On the way home Mrs. Whiting said to her husband: “Judge, are you very sure that what the cook said to you this afternoon about Miss Strong and Mr. Morrison is true?”
“I am only sure of its truth so far as he is concerned,” replied the Judge. “What he thought about Linda was evident. I am very sorry. She is a mighty fine girl and I think Donald is very much interested in her.”
“Yes, I think so, too,” said Donald’s mother. “Interested; but he has not even a case of first love. He is interested for the same reason you would be or I would be, because she is intellectually so stimulating. And you have to take into consideration the fact that in two or three years more she will be ready for marriage and a home of her own, and Donald will still be in school with his worldly experience and his business education not yet begun. The best thing that can happen to Donald is just to let his infatuation for her die a natural death, with the quiet assistance of his family.”
The Judge’s face reddened slightly.