"Cricky!" sputtered the boy. "You gone dumb, Janice? Don't you understand?"
"I—I—no, Marty. I do not believe I do understand. Is—is it surely that Hotchkiss man?"
"Surest thing you know!" declared the boy.
"What shall we do?" and for once Janice felt herself to be quite helpless.
That Marty's wits were bright and shining was proved by his immediate reply:
"You leave it to me. I got a scheme. I'm going to skip over to the telegraph office. We want to find that Lieutenant Cowan if we can, anyway. And I'm going to send what they call a night letter to dad. A night letter to a Day, see?" and he giggled.
"You get back upstairs into your room and don't let Hotchkiss see you. Get 'em to give you your dinner up there. 'Twon't be nothin' but beans, anyway, I have an idea. That's what they live on down here, they tell me, and comin' from Vermont as I do, beans ain't a luxury to me. I won't mind missing a mess of 'em for once."
"But, Marty——"
"I got a scheme, I tell you," the boy whispered. "Can't stop to tell you what it is. I got to hike."
He dashed out of the door, the only rapidly moving figure in all that town, for even the dogs in the street seemed too lazy to move.