"Hi tunket!" said the boy, the only person who did not attempt to discourage Janice in her thought of starting at once for the Border. "Hi tunket! wouldn't it be dandy to go down there among those greasers and bring Uncle Brocky home? I'd go with you, Janice, in a minute!"
"Huh!" gruffly said his father, "you'd be a lot of use, you would."
"I bet I would be, so now!" said the boy. "If Janice goes, I'm going. Ain't I got some interest in Uncle Brocky, I'd like to know?"
"You show your int'rest in this sittin' room fire, son," observed Mr. Day. "Go out and get an armful of chunks. Fire's goin' out on us."
"That's all right," growled Marty. "If Janice goes, I'm goin'—that's all there is about it."
But nobody considered for a moment that Janice could, should, or would go! It seemed positively ridiculous to the minds of all her friends that the girl should even contemplate such a thing.
"But what shall I do?" she cried.
"Wait. That's all any of us can do, Janice," Nelson said tenderly. "It is terrible to be inactive at such a time, I know. But you could do nothing down there on the Border that you cannot do here in Polktown."
"I'd be nearer to daddy," she said, with a sob.
"Ye don't know that," put in Uncle Jason. "We don't none of us know where Broxton Day is right now. Why! he might open that door yonder and walk in here any moment. How d'we know?"