"Why, Janice," he told her at the breakfast table, "I ain't got any money to spare jest now, for a fac', as ye well know; but if I thought for a minute 'twould do your father a mite o' good, I'd take what I have and go down there myself to look for him. Sartain sure I would!"
"You jest trust to your uncle, Janice," said Aunt 'Mira, once more on the verge of tears. "He knows best; don't ye doubt it."
Janice did doubt it. She did not wish to say so, but no matter what her friends said, or how wise they might be in other matters, the girl's intuition told her that beyond peradventure there was something for her to do for her father if once she could get to Mexico.
She saw it was of no use to talk about it, however positive she might be that she was right. She could not convince Uncle Jason and Aunt 'Mira. Indeed, she could not even change Nelson Haley's opinion. Everybody seemed to think it was an unheard-of idea for a girl to go alone on such a journey for any reason.
Janice had traveled East alone to Polktown when she was only a young girl, and nobody, save Mrs. Scattergood, criticized that fact. It was because there seemed to be danger threatening along the Border—the possibility of actual war between the United States and Mexico—that they all considered her desire so extraordinary.
To Uncle Jason, too, in his personal difficulties over the Tom Hotchkiss notes, the money for such a trip as Janice wished to make seemed a big item. It was, of course; that truth the girl admitted. It was a big item for her to contemplate. Although the bank at Greenboro sent her aunt each month a check to cover Janice's board there was no hope of the girl's getting other money from that source. The board matter was an agreement Mr. Broxton Day had entered into with the bank before he went to Mexico. Janice did not really understand how her father stood financially with the Greenboro bank. She did not know whether or not he had money on deposit there. His recent profits from the mine she actually knew nothing about. He was always liberal with her regarding spending money when he had any money at all. She had never asked him for a penny, for that was unnecessary.
Just now her funds chanced to be very low. Some repairs on the Kremlin car had been necessary; and then there was her fall outfit which had just been paid for.
Janice counted her loose cash and looked up her bank balance. The latter was down to fifty dollars; she had not much more than ten dollars in her pocketbook.
She could not ask Uncle Jason for money. Nor Nelson. She could depend upon nobody to help her in this emergency, for they were all against her.
Those words were ever before her mental vision; "I must go!" Determination grew hourly in her heart. No matter what others thought or said her duty lay far off there to the southwest—over the Border in battle-ridden Mexico!