"Do you mean it?" demanded the good-natured engineer. "Do you really mean you need it?"
"Yes, sir! I need it all right, all right. And I don't want you should ask me what for. And I don't want you should tell anybody."
At another time Frank Bowman might have hesitated. But knowing the trouble Mr. Day was in over the Hotchkiss notes, he suspected Marty was bent on helping his father with some needed sum of money. He took out his notecase and handed the seventy-five dollars to Marty in banknotes.
"You're a good fellow, Mr. Bowman," the boy cried.
"So are you," responded the engineer, smiling into the lad's eyes.
"'Tisn't everybody would trust me like this."
"'Tisn't everybody who knows you as well as I do, Marty. If you get stuck and can't pay me back right away, I'll let you work it out when the V. C. branch gets to running."
That was talking "man to man" and Marty's chest swelled.
"You won't be sorry for this," he assured Frank Bowman, and hurried home to supper.
So he had the money safely fastened in his inside vest pocket while he watched his cousin so oddly during the evening. When she was helping Aunt 'Mira with the dishes Marty slipped into Janice's room. He found her traveling bag in the bottom of her closet, packed as he suspected.