He was kneeling, bareheaded. Pemrose was sobbing wildly, kissing the ground where among rank grasses, held down by a stone or two, were a few drowsy wild flowers, of the sort that close sleepily at night—open in the morning.
Dandelion, daisy, a white clover blossom, its triple leaves unfolding, a glow of orange, a little sprig of tawny hawkweed—devil’s paint-brush—picked behind the camp.
“Mercy! She must have looked round for them, arranged them so—so that anybody who knew her, would know it could only be she who did it—at least, we girls would—that she had been here—lately!” Pemrose could hardly speak now.
“And led that awful kidnapping aunt to believe she was only playing with them!” The brown speck in Treff’s right eye, his seat of humor, blazed as it had never blazed before—through a mist.
He knelt, an unkempt figure, in khaki riding breeches—mud-splashed shirt.
“But—but her little flower clock! A ‘teeny’ bit of it!” The hand of Pemrose caught at her throat. “Oh-h! I can’t stand this. Where is she now?”
“Wherever she is, she’s on top. And coming through!” The aviator drew his sleeve across a wet face. “And we—we must get right after them. Just a minute for the horses to draw breath—’twill pay! Do you—know—what this reminds me of?”
His voice dropped with his eyes to the flowers.
“No-o.”
“My old Dad, he was such a queer fish,” the young dare-devil’s voice had the frankness of utter emotion now, “he could have given this hor-ri-ble step-aunt pointers on queer tricks. Was a sort of a skeptic, too, didn’t believe much in what he couldn’t feel or see. But—but, after that last mad escapade, when he stole your father’s record, and lay in agony out in the Man Killers trail, while you took care of him, he said to himself—then—that there must be Something Very Fine back of it all—finer than the girl herself—see?