"Betty," she said aloud, so suddenly that Betty started, "there's just one thing we didn't think of as being a solution. It's strange, too, for it is the most probable solution of all."
"What?" asked Betty anxiously.
"Suppose—" said Mollie, her voice so low that Betty had to bend forward to catch the words. "Suppose they have been kidnapped!"
CHAPTER XVII
JOE BARNES AGAIN
"Well, we've got to do something. There's no use sitting around looking at each other!"
The girls started and looked reproachfully at Mollie.
It was several days after the telegram had come which had so upset them and their plans, and they were sitting dejectedly on the sand at the foot of the bluff trying to read. The attempt had proved a failure, however, and one after another the books had dropped to their laps while they stared disconsolately out over the water.
"What would you suggest?" asked Grace listlessly, in response to Mollie's statement.