“Trust Gar to know the lanes,” said Rosa, her spirits soaring with the presence of her friends.
In snatches she and Nancy told Dell something of what had happened—just something. It did not seem necessary to speak of Orilla, although there was a gap in her story when Rosa insisted she had simply been bound by ropes of briars and couldn’t possibly break loose. It was taken for granted then that she did eventually, somehow, “break loose”, and the actual “chopping out” was thus entirely omitted from the recital.
A welcome little toot from the horn of Gar’s car told them that he had made his way through the lane, and the next moment he was again upon the platform, planning how best to get Rosa into the car.
No one joked about her size, nor did they blame her for the predicament, for it was rather a serious matter, as each understood it, and only Rosa herself was privileged to do any joking.
“I can limp if you’ll promise me not to let me step for a single step on that game ankle,” she told her friends. “I never knew one ankle could hurt as badly as this does.”
Gar and Dell insisted upon doing the lifting, as they really were much stronger than Nancy, so with the car lights to guide them, they practically carried Rosa through the little patch that separated the pavilion from the roadway.
Even so, the journey was not accomplished without groans, grunts and admonitions, and it was growing more clear to Nancy each moment that the fat cousin was really quite a baby after all.
She wondered what had become of Orilla. It seemed improbable she should have entirely deserted the injured girl, and as the car was cautiously backed out into the clearance, Nancy kept watching for little flashes of the light which Orilla had carried.
Deeper resentment bore down upon her, however, as they finally made the main road without a single flash sending forth a secret farewell signal.
“How can Rosa be so indifferent to such treatment?” Nancy kept asking herself. “And why ever does she bother with that girl?”