Margaret laughed, but Madaline shivered. Scout girls were supposed to know how to use a gun, but fortunately Grace was still in the Tenderfoot class. Perhaps before she could possibly get permission to try gunning, she would have outgrown her tendency to capture tramps with ostensibly stolen washes. Madaline sincerely hoped so.
When almost in town Grace gained an opportunity to whisper to Madaline:
"Now remember, Madie. Never a word. I am not sure my man got away, you know. He may be tied up there yet. And also, I may get someone to go with me and reclaim Mrs. Johnston's wash. I know about where it broke loose."
CHAPTER IV
PATHS DIVIDING
But the happenings in the woods were quickly forgotten, at least so far as the scout girls were concerned, by the unexpected development in the case of the two girls, Dagmar and Tessie, who had stolen out of Flosston.
In that section of the town where the girls lived, the Americanized foreigners had little in common with such families as those of the girls of True Tred Troop. In fact, few happenings in the mill community ever reached the ears of the so-called "swells," that inappropriate term being applied to those whose fathers held some executive position in the great silk industries of Flosston.
Thus it was easy to understand why the scouts had heard nothing next day of the mysterious disappearance of Dagmar and Tessie.
A contrary situation existed in Millville, however. Here the families of both girls were causing a search to be made in that peculiar fashion of confusion and excitement, usually ending in making the condition more complicated, and giving rise to absolutely no clues worthy of attention.
Mrs. Brodix, Dagmar's mother, good, kind mother that she was, spent her time wringing her hands and rolling her big black eyes, otherwise in extolling the hitherto undiscovered virtues of the lost daughter.