"He's still quite at sea in Pittsburg—if one may use such an expression about a place as far from the ocean as that!" laughed Miss Clark. "He thinks he'll go fast if ever he gets a start, but he hasn't found any trace of the people yet. He's going to search the records not only in Allegheny County but in Washington and Westmoreland and Fayette Counties and the others around Pittsburg, if it's necessary. He surely is persistent."
"Isn't it lucky he is? And don't you hope he'll find some clue before his holidays end? That detective didn't seem to make any progress at all!"
Mr. Clark came back more than ever convinced that he had guessed the cause of the "botanist's" perseverance.
"Unless my eyes and fingers deceive me greatly this is clay and pretty smooth clay," he reported to the waiting group, and Dorothy, who knew something about clay because she had been taught to model, said she thought so, too.
"We know his reason for wanting the land, then," declared Mr. Clark; "now if we could learn why he can't seem to take it in that he's not going to get it, no matter what happens, we might be able to make him take his afternoon walks in some other direction."
"Who is he? And where is he staying?" inquired Mrs. Smith.
"He calls himself Hapgood and he's staying at the Motor Inn."
"Is the little girl his daughter?"
"I'll ask him if he ever comes here again," and Mr. Clark looked as if he almost wished he would appear, so that he might gratify his curiosity.
The Motor Inn was a house of no great size on the main road to Jersey City. A young woman, named Foster, lived in it with her mother and brother. The latter, George, was a high school friend of Helen and Roger. Miss Foster taught dancing in the winter and, being an enterprising young woman, had persuaded her mother to open the old house for a tea room for the motorists who sped by in great numbers on every fair day, and who had no opportunity to get a cup of tea and a sandwich any nearer than Glen Point in one direction and Athens Creek in the other.