"And this morning my purse is empty, robbed of every cent, and my pearl-handled knife and a button-hook."
Joe had left his wagon and was standing beside Jerry's car, with one foot on the running-board.
"Stolen! Why, why, where's York?" he asked, in amazement.
"I don't know. I don't think he took it," Jerry replied.
"Oh, but I mean what's he doing about it?" Joe questioned, anxiously.
"Nothing. He doesn't know it. I came to find you first, to get you to help me."
"Me!" Joe could think of nothing more to say.
"You won't scold, and I'm afraid York would. I don't want to be scolded," Jerry declared. "He would wonder why I hadn't put it in the bank. And, besides, there have some queer things been happening in New Eden—I can't explain them, for you might not understand, but I do really need a friend right now. Did you ever need one?"
To the girl alone and under suspicion, however kind the friends who were puzzled over her situation, conscious that too many favors were not to be asked of the good-souled Junius Brutus Ponk, the young farmer seemed the only one to whom she could turn. And she had the more readily halted her car to wait for him because she had already begun to weave a romance in homespun about this splendid young agriculturist and the good-hearted country girl, Thelma Ekblad. He, himself, was impersonal to her.
"I'm always needing friends—and I'm more glad than you could know to have you even think of me in your needs. But everybody turns to York Macpherson. He's the lodestar for every Sage Brush compass," Joe said, looking earnestly at Jerry.