"Try to get on your feet," commanded Ralph. "The air will revive you!"
"There!" gasped Tavia. "There's his hat. I grabbed it when he put the handkerchief, with some stuff on it, to my nose," and the girl held up a gray slouch hat, the kind western men usually wear.
"That may help us," said Ralph. "But first you must both come down to the drug store. That stuff he used may sicken you. It has a queer smell."
Once on their feet the girls seemed all right, in fact as Tavia said, they had only "made believe" to prevent any further violence.
It seemed incredible that two girls should be way-laid in broad daylight, in the hall of the most public building in Dalton, but the fact was certainly plain—there was the dirty white handkerchief reeking with some drug, and besides, there was the hat that Tavia had taken from the man's head.
Ralph took the girls into the prescription room of the drug store, to see if they needed any attention, and there to the astonished drug clerk, as well as to the equally astonished proprietor, Tavia tried to relate what had happened.
"It was the same man who grabbed my papers the other day," she said. "I saw him first as I came along William street. Joe and Roger had just gone in Beck's with their papers, and as I saw the man watching them I was afraid he might kidnap Roger. I was just thinking who would be best to call, when he caught me watching him, and then, like a flash, he sprang into that saloon at the corner. I thought he was frightened lest he would be caught, and I hurried down here to warn Dorothy. Well, no sooner had I put my foot inside the hall than he darted at me—"
"Where did he come from?" asked the drug store proprietor.
"Probably through the alley that leads from the saloon to the end of our building," explained Ralph. "He could easily dash into the hall from there."
"He was after papers," declared Tavia, "for just as he grabbed me he saw Dorothy. I was going to scream when he put that queer-smelling stuff to my nose."