“Reserved seats fifty cents,” answered Dorothy promptly.
“This way for the side show,” called out Tavia, who still had the birds on her shoulders.
“I’ve seen worse,” declared Nat, the youth who always saw something to compliment about Tavia. “Say, Coz”—this to Dorothy—“I think I know who took the pigeons, and I want your help to bring them to—justice.”
“Oh, she’s just aching to go on the force,” declared Tavia, “shooing” the doves away, as the news of the thievery was promised. “She thinks those Archangels will ‘telepath’ to her. They were her pets, you know, and what on earth (or in heaven) would be the use of being Archangelic if—well, if in a case of the kind the ‘Archs’ couldn’t make good?”
“She’s only jealous,” declared Dorothy. “Her fantails are sure to fly away to some other country, and so there is no hope for them. They were such high-flyers.”
“Nat thinks he’s got the game dead to rights,” remarked Ned, with a sly wink at Dorothy. “But wait until he tries to land it.”
“Exactly!” announced Nat. “Just wait until I do. There’ll be some doin’s in Birchland, now, I tell you. And if I can’t get the birds alive, I’ll get their feathers—for the girls’ hats.”
“Oh, I am going to join the Bird Protection Society this very day,” and Dorothy shivered. “To think that any one can wear real bird feathers—”
“Now that you know real birds—your Archangels, you can see how it feels,” commented Nat. “We fellows have the same regard for woodcock or snipe. But just suppose some one should shoot those pretty pigeons, and give the feathers to a girl for her hat. She’ll wear them, of course. They were beautiful birds,” and he walked off toward the cage where only the day previous he had so admired the birds that were now strangely missing.
“But who took them?” demanded Tavia.