“The kind of reason we won’t enjoy finding out, maybe,” muttered Dorothy so softly that Tavia asked for a repetition.
But instead of answering, Dorothy turned toward the door and opened it.
“I am going downstairs and get a piece of bread and butter if there is nothing else,” she cried. “I can’t stand the suspense any longer. I must know what has happened to Garry and Joe.”
She was out of the room and down the stairs before Tavia had finished brushing her hair.
The latter, following more slowly, found her chum seated before a repast of cold sliced chicken, current jelly, apple pie and milk.
“Make believe this doesn’t look good to me,” said Tavia, and she, too, sat down to prove her appreciation. Long before she had finished Dorothy rose and ran outside, calling to one of the Mexican boys to saddle two fast ponies.
She saw Hank Ledger, who shook hands with her formally, and hastily told him the story she had told his wife.
When she questioned him eagerly, asking him if he had seen Joe in the vicinity, he answered in the negative.
“Wherever he’s been, he ain’t come here,” he assured her. “Hurry up with them ponies, lad,” he called to the swarthy, grinning Mexican boy. “These here ladies are in a hurry.”
Like his wife, Hank Ledger evidently believed in showing his sympathy in action rather than in words, and again Dorothy was grateful.