He set his small cousin gently on the ground and carefully brushed the leaves and twigs from his clothing.
“Now you’ll do, old man,” he announced, adding suddenly: “Pretty near starved, aren’t you?”
“I—I—guess so,” returned Roger quaveringly, and Tavia longed to put her arms about him and comfort him. She knew better, however, and merely took his hand firmly in her own and led the way back to the old wagon road and the waiting Fire Bird.
“We’ve got the car and we will have you home in a jiffy, Roger,” she said cheerfully. “I reckon the folks there will be glad to see you.”
“Dorothy will be awful scared, I guess,” he remarked hesitantly. “It must be awful late.”
“It is and she will,” Tavia retorted promptly, and at the hint of reproach in her voice the small boy seemed once more on the verge of tears.
“I couldn’t help it,” he cried, with a catch in his voice that he could not control no matter how hard he tried. “I—I just had to find Joe an’ tell him—something,” he finished weakly.
“Well, did you?” asked Nat, with good-natured sarcasm.
“No,” admitted Roger dispiritedly. “I thought I might maybe take the train because that must ’a’ been the way Joe went, but I just happened to think that I didn’t have any money.”
“That is apt to be a slight drawback,” admitted Nat gravely, and thereupon launched into a short lecture on the wickedness of small boys who went anywhere without first gaining the consent of those at home.