“Well, I didn’t know that when I was climbing out there, did I?” demanded Roger peevishly, and Nat’s hand closed over Tavia’s with a warning pressure.
“And when I tried to get back again,” Roger continued, “I couldn’t. I tried and I tried and then I tried yelling. But nobody must uv heard me, because nobody came,” he concluded dolefully.
“Except us! Don’t forget your old Uncle Nat, my boy,” Nat reminded him.
“Oh, you’re not my uncle; you’re just my cousin,” Roger retorted, and Tavia giggled.
“How’s that for gratitude?” she crowed, and Nat chuckled.
“Anyway, you have to admit—uncle or cousin—that I turned the trick and got you down,” he said to Roger.
“Yes,” the small boy admitted, adding reminiscently: “But you did pinch my arm something awful!”
While this was happening, Dorothy, all unconscious of it, was having an exciting adventure of her own.
Ned White had come to her soon after Tavia and Nat had left The Cedars on their quest for the missing Roger and revealed excitedly that he thought he had “raked up” a clue that might throw light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Joe’s disappearance.
“I met a fellow who lives at Scranting,” he said, mentioning a township some miles further out than North Birchlands. “He says that he remembers seeing a chap around the railroad station there who might answer Joe’s description. It’s only a chance, Dorothy—the boy probably was not Joe at all—but it seems to me the clue is worth following up.”