“Because we are a couple of idiots, I guess,” returned Dorothy. “However, we can still ask him—by telephone.”
“How much money did the boy have?” asked Ned, with apparent irrelevance.
“Not much,” replied Dorothy sadly. “He couldn’t have got so very far, Ned.”
It seemed only a moment before the train slowed to a stop at North Birchlands. Dorothy and Ned walked rapidly homewards, eager to share this new development with the family. But when they reached The Cedars they found so much worry and excitement rampant there that they temporarily forgot their own adventures.
Roger was gone, had disappeared as completely, it seemed, as Joe!
Dorothy sank down in a chair and covered her eyes with her hand.
“This is too much,” she said. “I don’t believe I can stand any more.”
Then she was on her feet in an instant again, her eyes bright, cheeks hot.
“No one has told Dad this?” she asked, and her Aunt Winnie replied quickly and soothingly in the negative.
“We would not have told him in any case until you returned, dear,” she said, soon adding, with attempted reassurance: “I really don’t think this is serious.”