“It was the quick wit of the engineer who saved us, I guess,” said a musical voice behind her, and, astonished, the two girls turned about to find behind them the tall good-looking stranger who had caught Tavia’s particular attention.
The eyes of the irrepressible girl sparkled as she muttered in a tone audible only to Dorothy:
“We can’t run amiss of ’em, no matter how hard we try.”
Dorothy flushed with annoyance and pretended she had not heard the man’s observation. Not so Tavia! If for no other reason than to annoy her chum she determined to see the adventure through.
“We should get up a vote of thanks and send it to the engineer,” she said in her sweetest tones. “He really was quite heroic. Fancy saving the lives of all the people on this train.”
“Just fancy!” mimicked Dorothy bitterly, but the young man was not to be so easily discouraged.
He immediately ranged himself beside the two girls and launched into a boringly detailed account of the accident. In the middle of it Dorothy excused herself and hurried back to the car.
Her cheeks were hot and she felt unreasonably angry with Tavia. To her mind her chum had always been far too easy-going and casual with men, and this, Dorothy thought, was going a little too far.
It was not that Tavia had responded to the stranger—that might have been excusable under the circumstances. It was the manner of her response.
She wondered if the offensive, squat man would still be occupying the seat opposite her when she returned to the car. She was busy framing a scathing speech as she ascended the car steps, but was immensely relieved a moment later to find that there was no need of delivering it.