CHAPTER XXVI[ToC]
DOROTHY'S SUCCESS
The boys from Camp Capital, together with their neighbors, held a consultation there in the woods. They had heard from the sanitarium attendants that, not only had a young girl escaped, and not yet found, but that some weeks previously, a man, "stage-struck," as they put it, had gotten away, and it was to his help that the departure of the girl was attributed. Dorothy, from her hiding place, heard all this, and knew only too well that the man referred to was none other than Morrison.
"And this fellow has been caught?" asked Ned, anxiously.
"Yes," replied one of the men. "We took him in again yesterday afternoon."
"Is he too demented to tell anything? That is, to know who was with him while he was free?" went on Ned.
"Oh, he just talks in a rambling way about a girl who, he declares, should have a fortune that his uncle has hidden away. He has really never been entirely off, but one of the kind who rides a hobby, you know," said the man. "His hobby is theatricals."
"But has he an uncle? Might he have taken a girl to that man?" persisted Ned. "You see, we have reason to believe that the girl we are in search of, met this man. Now, if he has been captured, what has become of her?"
"That's one of the questions we may have to answer before our Board of Inquiry," replied the man with no small concern. "It is easy enough for those lunatics to get away, but to get them back is harder. And the girl's mother is a widow, with all kinds of money."
Dorothy could scarcely keep still. Only the pressure of Cologne's hands kept her from telling what she knew of the story. Then the fear of again being mistaken for Mary Harriwell—that was too great a risk.