"We have got to start out and trace her," Jack Markin told Ned and Nat. "It is inconceivable where she could have gone to."
"We certainly shall start out at once," declared Nat, who was always Tavia's champion, to say nothing of his being her special friend and admirer. "I have known her to do risky things before, but this is the utmost."
"I never saw such a girl," growled Ned. "Just when a fellow expects to have a first-rate time, she puts up something that knocks it out."
Dorothy was disconsolate. Her eyes showed the result of a sleepless night, and her usually pink cheeks were quite pale.
"She would never stay away of her own accord over night," she sighed, "whatever she might do during the day."
"Now, Doro, dear," consoled Cologne, "you must not look at it that way. It is perfectly surprising what may happen, in a perfectly safe way, after one has found out, while before that time such things seem utterly impossible. Haven't we had lots of that at Glenwood?"
"Yes, things do happen that seem anything but likely," Dorothy admitted. "And I do hope that such will be the case this time. I wish we knew!"
"We had a great time in Dalton," said Nat, "the day we went over to see the old place—your old place, Dorothy. The major asked us to go in to look after a leak in the roof, and just as we went into the old plumbing shop we heard a racket. It seems that a fellow named Mortimer Morrison, a stage-struck chap, played a part on the local stage, and while delivering his lines he gave his audience a treat—the real thing in tragics. He went crazy—wild, stark, staring mad! He was an escaped sanitariumite—he got out, found the stage at Dalton, and was having a gay old time when the——" Nat suddenly stopped. "What's the matter, coz?" he asked.
Dorothy was sitting on the rustic bench, at the side of the old corn crib, and she went pale as her cousin told the story. Cologne was beside her, and, as Nat asked what the matter was, Cologne grasped Dorothy's trembling hand.
"What, Dorothy?"