“But we didn’t,” snapped Tavia. “Who expected to find a structural ironworker driving a yoke of steers?”
“And such steers,” sighed Dorothy, for she had scarcely gotten over the scare of that perilous ride.
Everybody about town knew by this time that the red-haired young man who had worked in Simpson’s gang was wanted by Dorothy Dale. Dorothy had more friends in Dalton than anywhere else. Indeed, she could well claim every respectable member of the community, save the nursing babies, as her own particular friend.
With so many people on the lookout for a trace of Tom Moran, therefore, it was no wonder that Dorothy and her friends were running down possible clues all day long.
The second morning news came from a farmer out on the Fountainville Road. Ned and Nat had come down to Dalton in their Firebird, and they got the motorcar out of the garage at once and brought it around to give the girls a ride to Farmer Prater’s house.
“He’s been losing chickens,” said Ned, as they all scrambled in. “And he telephoned in something about a red-headed man he had hired, named Moran, having a fight in the night with a band of chicken thieves in an automobile. What do you know about that?”
“Sounds crazy enough,” said Tavia, tartly.
“All right. Your father’s sent a constable out to see about it, just the same. And there aren’t two red-headed men named Moran wandering about the county, I am sure.”
“But I don’t believe Celia’s brother would rob a henroost,” said Dorothy.
“Oh, fudge!” exclaimed Nat. “Listen to the girl? Who said he did?”