“Momsy!” cried Jessie. “That handsome watch that his grandmother gave Mark when he returned from France?”
“Yes. It really is a misfortune. But I wonder that his clothes were left on him when he came down with such a crash, let alone his watch,” said Mrs. Norwood. “Now we shall have to search all around here——”
“But surely, Mrs. Norwood, it was not lost inside the house—when they took off his clothes to put him to bed, for instance?” Amy said wonderingly.
“Quite true. We know he must have dropped it when the plane landed. But it might have been flung fifty feet away when the machine came down with such a crash.”
“Oh, Momsy!” exclaimed Jessie. “Or it might be buried in the dirt of the rose garden where the plane landed. I’m going to look. Come on, Amy!” and Jessie ran down the veranda steps again.
Amy was right at her shoulder when her friend reached the place between the house and the tower where the aeroplane had fallen. The men had now removed everything but some worthless bits of the machine. The rose bushes were flattened, and the sod was torn up for some yards around. That part of the Norwood place would not look as it had before until the next season.
“Now, let’s look carefully, everywhere,” Jessie said. “Those workmen, of course, would not find the watch and say nothing about it?”
“They came from Stratfordtown, and I’m sure they are fond of Mark,” said Amy reflectively. “They say everybody is fond of Mark over there, and proud of him, too.”
“Then the watch must be here,” Jessie declared.
“Perhaps,” her chum said, with continued gravity. “But what you just told me about little Hen and those Dogtown kids being up here last evening and poking around, gives me a worried thought, honey.”