“And you cried and the stewardess got suspicious—” Cliff added. They were all trying to tell what they knew.
“And we were put ashore on a San Blas Indian island,” she smiled. “Tom, you remember how I loved to doctor my dolls and all? Well, I saw how the Indians lived and when I could make them understand and learned a few words I doctored them as well as I could—and all of a sudden, one night, some Indians from inland came—and they took me away. They thought I was a great spirit or something. But I didn’t have any medicines and I wasn’t very old and so I couldn’t help them.”
“Why didn’t they send you back?” demanded Tom.
“Maybe they were afraid of being caught for what they had done,” Nicky suggested.
“That must be it,” Margery agreed. “They didn’t make me prisoner or anything and they always treat me nice; but they didn’t have any use for me if I couldn’t cure them and so I just stayed and stayed because I didn’t know how to get away.”
“But you’ll get away now!” declared Nicky bravely.
“But what about the deeds and the partnership papers?” demanded Tom. “What did you do with them? They’d be mighty valuable.”
“I hid them the minute father went out,” she said.
“In the mine shack—at the Dead Hope?” Nicky cried.
She nodded.