Girl Alone Part 23

When they had gone the midget yanked the green curtains together with comical fierceness, then crawled under the top of the sheet that covered Sally.

"I'm going to sleep here with you, Sally," she said. "I don't take up much room."

And the woman who was old enough to be Sally's mother curled her 29-inch body in the curve of Sally's right arm and laid her tiny cheek, as soft and wrinkled as a worn kid glove, in the hollow of Sally's firm young neck.

But long after the midget was asleep, Sally lay wide-eyed and tense in the dark, her mind a welter of fears and love and doubt. She had pleaded pa.s.sionately with Pop Bybee for David, fiercely shoving to the dark depths of her mind even the memory of the jealousy which Nita had fiendishly aroused in her heart. But now that she had saved him temporarily by convincing Bybee that the boy could not have taken part in the robbery, doubt began to insinuate its ugly body upward from those dark depths where she had buried it.

Did he really love her-a pathetic, immature girl from an orphanage, a girl who had been nothing but a responsibility and a source of dire trouble to him since he had first met and championed her on the Carson farm?

Her old feeling of inferiority rose like nausea in her throat. Life in an orphanage is not calculated to give a girl faith in her own beauty and charm. No one, until David's teasing eyes had rested on her, had thought her beautiful.

Had he been only sorry for her, glad of an opportunity to "blow," to get out of the state where he was wanted on two serious charges? Was he dismayed, too, by the fact that moonlight had tricked him into telling her that he loved her, thus adding the responsibility of her future to the burden of protecting her in this hectic present?

Then a sweeter, saner memory clamored for attention. She heard again his fond, husky voice caressing her, his "Dear little Sally!" And involuntarily her mouth pursed in memory of his kiss, that kiss that had left her giddy with delight.

How unfailingly kind and sweet he had been since that first day, when he had strode into her life, with the sun on his chestnut hair and the glory of the sun in his eyes. He had not failed her once, but she was failing him now, by doubting him, by picturing him as a fugitive in the dark, fleeing with a pair of criminals who had robbed the man whose kindness had protected him from the law.

Why, she must be crazy to think for a moment that David could do a thing like that! No one in the world was as good and kind and honorable as David.

But where was he? Mrs. Bybee had left him to guard the train. Not for a moment could she believe that he had failed in his trust. Painfully, Sally tried to visualize the dreadful thing that had happened. David alone, patrolling the train, his eyes sharp for intruders. Then-the sudden appearance of Nita and the man, Steve, weighted down with the contents of the safe they had robbed. For Sally knew that the robbery must have taken place before David caught his first glimpse of the crooks. Otherwise the safe would be intact now, even if David's dead body had been found as silent witness that he had fulfilled his trust.

Her mind shuddered away from that imagined picture, went back to the painful reconstruction of what must have taken place. David had seen them, had given chase. Of course! Otherwise he would be here now. Was he still pursuing them, or was he lying somewhere near the road, wounded, his splendid young body ignominiously flung into a cornfield?

She could bear no more, could no longer lie safe in her berth while David needed her somewhere. Very carefully, for all her haste, she lifted the tiny body that nestled against her side and laid it tenderly upon the pillow, which was big enough to serve as a mattress for the midget. Then, sobbing soundlessly, she groped for her shoes in the little green hammock swung across the windows; found them, put them on, slipped to the edge of the berth. She was profoundly thankful that the girls had not undressed her after she had fainted.

When she reached the car in which Mr. and Mrs. Bybee occupied a stateroom she saw the showman and his wife through the open door, talking to two strangers whom she guessed to be plainclothes policemen from police headquarters of Capital City. The two men were evidently about to leave, nodding impatiently that they understood, when Sally appeared, like a frightened, pale little ghost in green-and-white striped gingham.

She forgot that she was without make-up, that the police were looking for her as well as for the criminals who had robbed the safe. But Pop Bybee had not forgotten. Still talking with the plainclothes detectives, he motioned to her violently behind his back. She turned and forced herself to walk slowly and sedately toward the other end of the car as the detectives made their farewells and their brusque promises of "quick action."

When the men had left the car Bybee's voice summoned her in a husky stage whisper, calling her "Lalla," so that the detectives, if they were listening, should not identify her with the girl who had run away from the orphanage in the company of a man wanted on a charge of a.s.sault with the intent to kill.

"Are you crazy?" Bybee demanded hoa.r.s.ely when she had come running to the stateroom. "Them was d.i.c.ks! Policemen, understand? They mighta nabbed you. What are you doing up? Get back to bed and try to sleep."

"Have you found David?" she quavered, brushing aside his anxiety for her.

"Not a sign of him." Bybee shook his head. "But I didn't spill the beans to the d.i.c.ks. I'd given you my word, and Winfield Bybee's word is as good as his bond."

"I'm going to look for David," she announced simply, but her blazing eyes dared him to try to prevent her. "He's hurt somewhere-or killed.

I'm going to find him."

And before the astonished man or his wife could stretch out a hand to detain her she was gone. When she dropped from the platform of the car she heard the retreating roar of the police car. Instinct turned her in the opposite direction, away from the city, down the railroad tracks leading into the open country.

She did not know and would not have cared that Mr. and Mrs. Bybee were following her, Mrs. Bybee muttering disgustedly but refusing to let Sally search alone for the boy in whom she had such implicit faith.

Dawn was breaking, pale and wan, in a sky that was shamelessly cloudless and serene after the violence of last night's storm, when, over a slight hill, a man's figure loomed suddenly, then seemed to drag with unbearable weariness as it plodded toward the show train.

"David!" Sally shrieked. "David!"

She began to run, her ankles turning against clots of cinders, but her arms outstretched, a glory greater than that of the dawn in her face.

Before she reached him Sally almost fainted with horror, for in the pale light of the dawn she saw that David's shirt about his left shoulder was soaked with blood. But his uninjured right arm was stretched out in urgent invitation, and his voice was hailing her gaily, in spite of his terrible weakness and fatigue.

"Dear little Sally!" he cried huskily, as his right arm swept her against his breast. "Why aren't you in bed, darling? But I'm glad you're not! I've been able to keep plodding on in the hope of seeing you. Did you think I'd run away and left you? Poor little Sally!" he crooned over her, for she was crying, her frantic hands playing over his face, her eyes devouring him through her tears.

"But you're hurt, David!" she moaned. "I knew you were hurt! I told them so! I was looking for you. I knew you hadn't run away."

"And she made us believe you hadn't, too," Pop Bybee panted, having reached them on a run, dragging his wife behind him. "What happened, Dave boy? Had a mix-up with the dirty crooks, did you?"

"Winfield Bybee, you _are_ a fool!" Mrs. Bybee gasped, breathless from running. "Let the poor boy get his breath first. Here! Put your arm about him and let him lean on you. Sally, you run back to the train and get help. This boy's all done up and he's going to have that shoulder dressed before he's pestered to death with questions."

"I can walk," David panted, his breath whistling across his ashen lips.

"I don't want Sally out of my sight. I-would-give up-then. Nothing much-the matter. Just a-bullet-in my shoulder. Be all right-in a-day or two."

"Please don't try to talk, darling," Sally begged, rubbing her cheek against his right hand and wetting it with tears.

"Lean on me and take it easy," Pop Bybee urged, his voice husky with unashamed emotion. "And don't talk any more till we get you into a berth. G.o.d! But I'm glad to see you, Dave boy! I'd made up my mind I'd never trust another man if you'd thrown me down. But Sally didn't doubt you a minute. Kept me from telling the police that you had disappeared with the crooks."

"Thanks," David gasped, leaning heavily on the showman. "I was scared sick-the police-had found-Sally. Knew there was-bound to be-an awful row."

He fainted then, his splendid young body crumpling suddenly to the cinders of the railroad track. Somehow the three of them managed to get him to the show train and into the Bybees' stateroom, where Gus, the barker, who had graduated from a medical school before the germ of wanderl.u.s.t had infected him, dressed the wounded shoulder.

"The bullet went clear through the fleshy part of the arm at the shoulder," Gus told them, as he washed his hands in the stateroom's basin. "No bones touched at all. Just a flesh wound. Of course he's lost a lot of blood and he'll be pretty shaky for a few days, but no real harm done. You can turn off the faucet, Sally. Save them tears for a big tragedy-like ground gla.s.s in your cold cream, or something like that.

Want a real doctor to give that shoulder the once-over, Pop?" he asked, turning to Bybee, who had not left David's side.

It was David, opening his eyes dazedly just then, who answered: "No other doctor, please. I'm a fugitive from justice, remember. If I could have some coffee now I think I could tell you what happened, Mr. Bybee."

A dozen eager voices outside the stateroom door offered to get the coffee from the privilege car, and within a few minutes Sally was kneeling before David, holding a cup of steaming black coffee to his lips.

As many of the carnival family as could crowd into the small s.p.a.ce of the car aisle pressed against the open door of the stateroom to hear his story. Jan the Holland giant, who was too tall to stand upright in the car, was invited into the stateroom, where he sat between Pop Bybee and Mrs. Bybee, "Pitty Sing" in the crook of one of his arms, Noko, the Hawaiian midget, in the other. Sally still knelt beside David, holding his right hand tightly in both of hers and laying her lips upon it when his story moved her unbearably.

"I suppose Mrs. Bybee has told you that I was leaving the show train to go to the carnival grounds to see if anything had happened to Sally. I'd have gone sooner, but the storm was so violent that I knew I'd not have a chance to get there. Mrs. Bybee said she was going to the lot and would look after Sally for me, but she wanted me to stay on the train, or near it, to patrol it. She didn't tell me there was a lot of money in her stateroom, or I'd have stationed myself in there."

"You see," Sally interrupted eagerly. "I told you I hadn't said a word to him about the safe."

"Safe?" David glanced down at her, puzzled. "So this Steve crook cracked a safe to get the money, did he? I didn't know-didn't have time to find out."

"And I told you it was a man named Steve!" Sally reminded them joyously, raising David's cold hand to her lips. "They thought I was making it all up, Dave, but they believed me after a while."

"I suppose Sally has told you that we saw Nita and some man walking in the moonlight that last night we were in Stanton," David addressed Pop Bybee. "We heard her call him Steve, and say something about what she'd do to him if he double-crossed her. I should have told you then, Mr.

Bybee, but I didn't have an idea Nita was planning to rob the outfit, and anyway-" he blushed, his eyes twinkling fondly at Sally-"by morning I'd forgotten all about it. I couldn't think of anything but-but Sally.

You see we'd just told each other that night that-that-well, sir, that we loved each other and-"

"Anybody else in the whole outfit could have told you that," Bybee chuckled. "It's all right, Dave. Carnival folks usually mind their own business and spend d.a.m.n little time toting tales."

"I'm glad you're not blaming me," David said gratefully. "Well, sir, I was walking up and down the tracks, just wild to get away and see if anything had happened to Sally, when suddenly I heard a soft thud, like somebody jumping to the ground on the other side of the train. I crossed over as quick as I could, but by that time they were running down the side of the train pretty far ahead of me. It was Nita and a man. They must have been hidden on the train, waiting their chance, when the storm broke-were there when Mrs. Bybee left.

"I suppose they hadn't counted on any such luck; had probably intended to overpower her before you got back, sir, and the storm saved them the trouble."

"I'd have give them a run for the money," Mrs. Bybee retorted grimly, her skinny old hand knotting into a menacing fist.