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 assault with the intent to kill.
"Are you crazy?" Bybee demanded hoarsely when she had come running to the stateroom. "Them was dicks! 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 dicks. 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.
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.
