"I don't know," Mrs. Bybee snapped. "Yes, it may have been. It was awful hot. And I didn't know anybody was on the train."
"It was open a little way," Sally cried. "I remember distinctly. Because I worried about whether Nita had overheard what Mrs. Bybee had been telling me. And there's something else--something that happened that night, when David and I were walking." Memory of that blessed hour in the moonlight brought tears to her eyes, but she dashed them away with the wrist which bore the marks of Mrs. Bybee's rage.
"What was it, Sally?" Pop Bybee asked gently. "All we want is to get at the truth of this thing. Don't be afraid to speak up."
"I hate being a tattle-tale," Sally whimpered. "I never told on anyone in all my life! But David and I were sitting under a tree, not talking, when we suddenly heard Nita's voice. She couldn't see us for the tree, but we peeped around the trunk of it and we saw Nita and a man walking awfully close together, and Nita was talking. We just heard a few words. She said: 'No monkey business now, Steve. If you double-cross me I'll cut your heart out! Fifty-fifty or nothing--'"
Unconsciously her voice had mimicked Nita's, so that to the startled carnival family it seemed that Nita, the Hula dancer, had appeared suddenly in the car.
"Sounds like Nita, all right." Gus, the barker, nodded with satisfaction. "'Steve,' huh? Who the devil is this Steve?"
"What did he look like, Sally?" Bybee asked.
"I don't know," she answered, her big blue eyes imploring him to believe her. "We couldn't see their faces. We just recognized Nita's voice and her yellow hair that looked almost white in the moonlight. He wasn't tall, not any taller than Nita, and I guess he wasn't very big either, because they were so close together that they looked almost like one person. We didn't hear the man say a word. Nita was doing all the talking--"
"Nita would!" a voice from the crowd growled. "Reckon I can tell you something about this, Pop. I was just ready to ballyhoo the last performance of the 'girlie' show when Nita come slouching up to me, pulling a long face and a song-and-dance about being knocked out with the heat. Bessie had fainted at the last show and I thought Nita might really be all in, so I told her she could cut the last performance and go to the dress tent. I never seen hair nor hide of her again, and--" he paused significantly, "I don't reckon I ever will."