Because the carnival lot selected by "the Kidder," Pop Bybee's advance man and "fixer," was in the heart of the city, and the railroad spur allotted to the show train on the outskirts of it, the cars would be abandoned by the carnival performers and employes, only Pop and Mrs. Bybee continuing to occupy their drawing room in one of the Pullmans. Sally, being told the arrangements, suspected that they stayed with the train to guard the safe under the green plush seat, the existence of which was known only to Sally. Mrs. Bybee took little interest in the carnival itself, caring only for the heaviness of the canvas money bags, which were brought to her at the end of each day's business.
It was still not seven o'clock when Sally joined the straggling procession of performers headed for the cook tent and dress tent, a quarter of a mile from the show train. She knew very little of the city itself, since the orphanage was situated on its own farm in a thinly settled suburb.
There was no glow of pride, no sense of home-coming as she trudged through the almost deserted streets, but every time she passed a policeman idly swinging his "billie" on a street corner she thanked Pop Bybee in her heart that he had cautioned her to don her disguise. For beyond a casually interested glance at her brown face and hands and her long swinging braids of fine, lustrous black hair, the law did not seem to find her worthy of attention.
If only David could pass that cordon successfully! Probably he had gone to the carnival grounds. But Pop Bybee, true to his promise to protect the boy, had decreed that he should become private chef and waiter to himself and Mrs. Bybee, remaining cooped up all day in the privilege car of the show train.
Poor David! Dear David! Her heart ached passionately for his loneliness, for his magnificent body caged in a hot box of a kitchen, when it had been so gloriously free in fragrant, sun-kissed fields before she had met him.
Why, he might almost as well be in jail! And he had done nothing but protect a girl alone in the world from the cruel revenge of a man who had promised the state to treat her as his own daughter.
But even though her heart throbbed with pain for David she could not be wholly sad, for he loved her, wanted to marry her, would even now be married to her if she had let him give up his ambitions for her.
