CHAPTER IIJOE DISAPPEARS
Dorothy’s face went white and she gripped Nat fiercely by the arm.
“Tell me what it is!” she gasped. “Nat, don’t try to keep anything from me!”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to, Dot, old girl,” said her cousin gravely. “That’s why the Major wanted me to break the news to you.”
“Oh, Nat,” wailed Dorothy, “don’t keep me waiting! Tell me what you mean! What is the matter with Joe?”
They reached Tavia’s house. Nat pulled the two girls down beside him in the porch swing, an arm about Tavia and his hand gripping Dorothy’s reassuringly.
“He has disappeared, Dot,” said the young fellow gravely. “But you mustn’t——”
“Disappeared!” cried Dorothy, interrupting him. “How could he, Nat? Where would he go?”
“Why, the whole thing is preposterous, Nat!” cried Tavia. “A boy like Joe wouldn’t do sucha thing—in earnest. He must just be playing a prank.”
“A rather serious prank,” replied Nat soberly. “And one I wouldn’t recommend any youngster to try.”
Dorothy felt dazed. That Joe, her young and mischievous though dearly beloved brother, should disappear!
“Nat, did he—did he—run away, do you suppose? Was there a quarrel or anything?”
“Not a thing, as far as I can find out,” returned Nat. Then he paused, but finally added slowly, as though he were reluctant to cause his cousin any further pain: “But there was a rather curious coincidence.”
“Nat, you are so provoking!” cried Tavia impatiently. “Do come to the point! Can’t you see Doro is ready to collapse with fright?”
“There has been a fire in Haskell’s store——”
“Good gracious, listen to the boy!” cried the flyaway scathingly. “As though that could have anything to do with Joe!”
“It may have a good deal to do with Joe; or with his disappearance, at any rate,” said Nat quietly. Once more Dorothy reached her hand out pleadingly toward him.
“What has this to do with Joe?” she asked faintly.
“We don’t know, Dot. And, of course, it maynot have a thing to do with him. It seemed rather an odd coincidence that Joe should disappear on the very day that Haskell’s toy and stationery store burned down.”
“It was the largest store of its kind in North Birchlands,” murmured Dorothy, hardly knowing what she said. “And you say Joe disappeared at about the same time? Oh, Joe, foolish boy, where are you now? What have you done?”
Dorothy buried her face in her hands and Tavia rose from her place beside Nat and encircled Dorothy in a strangling embrace.
“Never you mind, Doro Doodlekins,” she cried stoutly. “We’ll find that young brother of yours or know the reason why!”
But Dorothy was not to be so easily consoled. For years, since the death of her mother, Dorothy Dale, young as she was, had taken the place of their mother to her two younger brothers, Joe and Roger. The boys were good boys, but mischievous, and Dorothy had spent many anxious moments over them.
The adventures of Dorothy, Tavia and their friends begin with the first volume of this series, entitled “Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day.” At that time the Dale family lived in Dalton, a small town in New York State. Major Dale owned and editedThe Dalton Bugleand upon the success of this journal depended the welfare of hisfamily. Stricken desperately ill in the midst of a campaign to “clean up” Dalton, the existence of theBuglewas threatened, as well as the efforts of the better element in town to establish prohibition.
Dorothy, a mere girl at that time, came gallantly to the rescue, getting out the paper when her father was unable to do so, and in other ways doing much toward saving the day.
Tavia Travers, her most intimate girl chum and as different from Dorothy as night from day, had helped and encouraged the latter in her great undertaking. Since then the two girls had been inseparable.
Later Major Dale had come into a considerable fortune so that he was no longer compelled to depend upon theBuglefor his livelihood. As a result, the Dale family moved to The Cedars, a handsome estate at North Birchlands, where already lived the Major’s widowed sister and her two sons, Ned and Nat White, both older than Dorothy.
At Glenwood School Dorothy started on a different life. Her school adventures were many and interesting, and in these Dorothy and Tavia never failed to take a leading part.
In the volume directly preceding this, entitled “Dorothy Dale’s Engagement,” Dorothy met romance in the person of handsome Garry Knapp,a young Westerner who dreamed of raising wheat on his ranch near Desert City. True love followed its proverbially rocky course with the two young people, but the death of Garry’s Uncle Terry and the legacy of a considerable fortune left him by the old man magically smoothed the path for them.
Now we find Dorothy again in Dalton with Tavia, looking forward to her next meeting with Garry Knapp and, despite all her common sense and will power, missing him desperately in the meantime.
And to her here had come Nat with this terrifying news about Joe.
What was she going to do? How was she going to find her brother?
She turned to Nat again pleadingly.
“Tell me all about it, Nat; every little thing. Perhaps that will help me think what I should do.”
“I’ve told you all I know about Joe——”
“But about the fire?” Dorothy interrupted him impatiently. “How did it start? What made it?”
“An explosion in the back room, I believe,” returned Nat, his usually merry face clouded with anxiety. “Nobody seems to know what made it, but there is a general impression that there was some sort of explosion. People in the neighborhoodsay they heard a loud noise and a few moments later saw smoke coming out of the store windows.”
“About time somebody sent in an alarm, I should think,” began Tavia, but Nat silenced her.
“You would think somebody sent in an alarm if you could have glimpsed the number of engines rushing to the rescue,” he retorted. “I don’t think there was a firehouse in North Birchlands, even the smallest and humblest that was neglected.”
“Yet they failed to save the store,” murmured Dorothy.
“It was a fierce fire and by the time the firemen turned a working stream on it, the whole place was gutted.”
“Was anybody hurt?” inquired Tavia, and Dorothy turned startled eyes on Nat. It was the first time she had thought of that possibility.
“Mr. Haskell was pretty badly burned,” replied Nat reluctantly. “The old codger would dodge back into the flames in a crazy attempt to save his account books. They were burned up, of course, and he came very near following in their footsteps.”
“They haven’t got any, as you know very well, Nat White,” said Tavia flippantly, but instantlyher face sobered as she looked at Dorothy. Her chum was white and there was a strained expression about her mouth that made her suddenly look years older.
“You shouldn’t have told her that about Mr. Haskell,” Tavia reproached Nat. “It wasn’t necessary to go into all the gruesome details.”
“She asked me,” Nat defended himself, adding in a more cheerful tone: “Anyway, there isn’t anything gruesome about it. Nobody was seriously hurt, not even Mr. Haskell. They took him to the hospital to dress his burns, and the old fellow will probably be up and around as chipper as ever in a few days.”
But Dorothy shook her head.
“If they took him to the hospital he must be pretty seriously hurt,” she said, and Tavia gave an impatient flounce in the swing.
“Good gracious, Doro Doodlekins, there’s no use looking on the worst side of the thing!” she cried. “Let’s presume that Mr. Haskell is all right and that Joe will turn up, right side up with care, in a few days.”
But Dorothy was not listening to her. She turned her white face to Nat who was watching her anxiously.
“Nat,” she said slowly, “you don’t suppose Joe’s disappearance really has anything to do with the fire, do you? I mean,” she said quickly asshe saw the frown of quick denial on Nat’s brow, “you don’t think that—by accident—he might have—you know he always is getting into all sorts of scrapes.”
“It is merely a coincidence, Dot,” repeated Nat, hoping that the words sounded more reassuring to his cousin than they did to him. He knew that they had not when Dorothy caught up his words, turning toward him with an angry light in her eyes.
“Then it is a very unfortunate coincidence,” she cried. “You know as well as I do, Nat, that when a thing like this happens and then some one runs away, his name is always connected——”
“Hush, Doro!” cautioned Tavia, for Dorothy had unconsciously raised her voice. “A stranger approaches on foot. Methinks he is a messenger lad.”
The “messenger lad” handed Dorothy a yellow envelope for which she signed tremulously.
“A telegram!” she whispered, looking from Tavia to Nat. “I—oh, Tavia, I am almost afraid to open it!”