But Sally was already dressing, getting her dress on backward and sobbing with futile rage at the time lost in reversing it. When she was scrambling out of her upper berth, a tiny hand reached out of the lower and tugged at her foot. “Don’t forget me, Sally,” the midget commanded sharply. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t take on so! You’ll make yourself sick, crying like that. Of course your David didn’t rob the safe. I’m all dressed.” Sally parted the green curtains and stretched out her arms for the midget, who was so short that she could stand upright upon her bed without her head touching the rounded support of the upper berth. Little Miss Tanner ran into Sally’s arms and clambered to her shoulder. “It’s that Nita.” She nodded her miniature head emphatically. “I always did have my suspicions about her. Always turning white as a sheet when a policeman hove into sight.” “But David’s missing, too,” Sally sobbed, as she hurried down the aisle which was becoming choked with frowsy-headed women in all stages of dress and undress. “Of course he didn’t do it—” “Hurry up, everybody! Don’t take time to primp, girls!” a man bawled at them from the door. They found most of the men employes and performers of the carnival already assembled with the Bybees in the privilege car. Pop Bybee’s usually lobster-colored face was as white as putty, but his arm was gallantly about his wife’s shoulder. Mrs. Bybee still wore the black sateen petticoat and red sweater in which she had hurried from the show train to the carnival immediately after the storm. Her reddened eyes showed that she had been crying bitterly, but as the carnival family crowded into the privilege car she searched each face with fury and suspicion. “Come here to me, Sally Ford!” she shrilled, when Sally entered the car with “Pitty Sing” riding on her shoulder. “Now, honey, go easy!” Pop Bybee cautioned her futilely. “Better let me do the talking—” “You shut up!” his wife commanded angrily. “Sally, you knew where I kept the money! You saw the safe! Oh, I was a fool, all right, but I wanted to show that I trusted you! Huh! Thought I’d wronged you by accusing you of taking presents from my husband! Tell him you saw the safe! Tell him!” And she seized Sally’s wrist and shook her so that the midget had to cling tightly to the girl’s neck to keep from being catapulted to the floor. “Yes, Mrs. Bybee,” Sally answered, her voice almost dying in her throat with fright. “I saw the safe. But I didn’t tell anybody—” “You’re a liar!” Mrs. Bybee screamed. “You told that David boy that very night! Sneaked off and went walking with him and cooked up this robbery so you two could make your get-away. Thought it was a grand way to get out of the state so the cops couldn’t pinch you, didn’t you?” she repeated, beside herself with anger, her fingers clamped like a vise on Sally’s wrist.