“Oh, please!” Sally moaned, writhing with a pain of which she was scarcely conscious, so great was her fear and bewilderment at this unexpected charge. “Sally certainly didn’t go with him,” Pop Bybee interposed reasonably. “Sure she didn’t!” his wife shrilled with angry triumph. “She couldn’t! She couldn’t! She was buried under the tent! If it hadn’t been for the storm she wouldn’t be here now, working on your sympathies with them dying-calf eyes of hers—” “Better let me handle this, honey,” Pop Bybee interrupted again, this time more firmly. “Turn the child loose. Ain’t a bit of use breaking her arm. Now, folks, I might as well tell you all just what happened, and then try to get to the bottom of this matter. When the worst of the storm was over Mrs. Bybee left the show train to look for me, to see if I was hurt or if she could do anything for anyone who was. She hadn’t been out of the stateroom all evening till then—not since she’d put some money into the safe right after supper. She found the boy Dave starting out to look for Sally, and she ordered him to stay on the train to keep an eye on it, in case tramps or crooks tried to board it. There wasn’t anybody else on the train. That right, Mother?” He turned to Mrs. Bybee, who nodded angrily. “She told him she’d look after Sally, but he’d have to stand guard on the train. She didn’t say anything to him about the safe—just told him to patrol the train while she was gone. The safe is under a seat in our stateroom, and far as we knew, nobody knew where it was, except Sally here, who happened to come into the stateroom when my wife was counting a day’s receipts.” “Please, Mr. Bybee,” Sally interrupted, memory struggling with the panic in her brain. “Someone else did know! Nita knew! When I left the stateroom that last day in Stanton I saw Nita disappearing into the women’s dressing room, and I thought she’d been listening. She—” “Hold on a minute!” Bybee cut in sternly. “How do you know she’d been listening? Any proof?” “Yes, sir!” Sally cried eagerly. “Mrs. Bybee had been telling me that she’d found out that Ford isn’t my real name, that the woman I always thought was my mother wasn’t really my mother at all. She said she guessed I—that my mother was ashamed I’d ever been born. And that same day Nita called me a—a bad name that means—” She could not go on. Sobs began to shake her small body again and her face was scarlet with shame. “That’s right!” Gus, the barker, edged toward Bybee through the crowd. “I found Sally lighting into Nita for calling her that name. And Nita didn’t deny she’d done it. Reckon that proves she was eavesdropping, all right. And if she was listening in, too, she was probably peeping in, too, or heard Mrs. Bybee talking about the safe. Was the door open, ma’am?” “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.”