“Well, I’m glad that Walter has become a back number,” Frank observed; “because I knew you were worrying a lot about losing such a good little friend as Dora. You always did think a heap of her, right from the start. Remember the time that tramp set their farmhouse afire, after robbing them; and when we were skating up that way we had a roaring time putting out the blaze?” “That was sure a screaming old time, Frank; I think of it often, and how pretty Dora did look, with her rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes.” “Hold on, let’s change the subject,” broke in Frank, with a laugh. “I suppose now, you’re beginning to think your wire went astray, and that we’ll never hear from that Mr. Elverson?” Lanky sobered up instantly. “Say, three and a quarter gone up the flume, Frank,” he remarked, shrugging his shoulders in an expressive way. “Not that I’m carin’ so much for the hard cash, if only it ended in somethin’. But it comes in too slow to be just thrown away like that.” “Wait,” said Frank, as he had done before; “the game isn’t over yet, by a long sight, Lanky. Sooner or later that message is just bound to catch up with Mr. Elverson; and if he hasn’t found his little Effie yet, it’ll bring an answer as fast as he can get it on the wires.” “But the gypsies’ll sure vamoose long before that!” expostulated Lanky. “Let ’em go,” Frank went on, as though he did not mean to worry over such a little thing. “Between us we ought to be able to find out some way to keep tabs on the tribe, no matter where they wander. And once we hear from the gentleman, if he hasn’t found his girl, and she _did_ wear such a baby bonnet as you described, why, it’ll be easy to get on a train, and go to the town near where they’re camped right then.” “Of course it will, Frank,” Lanky admitted, brightening up like magic. “There never was a chum like you to see ahead. The fog can’t get so thick but what you manage to punch a hole in it, and glimpse light on the other side. Why, of course we can do what you say. It’s easy as fallin’ off a log.” “Then stop bothering your head about it, Lanky.” “Guess I will,” answered the tall boy, resolutely. “I told you that other business would come out all right, sooner or later; didn’t I?” Frank demanded. “That’s straight goods, Frank.” “And it did, you noticed, Lanky?” “It sure did,” was the candid admission of the other; “but see here, Frank, with all your smartness, I don’t reckon you ever dreamed it’d happen the way it did, now?” “Well, I should say not,” returned Frank, highly amused. “Why, I never even had the slightest idea that you meant to go back to town aboard that old tub of Ben Allison’s; or that a certain young lady would be a passenger, too. And as to expecting Ben to steer into a sunken snag, and knock Dora overboard, why, who’d ever dream of such a thing? And it all worked out as fine as silk for you. But you seem to be wanting to turn off the main road here, and take that one leading to Budd’s Corners?”