Janet | Page 6

The boy nodded.
"Best way," he said. "Do you know horses as well as dogs?" he
inquired slowly.
"No, we haven't any, you see," Janet replied, as she gathered up her
things and started for the house.
"Too bad." The boy spoke with a drawl that had nothing of laziness in
it but a good deal of dreamy calculation. He leaned over and patted Roy.
"Good night, old fellow," he said, and without a word more to Janet he
disappeared as quickly as he had come.

Janet went on into the house, wondering who he could be, but for some
reason she did not ask Mrs. Waters, perhaps because that good lady
was too busy thanking her.
"I think you are so clever, dearie," she said warmly. "I wonder where
Harry can be. It's dark, and he ought to see you home."
"Oh, don't bother Harry," Janet protested. "I'll run all the way and I'll be
there in no time. I'll be down to see Roy to-morrow."
As soon as she was out of sight of the cottage she did run. It was quite
chilly, and the salt wind in her face made her blood tingle, and all the
worries of the day faded away with the last glow of the sunset. It was
not until she was undressing for bed, several hours later, that she
remembered her letter. Her time had been taken up thinking about the
strange boy who had come so quickly to her aid. When she went to the
pocket of her dress to look for it, it was not there.
CHAPTER THREE
: MRS. TODD INTERVENES
"What are you in such a hurry with your breakfast for, child?" Martha,
her hands on her big hips, stood in the doorway between the
dining-room and the kitchen, and looked at Janet with mild curiosity.
It was a gray, misty morning, with a salty taste and feel to everything.
Janet looked up from her place where, with the assistance of Boru, she
was finishing the last strip of bacon on her plate.
"I want to go over to the Waters' to see how Roy is," she explained only
half truthfully, for her thoughts were almost entirely centered on the
hope of finding the letter she had lost the night before.
"Well, dearie me, that's no reason for bolting your food," Martha
protested, but she let the matter drop and went back into her kitchen.
Without waiting to stop at her grandmother's room, Janet hurried out of

the house and started for the village. She kept her eyes on the road, but
the Waters' cottage was reached without a sign of the missing white
envelope.
Harry was lurking in the doorway of the barn, and Janet called a cheery
greeting to him. There was no sign of the boy with the torn straw hat.
"How's my patient?" she asked.
"Ah, he's all right." Harry was a little resentful, for he was thinking of
the snake. Janet had completely forgotten it.
Roy, at the sound of her voice, got up from his place in the hay and
wagged his tail. Janet knelt and inspected the paw.
"It's a whole lot better, isn't it, old fellow?" she asked as she patted him.
"Keep it clean and don't walk on it," she advised seriously.
Harry, watching her, laughed.
"You'd think Roy was a human being to hear you go on. He doesn't
know what you're talking about," he said.
Janet did not reply, but she smiled into the dog's eyes, and Harry had an
uncomfortable feeling that they were both laughing at him.
As she talked, Janet made a careful search for the letter, but it was
nowhere to be seen, and with a sinking feeling at her heart she realized
that someone must have found it. But whom? She knelt on the floor
beside Roy, and the thought worried her brain. If Mrs. Waters had it
she would, of course, take it to Mrs. Page and then -- she shrugged her
shoulders. It was foolish to worry over it anyway, until something
happened. It would be a simple matter to write another, but somehow
the spirit that had prompted her to revolt the day before was gone.
"What are you doing, anyway?" -- Harry interrupted her musings. She
gave a characteristic little shrug and jumped up.
"Nothing much," she replied, laughing.

Harry had been doing some thinking himself for the last few minutes,
and he had come to the decision that it never paid to get mad at Janet,
for no matter how cross you acted she never even bothered to notice
you. So it was with a very different tone of voice that he asked as she
started for home:
"Do you care if I go along with you?"