Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day Part 32

"If I really thought so--"

"But you must know it," said Dorothy, quick to take advantage of the major's hesitation. "If you just give me instructions I will carry them out to the letter. And oh! if we can only give that money to its rightful owner at last."

"Yes, if we only could, I think I would feel like a new man. It has weighed heavily upon me, particularly since that rascal attacked you at the falls."

"I have it!" and Dorothy's eyes flashed in unison with her brain.

"Telegraph to Mr. Travers to meet us, and let Tavia and me go. Tavia has an aunt in Rochester, you know, and she will take care of us when we have finished with the other business. Indeed, I can hardly wait."

"I cannot seem to think that you should go," objected the major. "It is a big city, and suppose Travers should fail to meet you?"

"Then I'll meet him," promptly answered Dorothy. "Just give me all the directions and I will find any police station in Rochester. Besides, I'll have Tavia, and she has been there--through the city--often."

"Well, it does seem the only way, for if we fail to identify Anderson he may be released, and I fancy he would never walk into our hands again."

"Now, not another thought, but how we are to go?" and Dorothy drew her chair up to his desk. "Tell me all about it now, so I can have it all settled in my mind to-night. Then to-morrow, all we will have to do is depart. My! we are becoming famous travelers!"

Very late that night Major Dale still sat at his desk. It was a serious matter for him to allow his only daughter to go into a strange city and then to a police court to identify a criminal. But how else could he carry out his sacred obligation to Burlock? How else could he fulfill his duty to the lost child?

And Dorothy too, was troubled that night. Would she really have courage to undertake the trip to a big city and then--?

But she, too, had made a promise, and she, too, felt the voice of the dead father and the voice or the neglected child crying for justice.

Dorothy Dale did not hesitate--she would go.

Next morning Tavia bounced around like a toy balloon. To think of going to Rochester, and into a police court--what could be more delightfully sensational? And perhaps they would have their names in the papers, their pictures, she ventured to suggest. "The two girls from Dalton!"

"A striking scene in the police court!" These and other "striking things" she outlined to serious Dorothy, who now in the early morning sat so close to the car window, and seemed to hear nothing of the foolish prattle, as the train rattled on.

"Don't be a funeral, Doro," objected Tavia. "It's the best fun I ever dreamed of. Wait till they call on me to testify! Ahem! Won't I make a stir!"

"But we are not going to testify at all--"

"Same thing. We are to go before a lot of handsome officers, and they will be so careful of our feelings, of course. I hope I blus.h.!.+ It's always so nice to blush in print!"

Whether her nonsense was all frivolity, or somewhat calculated to distract the over serious Dorothy, would have taken an expert in human nature to decide, and there were many other things about Tavia quite as bewildering; but Dorothy was patient, she knew Tavia would not disappoint her when the test came.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE LITTLE CAPTAIN--CONCLUSION

"Wasn't it mean," grumbled Tavia, "I thought it would be so dramatic."

"Dramatic enough for me," answered Dorothy. "I felt a chill steal all over me when I put my hand on that man's arm, and said, 'This is he!'

Ugh, I have the rub of his sleeve still on my palm," and Dorothy tried to efface the memory of it on her small white hand by rubbing it briskly on her linen skirt.

"Well, I am disappointed," pouted Tavia, "and I don't want any more mock trials."

"We must hurry, your father will soon be here. And how anxious I am to go to that place. What if the man has deceived the police as he did poor Mr. Burlock?"

"No danger. He is caught in his own trap now, and his only hope is from good behavior--they make it lighter for him as he makes it easier to clear up the case. I heard pop talking to the folks last night about it."

This was the day after the identification of Andrew Anderson by Dorothy in the Police Court. The man had disguised his appearance by taking off his beard, but there were other marks, and the girl could not be shaken in her positive identification.

The man had denied his guilt at first, but finally broke down when confronted with the evidence against him and admitted he had the Burlock child in hiding, but she was now in charge of some woman.

Dorothy was to go for her to-day.

Mr. Travers, though having many important affairs to attend to, was on time, and he agreed to take Dorothy and Tavia with him to find Nellie.

"Keep close to me," he told the girls, making their way through dirty and uncertain streets. "This is a rough part of town."

House after house he stopped at, leaving the girls in each instance waiting anxiously to be told to follow. But the places were so much alike in their squalor the search was becoming more and more tiresome.

"Maybe he gave the wrong address," ventured Tavia, discouraged and dissatisfied with the many mistakes.

"No, but these people change homes so often," explained her father.

"Here, this looks--wait a minute!"

Down the steps of a dark bas.e.m.e.nt Squire Travers hurried. The girls looked after him--that place was not dirty, merely poor and bare.

Presently he called to them:

"Come in, girls," and Dorothy felt she could hardly move--she was so anxious and expectant.

A woman, with a kind face, greeted them sadly, but with that unmistakable air of one whom poverty cannot drag down from self-respect.

"Yes, I have a child with me," she answered nervously, "but I cannot allow you to see her."

Then Squire Travers produced his credentials.

"You need not fear us," he told her kindly. "We have the best of news for little Nellie Burlock, and we are only too anxious to make her acquainted with it."

"But we have been disappointed so often," objected the woman, "and that man Anderson--"

"You need not think of him now," said Squire Travers. "We have just left him in the hands of the sheriff. This little girl," placing his hand on Dorothy, "has brought it all about. She showed the child's father how to die happily--made it possible for him to see the hope beyond, and then she and her good father have worked untiringly to find the child. Cannot we see her now?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Instantly Dorothy had her arms around the little girl]

The woman took Dorothy's hands, and looked straight into her eyes.

Then, without a word, she turned and opened a narrow door, that seemed to run under a stairway.

"Nellie!" she called softly.

Dorothy's heart felt as if a life was dependent upon those few moments.

What if it should not be the right one?

A child--pale and wan, but with an inexpressibly sweet face--stood before them. She clung to the woman like a frightened little bird.