"Well, what is it?" her brother asked, looking curiously into Laura's suddenly glowing face.
"Why, yes. I've been telling him to-day all about that funny bill he passed on me. He says he is glad he has so fat a purse, as he will be obliged to remain in bed long with that leg in a cast."
"But, Chet! has he got the money himself?"
"I wonder if any other bills in his roll are like that hundred-fifty note father swapped with Mr. Monroe for you."
"Huh?" ejaculated her brother, quite puzzled.
"It was on the Drovers' Levee Bank, of Osage, Ohio. I wrote it down, and the names of the cashier and president of the bank. Do find out, Chet, if there are any more of those new bills issued by that bank in his roll."
That Laura would not tell him, only made him promise to do as she asked. Mother Wit had an idea; but she would not explain it to anybody yet.
"How came you to meet Janet?" asked Laura Belding, remembering what her brother had first told her about the Red Cross girl.
"Coming your way?" Laura repeated, her eyebrows raised questioningly. "Oh! I see! You met her at the hospital."
"You said a forkful," declared the slangy youth.
"Dear me, Chet," Laura observed soberly. "I think your slang is becoming atrocious. So Janet was down there!"
"She had been calling on our friend with the broken leg, too," said Chet.
"She does seem interested in him, doesn't she?" Laura said thoughtfully. "I wonder why?"
"Because her mother's half-brother went to Alaska years ago and they never heard of him again," said Chet. "She told me."
"Nothing wonderful about that," the brother declared.
"To them, I suppose," said Chet "But why don't you ask Miss Steele to join you girls in the play you are getting up?"
"I never thought of it," confessed Laura.
"Your thought-works are out of kilter, Sis," declared Chet, laughing again. "I'd certainly play Miss Steele off against the menace of Hester Grimes."
There was something besides mere sound in Chet Belding's advice, and his sister appreciated the fact. But she did not go bluntly to the other girls and suggest the Red Cross girl for the part of "the dark lady." She realized that, if the new girl could act, she would amply fill the part in the play. But Hester was supposed to have it now, and the very next day Mr. Mann gave that candidate an hour's training in the part Hester was supposed to fill.