"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed Bobby, when she saw Tommy slipping all over the icy sidewalk, "what is the matter with that boy?"
"He hasn't got his sea-legs on," grinned Short and Long.
"You mean to tell me he is nearly five years old and can walk no better than _that?_" exclaimed Bobby teasingly. "Why, we have a little dog at home that isn't even a year old yet, and he can ran right over this ice. He can walk twice as good as Tommy does."
"Hoh!" exclaimed that youngster defensively. "That dog's got twice as many legs as I have."
"Right you are, Kid!" chuckled his brother. "He got you there, Clara."
"And did you boys get that man who ran the poor fellow down on Market Street last night?" demanded Bobby, with interest. "Did you have him arrested?"
"No. What do you suppose? We're not going around snitching to the police," growled Short and Long.
"But if that man at the hospital is seriously hurt----"
"Oh, we're not sure it's the right car," said the boy, and evidently did not wish to talk about it.
"Billy Long!" exclaimed the girl. "Are you boys trying to defend the guilty person?"
"Pshaw! He wasn't hurt as bad as all that."
"Because I've been to the hospital to find out He's got a broken leg and a broken head----"
"Is he conscious yet?" demanded Bobby Hargrew quickly.
"No-o. They say he doesn't know anybody--and nobody knows who he is."
"Now you see!" cried the girl "Maybe he will die! And you boys will let the man who did it get away."
"Oh, he won't get away," grumbled Short and Long. "We know where to find him when we want to."
"You'd better let the police know where to find him," said Bobby tartly.
"You're not the police, Bobby Hargrew!" returned Short and Long, grinning and going on with Tommy.
The girls, of course, got together and compared notes and decided that the boys were "real mean, so now!" To pay Chet and Lance and Billy Long for being so secretive about the person they suspected of having caused the injury to the stranger Saturday evening, the three girls went alone that Sunday afternoon to the hospital to inquire after the injured man.
And there they met Janet Steele again. The Red Cross girl had been making inquiries, too, about the same case.
"It really is a very serious matter," Janet said to her new friends. "The man who knocked him down should be found. Although the doctors think he has no internal injuries after all, there is a compound fracture which will keep him in bed for a long time, and in addition he seems unable to give any satisfactory explanation of who he is or where he comes from."