She dawdled over her tea and cake until the train arrived at the junction, where another chair-car was in waiting. It was then, when Linda Riggs gathered up her purse and vanity bag, preparatory to leaving the dining car, that Bess Harley made a mortifying discovery.
She wished to pay her own modest check. Perhaps she would get into the corridor of the car at the same time as the stylishly gowned girl, and Linda might speak. But clutching her gloves and looking wildly all about, _Bess could not find her hand-bag_.
Had Nan Sherwood had the first suspicion just then of her chum's predicament she would have flown to her assistance. But the train had halted, been broken in two, and the forward part of it had gone off with the locomotive to couple on to the waiting chair-car.
Nan asked the brakeman, and learned it would be ten minutes or more before the train would go on. The junction was not a very attractive spot; but already Nan was tired of riding. She asked Professor Krenner, who was reading, if he would look out for her baggage, and then she left the car.
Away up on a side track she saw the main part of the train, puffing down. The station, a weather-beaten, ugly old building, was not near. Indeed, there were not half a dozen houses in sight.
There were uncut weeds along the track, the cinderpaths were baked hard by the sun, and the whole situation was unlovely.
Near at hand was a shack, as ugly as all the other buildings; but there seemed to be some life about it.
At least, Nan, before she left the car, had seen the flutter of a child's skirt at the door of the hovel. She now crossed the tracks and went cautiously toward the miserable dwelling.
Nan saw the child again at the door of the cabin, but only for an instant. She shouted to the little one, but the latter bashfully slipped inside the door.
Nan was very fond of children and this little towheaded child interested her. There was still plenty of time before the two halves of the train would be brought together.
Nan ran across the desert of cinders and weeds toward the cabin. Nobody else appeared at the broken window or the open door, but suddenly she heard an ear-piercing shriek from within.
It was the voice of the child. It sounded from the loft of the cabin, into which the little girl had doubtless climbed to escape from Nan's thoughtless curiosity.