On her return there was no sign of the letter. Miss Van
Arsdale, a faint and hopeful color in her cheeks, was asleep.
For Banneker these were days of trial and tribulation. Added to the
anxiety that he felt for his best friend was the uncertainty as to what
he ought to do about the developments affecting her guest. For he had
heard once more from Gardner.
"It's on the cards," wrote the reporter, "that I may be up to see you
again. I'm still working, on and off, on the tip that took me on that
wild-goose chase. If I come again I won't quit without some of the wild
goose's tail feathers, at least. There's a new tip locally; it leaked
out from Paradise. ["The Babbling Babson," interjected the reader
mentally.] It looks as though the bird were still out your way. Though
how she could be, and you not know it, gets me. It's even a bigger game
than Stella Wrightington, if my information is O.K. Have you heard or
seen anything lately of a Beautiful Stranger or anything like that
around Manzanita?... I enclose clipping of your story. What do you think
of yourself in print?"
Banneker thought quite highly of himself in print as he read the
article, which he immediately did. The other matter could wait; not that
it was less important; quite the contrary; but he proposed to mull it
over carefully and with a quiet mind, if he could ever get his mind back
to its peaceful current again: meantime it was good for him to think of
something quite dissociated from the main problem.
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