“Well, I swan!” Mr. Geary said, when he saw it; and his wife exclaimed, “My stars!”

CHAPTER XI

THE REUNION

After leaving the conductor’s house in Asbury Park, Mr. Maynard and Mr. Bryant went to a telephone office, and pursued the plan of calling up every railroad station along the road between Seacote and New York.

But no good news was the result.  It was difficult to get speech with the station men, and none of them especially remembered seeing a little girl of Marjorie’s description get off the train.

“What can we do next?” asked Mr. Maynard, dejectedly; “I can’t go home and sit down to wait for police investigation.  I doubt if they could ever find Marjorie.  I must do something.”

“It seems a formidable undertaking,” said Mr. Bryant, “to go to each of these way stations; and yet, Ed, I can’t think of anything else to do.  We have traced her to the train, and on it.  She must have left it somewhere, and we must discover where.”

Mr. Maynard looked at his watch.

“Jack,” he said, “it is nearly time for that very train to stop here.  Let us get on that, and we may get some word of her from the trainmen other than the conductor.”

“Good idea! and meanwhile we’ll have just time to snatch a sandwich somewhere; which we’d better do, as you’ve eaten nothing since breakfast.”

“Neither have you, old chap; come on.”

After a hasty luncheon, the two men boarded at Asbury Park, the same train which Marjorie had taken at Seacote the day before.  Conductor Fischer greeted them, and called his trainmen, one by one, to be questioned.

“Sure!” said one of them, at last, “I saw that child, or a girl dressed as you describe, get off this train at Newark.  She was a plump little body, and pretty, but mighty woe-begone lookin’.  She was in comp’ny with a big, red-faced man, a common, farmer-lookin’ old fellow.  It struck me queer at the time, them two should be mates.”

Mr. Maynard’s heart sank.  This looked like kidnapping.  But the knowledge of where Marjorie had alighted was help of some sort, at least.

After discussing further details of her dress and appearance, Mr. Maynard concluded that it was, indeed, Midget who had left the train at Newark with the strange man, and so he concluded to get off there also.

“We’re on the trail, now,” said Jack Bryant, cheerily; “we’re sure to find her.”

Mr. Maynard, though not quite so hopeful, felt a little encouraged, and impatiently the two men sprang off the train at Newark.  Into the station they went and interviewed an attendant there.

“Yep,” he replied, “I seen that kid.  She was with old Zeb Geary, an’ it got me, what he was doin’ with a swell kid like her!”

“Where did they go?” asked Mr. Maynard, eagerly.

“I dunno.  Prob’ly he went home.  He lives out in the country, and he takes a little jaunt down to the shore now and then.  He’s sort of eccentric,—­thinks he can sell his farm stuff to the hotel men, better’n any other market.”