Dagmar was too frightened to notice the grimy mill hands who were crowded into the old bus, making their way to another settlement in search of an evening’s recreation, but Tessie slunk deep down in her corner, burying her face in her scarf and hiding her eyes with her tam.  She knew better than to run the risk of having her cross father discover her in flight.  After she had succeeded in getting away Lonzo Wartliz would not spend time to go after her, but while she was “on the wing,” so to speak, he would have no trouble in bringing her back.  A day’s time from the mill would be too costly a sacrifice to make, while a police call to “fetch back my girl” would cost him nothing.  Also there was the thought that Tessie might fix it at home by sending a letter filled with glowing promises of good money—­but she would require at least one day to mail her promise to Flosston.

So Dagmar sat with a melancholy expression on her face while Tessie hid her silent chuckles in her wearing apparel.

“Here we are,” whispered the latter, as the jitney jolted to a standstill.  “Don’t forget your Saratoga.”

Dagmar dragged the hated “telescope” after her, as she dropped down from the rickety high steps of the old motor wagon.  It was very dark now, and she was more frightened than she had any idea of betraying to her companion.  “Come on, kid,” called the other.  “We have got to hunt up something.  We may not get out of this great white way to-night.”

“Oh, Tessie!  How could we stay in a place like this?”

“Just like the other folks.  Do you think they are goin’ to spread out a wedding canopy for you?  Oh, be a sport, Daggie.  Tomorrow is yet to come.”

The training this young girl had received in the local movies was now developing in a rather dangerous way.  She was breathing heavily in her new found adventure, she was out alone, or as good as alone, in a strange place on a dark night, and perhaps she would be kidnapped?  In spite of the danger Tessie fairly thrilled with the possibility, and it was with a very pronounced degree of scorn that she regarded her weaker companion.

Not that the “movies” were exerting any better influence on Dagmar.  In fact it had been their uncertain propaganda that first created in her breast the feeling of unrest, that first told her Millville was mean, shabby, and an unfit place for an ambitious girl to try to exist in.  Her very love for her mother and father, to say nothing of her affection for the other members of her family, seemed a spur to her ambition “to get away and be somebody.”

But the getting away was by no means the pleasant dream she had pictured it.  Here they were, two young, inexperienced girls in a strange town, without the slightest knowledge of how they might find a safe place in which to stay for a single night, and even they, with their minds open for adventure, realized how promptly trouble comes to those who openly seek it.