better notify the police?"

"I will attend to that for you," responded Dr. Brown, kindly. "There is
no need for you to be mixed up in this. Sometimes, with the best
intentions in the world, one gets unpleasant notoriety in these cases. I
will notify the authorities to be on the lookout for the girl, for her
own sake alone. Later, if there is need of you----"

He paused suggestively.

"We will leave you our addresses," said Betty, quickly. "Thank you for
looking after this for us."

"I am only too glad to be of service. Well, as long as there is no
patient to be found here, I had better return to those waiting for me at
my office."

"Go there in my car," proposed Mollie, quickly, "and then I will take
the wheel again. I am feeling better now."

"Such a fine car as this ought to make anyone feel fine! It is a
beauty!" and he seemed to caress the steering wheel. "I am getting a
small runabout," he went on, "and that is how I happen to know how to
drive. I learned some time ago."

They flashed past Mrs. Meckelburn's house, calling to her of their
failure, and saying that they would be back soon. A little later, having
left the physician at his home, they were again in the pleasant farm
house, sipping tea which their hostess had thoughtfully made.

"Isn't it queer?" observed Betty.

"A strange enough happening," Amy commented.

"Quite a mystery," asserted Grace.

"And really she was a pretty girl," declared Mollie. "I wish I had her
hair," and she sighed as Betty had done.

Grace strolled into the room where the girl had been, and half idly she
looked about it, as though in that way she might solve the mystery. A
piece of paper in one corner caught her eye and she picked it up.

"I found this in there," she said, coming out. "It has some writing on
it. Perhaps this is yours, Mrs. Meckelburn," and she held out the scrap.

"No, I'll guarantee there was not a piece of paper in that room when you
carried that girl in," said the farmer's wife. "I had just swept," and
she tossed her head in pardonable pride of her housework.

"What does it say?" asked Amy.

"It's evidently a piece torn from a letter," answered Grace, as she
accepted the paper from the woman, "and all I can make out are the
words--'not go to Shadow Valley even if'--and that's all there is to
it."

"How odd!" exclaimed Mollie. "Shadow Valley is not far from here."

"And the queer girl evidently dropped that paper," declared Betty,
examining