turning back, it seemed, and imagine those boys in the tea-house, kept by a couple of enterprising college girls!
“Hey there!” called Jack. “When do we eat? There’s the noon whistles.”
“Yon don’t eat,” replied Cora.
“Don’t, eh? Well, look out for your commissary department,” answered Jack. “We came prepared to fight.”
“Oh,” sighed Daisy, “do you suppose they will spoil all our boxes?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied the noncommital Maud.
But Hazel said: “What do you suppose they are up to?”
“Trust them for fun,” answered Cora. “I will simply trounce Jack if he attempts to overhaul our stores.”
Hazel laughed merrily. “If only Paul were along,” she ventured. “And, Cora, do you know that mailbag business is not by any means settled?” she asked.
“I know that, girlie,” said Cora with polite seriousness, “but all troubles are tabooed on this ride, you know. Gertrude,” to the girl who had been looking and listening, “I appoint you monitor of this car. The first girl to bring in troubles is to be fined.”
“Very well,” replied Gertrude, “I shall be glad to have something to do. I feel like a stranger with those boys.”
“That’s because you do not know them,” ventured Ray. “They are perfectly splendid boys.”
“Make a note of that,” called Cora. “Gertrude, that is one mark in favor of Ray.”
The procession was winding along a pretty country road. Trees closed in from side to side, and deep gutters outlined the driveway from the footpath.
The boys had actually ceased their antics for the time, and it occurred to more than one girl that this respite might have been more advantageous if it had been put into operation in the city streets – the decorum was wasted in the woods. But boys have a queer reasoning code – where girls are concerned.
“Don’t you suppose they will turn back before we reach the Glen?” called Bess to Cora. Their machines were running quite close together.
“If they don’t leave us we will drive past the teahouse, and come back later,” said Cora.
“But what will the college girls think? They will be sure to have a nice lunch ready.”
“When Tillie sees Ed Foster she will cease to think. She knows Ed,” and Cora laughed significantly.
“Oh, look!” shouted Hazel. “A flock of sheep. And directly in the track. The boys – “
At that moment every one saw the sheep. The hay wagon made a spurt and dashed straight through the frightened herd, scattering them right and left, like feathers blown by the wind.
Daisy and Maud came next. They had time to jam down the brakes, but it would have been wiser to have dashed through the flock without loss of time, for an angry ram turned as the car slacked speed, and when Daisy and Maud saw him jump toward them, they also jumped out into the gutter, deserting their car.
A big, woolly ram leaped up from the midst of the flock, and actually landed in the runaway automobile. The improvised hay wagon was quickly steered to one side, just as Daisy’s car, with the horned beast at the wheel, plunged past.
The machine, in charge of the queer mechanician, plunged straight ahead, and after a moment’s hesitation on the part of their drivers, the other cars were quickly sent after it.
The boys shouted lustily. As if the frightened and angry ram cared for the harmony of a college quartet. Wasn’t it ridiculous to see the ram positively driving the car?
By some strange instinct the animal had raised its fore legs to the rim of the steering wheel, standing upright on his hind ones, which were jamming the brake and clutch pedals.
“Oh l” screamed the girls in a chorus. “There comes a runabout! He’ll collide with it!”
A runabout, coming in the opposite direction, and headed straight for the ram, could be seen down the road. The driver was a girl, that was evident, but she was so muffled in hood, veil and cloak that her features were not discernible.
“Stop it!” screamed Gertrude. “She’ll be killed.”
The ram evidently saw the other car coming, and tried to leap out, but its fore feet had gone through the spaces between the spokes of the steering wheel. The girl in the runabout was sending her car from side to side, in a frantic endeavor to avoid a collision. It seemed to be a choice with her, whether she should smash into the ram’s car, or tilt into the roadside ditch.
Suddenly the girl stood up. The eyes of the motor girls and their boy companions were on her. She gave a scream, and then – something happened. From the rear cars came a scream. Then – the Breeze was stopped – the ram was gone, and the runabout was ditched.
Where and who was the unfortunate driver?
CHAPTER XII
THE GIRL IN THE DITCH
When all the machines had been stopped there was a wild rush to the rescue – Bess and Belle with Gertrude hurrying back to where Daisy and Maud had been left, while Cora, Ray and Hazel ran forward to the side of the strange runabout. The boys divided themselves – some going in each direction.
Presently Cora shouted
“Jack! Jack! Hurry! It’s Clip! And she is unconscious!”
Jack was not far away, and at his sister’s call he hurried to her. Ray had taken Cecilia’s head in her lap, while Cora was trying to lift the unconscious girl from her bent-up posture in the narrow, roadside, grass-grown ditch.
“Oh, the poor dear!” sighed Cora. “To think that our sport should have – “
Cecilia was opening her eyes.
“Clip! Clip, dear!” whispered Cora. “Try to – wake up!”
Cecilia did try – she put her hand to her dazed eyes.
“Here! Let me lift her,” commanded Jack, slipping down on the other side into the deep grass and without any apparent effort lifting Cecilia up. With one long step he reached the road. Then for a moment he seemed uncertain – should he lay the girl down, or carry her to a machine?
“Oh, I can stand,” she said faintly. “I am much better now. What – happened?”
“You happened,” answered Jack, so dismissing the question. “Just keep still, and we will have you around directly. This is where you beat the motor girls.” He was now helping her to her feet. “You may ride back with the motor boys.”
“Are you better?” asked Ray anxiously, stroking Cecilia’s white hand, which had been divested of its glove. “Wasn’t it dreadful?”
“Very,” sighed Cecilia. “And my poor little machine! Jack, how can I ever – “
“You can never,” he insisted with a wink. “I never saw such a rambunctious ram. Didn’t he ramify, though?”
“What in the world was it?” asked Cecilia. She was sitting on the grass and seemed almost prepared to laugh. “I thought I must be seeing things. Then I – “
“Felt things,” said Jack. “That’s the regular course of the disease. Here come the others. Hello, Daisy has the veil tied up, and Maud is limping.”
“What happened to them?” asked Cecilia.
“Same thing that happened to you,” replied Jack. “The ram. That was the most happening thing I have seen in some time.”
Maud was limping, and had Ed’s arm. Daisy kept her hand to her face, and she clung to Walter. Hazel flashed a meaning look to Cora. The girls might not be very badly injured, but they needed help – that sort of help.
“Well!” exclaimed Cora. “You look as if something did happen.”
“Oh, I’m all scratched,” fluttered Daisy. “That is, my face feels like a grater.” She took her handkerchief from the abused face. A few harmless scratches were discernible.
“Not so bad,” said Jack. “Just the correct lines, I believe, for – let me see – intellectuality.”
“Oh, you needn’t joke,” snapped Daisy. “I suppose Cecelia – is – badly hurt!”
She said this with the evident intention of drawing attention to Jack’s attitude toward Cecilia.
“Now, Daisy,” said Jack good-naturedly, “if you want to dump in the ditch again, and will only give me the chance, I will be perfectly delighted to fish you out: I fancy I would get you first shot.”
“Oh, you need not bother,” interrupted Walter. “I can take care of Miss Bennet.”
At this he spread his handkerchief most carefully on the grass, and, with mock concern, assisted Daisy to the low seat.
Ed followed suit, adding to the handkerchief cushion his cap – to make the grass softer for Maud.
“But however did you happen along, Cecilia?” asked Belle, who now added her dainty self to the line of girls on the roadside.
“Now, here!” called Jack. “No more happenings! I beg your pardon, Belle, but we have had such a surfeit of this happening business that we intend, in the language of the poets, to cut it out.”
Cecilia gave Jack a grateful glance. Cora broke in promptly with a new thought – to divert attention.
“And you are the girls who wanted `No Boys!'” exclaimed Walter. “I should just like to know what you would have done without us?”
“There! Didn’t I tell you?” said Cora. “They are actually claiming the glory of the whole thing. I suppose, Walter, you hired the ram to do the proper thing in initiating the motor girls in the art of touring?”
“Wouldn’t he make a hit, though, at some of our college affairs!” exclaimed Ed. “I wonder if we could buy the beast? Here comes the owner now.”
The girls looked alarmed. Suppose the farmer should blame them for the disappearance of the ram!
“I’ll do the talking,” suggested Walter. “If you say anything, Jack, there might be a row.”
“Humph!” said Jack. “I suppose you know just how to deal with ram owners.”
The farmer was quite up to them now. He was not an ill-natured-looking man, and as he approached he touched his big straw hat.
“No one hurt?” he asked, much to the girls’ relief.
“Oh, no, thank you,” said Cora, before Walter could open his mouth. “I hope you have not lost the sheep.”
“Lose him! Couldn’t do that if you chucked him in the mill-pond and let the dam loose on him. Only yesterday the plagued thing went for my wife. Yes, sir, and he ‘most knocked her down. When I seed your steam wagons comin’ along I knowed there would be trouble. He’s that pesky!”
The man looked at the disabled machine.
“Busted?” he asked.
“Some,” replied Walter. “But I guess we can manage. Would you like to sell that ram?”
“Sell him? What for? To kill folks as try to feed him? I bought him from a fellow who always wore an overcoat, and, bless me, that ram got so used to it if I haven’t had to put my ulster on the hottest days this summer to do down to the pasture where he was chewin’.”
The boys laughed heartily at this. Walter seemed keener than ever now on making a bargain.
“Well, you see,” he said, “we might use the fellow for stunts – tricks. I think we might train him – “
A scream from Belle startled them.
“Oh!” she yelled. “There he comes! What shall we do?”
Without waiting for instructions, however, Belle, with the other girls, jumped up and started for a little cottage not far from the roadside. The ram was coming over the fields straight for the autos.
“Now wait,” cautioned the farmer, as the boys made ready to confront the animal. “Just keep back until he gets near that machine. Then maybe we can git him.”
“He’s game sport, all right,” said Walter. “He evidently hasn’t had enough.”
The brush and low trees along the road made it possible for the young men to hide, while the excited animal dashed through the tall grass out into the road.
He went straight for the hay wagon. With a bound he was in the decorated auto, like a beast in a cage, with the rack and hay trimmings surrounding him.
“Now we’ve got him,” said the farmer; “that is, if we’re careful.”
“How?” whispered Ed.
“Someone must lasso him. “The farmer held out the rope in his hand, making a loop ready to throw over the ram’s head.
The girls had reached the cottage, but were calling to the boys all sorts of warning and cautions.
“When he gets at the hay,” said the farmer, “I guess he’ll eat. That run likely whet up his appetite.”
“More fun than a deer hunt,” said Jack, laughing. “I wonder what will turn up next on this motor girls’ tour.”
“Get busy,” said Ed, creeping toward the hay wagon. “Now, Walter – Oh, Glory be! If he isn’t at my four-dollar gloves!”
Quick, like the well=trained athlete that he was, Ed grabbed the rope from the farmer, sprang to the hay rack and made a cast.
It landed true on the animal’s horns.
“I’ve got him!” exclaimed the boy. “Now, fellows, quick! Make his legs fast.”
No need to say “quick,” for the boys were up and busy making fast the beast before the surprised farmer had a chance to exclaim.
“So you like the real thing in gloves?” asked Ed while pulling at the rope. “Well, I fancy you will make something real – perhaps a robe – for the best record of this trip. Oh, I say, fellows, let’s buy the brute, have him done up properly, and offer his coat to the girl who comes home with a record.”
Shouts of glee followed this suggestion, and the girls, seeing that the animal was made safe, were now running back from the cottage to add their voices to the excitement.
Clip insisted upon helping to tie the ram – she declared he had done his share toward making it uncomfortable for her – while Daisy, in her timid way, wanted to do something to the “saucy thing” for upsetting her, and Jack suggested that she “box his horrid ears.”
Cora glanced at her watch.
“If it’s all the same to the gentlemen,” she said, “we will continue on our way. We have lost a full hour already.”
“Lost!” repeated Walter meaningly.
“She said `lost,'” faltered Ed with similar intent.
“Not actually lost,” corrected Cora, “but at least dropped out of our itinerary.”
“We were due ten miles ahead now,” sighed Maud in her wistful way.
“Too bad, too bad,” whimpered Jack, who was still pulling at the ram’s rope. “But it was not our fault, girls. Now, Daisy, do you think you can run your machine without taking in any more circuses? We have examined your car, and it is intact – not so much as a footprint did the naughty beast leave.”
Clip was looking over her runabout. It was not damaged, it seemed, and for this she was most grateful. Clip was not out for pleasure – you have guessed that – and it would have been highly inconvenient for that young lady to go back to town in the hay.
Jack left off at the ram’s horn, and came to crank up for her.
“All right, Clip?” he asked with evident concern. “I don’t want you to go over that lonely road if you do not feel just like it. I can go with you.”
“You!” she exclaimed. “Why, Jack Kimball, what are you thinking about?” and she laughed airily. “If you want to finish the impression we started the other day, just take another ride with me. No, Jack, my dear boy, I am very much all right, and very much obliged. But I must hurry off. Whatever will my little brown Wren think of me?” She stepped into the car. “Good-by, girls,” she called. “I am so sorry I delayed you, but so glad we met. Take care of the ram, boys, and am I eligible for the trophy? I am a motor girl, you know.”
“Of course you are,” said Jack, before the others could speak. “All motor girls are eligible.”
“Ida Giles, too?” asked Bess. The moment she had spoken she could have bitten her tongue. Why could she never hide her feelings about Jack and Clip?
“And, girls,” called Cecilia, who was starting now, “don’t forget about your promise. Wren is counting on results.”
“What promise?” asked Ed.
“Oh, don’t you know?” replied Cora. “Well, I am afraid Jack will have to tell you. We really have not another moment. Are you ready, girls?”
“Why, our strange promise,” put in Maud, who was glad to have a “real remark” to make to Ed. “We promised a little girl we would find an old table for her and we have just ransacked the farmer’s house, hoping to find it.
Cora burst out laughing. Such an explanation!
“Why, I’ll promise a `little girl’ that,” said Ed, taking up Cora’s laugh. “Any qualifications? Might it be a time-table?”
Maud pouted. She stepped into Cora’s car, evidently disgusted with boys in general.
Gertrude had something to say to Walter, and was obliged to stand up on the hay rack to do so, as the young man would not let go the rope that held the ram.
There was a sudden hum of an auto, and Clip was gone.
“Thought she had a sick relative,” murmured Bess.
“So she has,” said Jack, who overheard the remark. “But she came near neglecting her this morning. That was a close call.”
“Oh, yes,” said Bess with a curled lip. “It seems to me everything Cecilia does is close.”
“Bess Robinson!” exclaimed Jack. “Do you want me to hug you? You have been treating me shamefully for weeks past. Now, own up. What have I done?”
Jack knew how to restore Bess to good humor, and his success this time was marked.
“You ridiculous boy!” exclaimed Bess. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
And Jack did.
CHAPTER XIII
AT THE GROTTO
We have dropped something,” said Cora as the party started off again.
“Yes,” replied Gertrude, “I agree with Ray that the boys are jolly. We miss them already.”
“Hush!” cautioned Cora. “We are to have nothing to do with boys on this trip.”
She laughed at her own assertion.
“Nothing more to do with them?” asked Belle. Bess kept her machine within talking distance.
“Till the next time,” replied Cora, throwing in the second speed gear. “But we will certainly have to hurry now. What on earth do you suppose Walter will do with that ram?”
“What on earth do you think the ram will do with Walter?” replied Ray.
“He paid the farmer three dollars for him, and the man declared he could have him for nothing,” said Belle. “Now, that three dollars – “
“Would have bought orchids,” interrupted Cora, teasing Belle for her sentimentality.
“Cora,” spoke Hazel suddenly, “did you hear what Ed said to Jack about Paul’s hold-up?”
“The forbidden topic,” interrupted Gertrude. “Hazel, you don’t want to lose the sheepskin for insubordination, do you?”
“But, Gertrude, please,” begged Hazel quite seriously, “I really must speak to Cora. I will promise not to be blue, but you know I am very anxious about Paul.”
“Then speak on, very briefly,” replied Gertrude. “I will allow you exactly five minutes.”
“Thanks,” said Hazel. “Cora,” she began again, “Ed told Jack that the papers lost from the mail belonged to Mr. Robinson, and have to do with a very valuable patent. Do you suppose the post-office will do anything to Paul?”
“Oh, you precious baby!” exclaimed Cora. “Don’t you know that Paul has been entirely cleared? The mystery is simply who took the papers and otherwise left the mailbag intact?”
“Poor Paul!” sighed the sister.
“Poor Hazel!” added Cora. “A sister who is always worrying about a handsome brother is bound to lose him, eh, Gertrude?”
Gertrude blushed. She had only met Paul once, and at that time her remark was so positive that Cora had seized the opportunity of teasing the girl. That she never noticed boys was Gertrude’s claim at college, and now Cora was delighted to have a chance of reversing the claim.
Daisy and Maud, who had been at some distance from the Whirlwind, now cut past Bess and Belle, making their way to the side of the big maroon car.
“Cora,” called Daisy, “I forgot to tell you. I found this little satchel by the road where we stopped.”
Cora gazed at the black bag that Daisy held up for her inspection.
“Why,” faltered Cora, “that must belong to Clip. Why didn’t you ask to whom it did belong?”
“I really never thought a word about it until Maud said just now it must be Clip’s.”
“But why did you pick it up without asking?” insisted Cora, her voice somewhat indignant.
“It was dropped on the road. I thought of course it belonged to some of the girls, and just threw it in my car in a hurry when you called to us to hasten along,” said Daisy, her voice sharp and eyes flashing.
“I am sure it must belong to Clip,” said Cora, calming down. “I hope it will not inconvenience her.”
“I wish you would take the smelly thing,” shouted Daisy. “It smells like papa’s office, and I hate drugs.”
“Clip was going to see some sick relative,” went on Cora, “and of course the satchel – “
“Must be filled with the sickness,” and Daisy laughed sarcastically. “Well, papa’s bag smells that way, but he has more than one `sick relative.’ “
Cora frowned. Gertrude looked surprised. Hazel shook her head at Daisy.
“Toss it here,” called Cora. “I just love disinfectants.”
Daisy threw the bag into the Whirlwind. Then she put on speed and passed the big car.
For a few miles the girls seemed very quiet, scarcely any conversation being held.
It was but a short run to the Grotto, the little wayside tea-house. The party was a full hour late, but Cora knew she could depend upon generous excuses for the motor girls.
So many things might happen by the way, and so many things did happen.
“I suppose,” murmured Ray, “the biscuit will be stony. I do love hot biscuit.”
“Don’t worry. Tillie will keep things hot, if she possibly can do so. But I hear they have had some very busy days at the Grotto. I hope we have not hit upon the very busiest. Gertrude, have I told you about the Grotto? Did you know that Mathilde Herold and Adele Genung are keeping a tea-house this summer, to earn enough money for their senior year? And they have done surprisingly well. Yes, their folks have a summer place near the tea-house, so the girls go home nights, and of course the place must be very pretty – Tillie is an artist in decorating.”
“Splendid!” exclaimed Gertrude. “Of course I know Tillie. What girl at Springsley doesn’t know her? She has been decorating for every affair at the gym. And she always helped with chapel. Oh, yes, indeed, Cora, I agree with you, Tillie Herold is an artist.”
“Well, let us hope her talent is not confined to mere walls,” said Ray. “Hot biscuit requires a different stroke, I believe.”
“In accepting us for to-day,” said Cora. “Tillie stipulated that we should dine table d’hote and no questions asked. I hope, Ray, you will not be disappointed.”
“Oh, there they are!” exclaimed Hazel. “I see some one waving her apron!”
“That’s Adele,” replied Cora. “She knows how to wave aprons. Don’t you remember, Gertrude, the night she served the Welsh rarebit, when she made an apron of our best table-piece with a string through the middle?”
Cora turned her auto to the roadside. Then she called to the cars following:
“Here we are, girls. Get your machines well in from the road.”
“Oh, what a charming place!” exclaimed Belle, who was not slow to observe the attractions of the little Grotto. It seemed all porch and vines, one of those picture places, ample for an eating house, but unsuited for anything else.
“There!” gasped Daisy; “that’s the sort of house to live in!”
“To live out of, you mean,” put in Maud. “I can’t see how one could live `in’ there.”
The cars were all motionless now. Cora and Gertrude had already “escaped” from the college hug of Adele and Tillie. When the Chelton girls had been introduced, the vine-covered porch was actually filled with the members of the motor party.
“How splendid!” exclaimed Tillie, with that delightful German accent that defies letters and requires a pretty mouth to “exhale.”
“Darling!” went on Adele, with all the extravagance of schoolgirl enthusiasm.
“You leave us no adjectives,” remarked Cora. “I never saw anything so sweet. How ever did you get those vines to grow so promptly?”
“Wild cucumber,” said Adele with a laugh, “Why, you know, dear, wild cucumber can no more help growing than you can. Isn’t she tall, Tillie? I do believe you have grown inches since school, Cora.”
“Yes, mother bemoans it. My duds are all getting away from me.”
“And we have been waiting lunch for you ladies. I did hope we would not have a single visitor to-day, so that we might entertain you properly,” went on Adele, “but two horrid men called. Wanted ‘tea’; but indeed I know what they wanted – just a quiet place to talk about their old patent papers.”
“Yes, and one broke a beautiful china cup,” said Tillie.
“But he had his thumb gone,” Adele hurried to say. “I saw him directly I went to pick up the pieces. So I suppose we could not exactly blame the man for dropping Tillie’s real German cup.”
“His thumb gone!” repeated Cora absently.
“Oh!” exclaimed Hazel. “The man we met after Paul’s hold-up had lost a joint of his thumb.”
“And papa said the papers stolen were patent papers!” exclaimed Bess, all excitement.
“Hush!” whispered Belle. “Bess, you know father particularly said we were not to speak of that.”
If, as is claimed, the mature woman has the wonderful advantage of an instinct almost divine, then the growing girl has, undoubtedly, the advantage of intuitive shocks – flashes of wireless insight into threatening surroundings.
Such a flash was distinctly felt now through the Grotto – even the two young proprietors, who were not supposed to be really concerned, felt distinctly that “something was doing somewhere.”
Cora sank down into a low wicker chair. Bess and Belle managed to both get upon a very small divan, while Daisy, Maud and Ray, the “three graces,” stood over in the corner, where an open window let in just enough honeysuckle to sift the very sofest possible sunshine about the group.
But Hazel lingered near the telephone. She had confided to Cora that Paul was not at all well when he left home in the morning, and just now she was wondering if it would seem silly for her to call up the Whitehall Company and ask to speak with her brother.
At that instant the telephone bell rang.
It sent the expected shock through the little assemblage, and Cora jumped up as if she anticipated a message.
Tillie took down the receiver.
Presently she was saying “no” and “yes,” and then she repeated Cora’s name.
She handed the receiver to Cora with a whispered word.
Hazel’s face went very white.
“You little goose!” exclaimed Bess, who instantly noticed the change. “Is there no one here worth a telephone message but Hazel Hastings?”
“Yes, Ed – Ed Foster,” they heard Cora say. Then she listened a long time. Her face did not betray pleasure, and her words were plainly disguised.
“All right, Ed,” she said finally. “I will attend to it at once. Oh, yes, a perfectly lovely time. Thank you – we are just about to dine. Good-by.”
Cora was slow to hang up the receiver. And when she turned around Hazel Hastings confronted her.
“Oh, is it Paul?” asked Hazel. “Tell me quickly. What has happened to Paul?”
“Hazel,” said Cora, “you must have your lunch. You are dreadfully excitable.”
But it was Cora Kimball who was distracted, who played with her lunch without apparent appetite, and it was she who could take but one cup of tea in the fascinating little tea-house, the college girls’ Grotto.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PROMISE BOOK LOST
Now, Cora, dear,” began Gertrude, in her quiet, yet convincing way, “you may just as well tell us what you are waiting for. We are guessing all sorts of things, and the truth cannot possibly be as bad.”
They were sitting on the porch of the Grotto, and although they were away behind scheduled time at that point, Cora insisted she wanted to rest a bit, and seemed loath to move.
Cora Kimball tired after twenty-five miles! As well accuse the Whirlwind of drinking its own gasoline.
Hazel was almost feverish. Cora had not divulged the purport of the telephone message, beyond admitting it was from Ed, which gave Ray the chance for her little joke on the combination of names – Cora and Ed, the “Co-Eds.”
“When the Co-Eds conspire,” lisped Ray, “we may as well wait patiently. We will have to wait their pleasure, of course.”
Cora did not mind the sarcasm. She was certainly not like herself. Bess and Belle were even anxious about her, and offered all sorts of remedies, from bicarbonate of soda to dry tea.
“Now,” said Cora finally, “it is two o’clock. Do you really think we ought to make Breakwater tonight?”
“Why not?” gasped Daisy. “Won’t Aunt May be waiting for us? And it is only thirty miles.”
“Yes, but,” faltered Cora, “suppose you should have a breakdown on that lonely road? There is neither station nor house from here to the falls.”
“What should break down?” asked Daisy. “This is papa’s best machine, if you mean it is not trustworthy.”
“Oh, Daisy, dear, I had no idea of insinuating such a thing. Your machine, of course, is just as trustworthy as any of the others. But I was thinking how delightful it would be to spend the night here. I really must confess to being broken up by that ram accident,” and Cora shivered slightly.
The girls looked at her in astonishment. Her words did not ring true; Cora Kimball was a poor actress.
“If Cora wants to stay,” said Tillie, “I should think you would all agree. Cora is captain, is she not?”
“But our trip will be spoiled,” wailed Maud. “I do wish I had never come.”
“Oh, if there is going to be real distress about it,” said Cora, evidently trying hard to pull herself together, “I suppose we had best start. But remember, I have warned you. I have a premonition that we will `run up against’ something before night.”
“Then I am not going,” declared Hazel. “I won’t stir one step. Cora, let the others go; you can overtake them with your fast car, and we will meet them in the morning.”
This brought on a veritable storm of protest and dissatisfaction. Cora left the girls on the porch, and went outside with Tillie.
“Could you hear anything those men were saying?” she asked the pretty little German. “Were they discussing a patent, do you think?”
“Oh, no; it was not like that,” replied Tillie. “It was about – let me see. Some Haster, no, like a name – like your friend’s name, Hazel Hastings. That was it, Hastings.”
“Did they say Hazel?” pressed Cora.
“No, not that, of course,” and Tillie laughed.
“How should they know Hazel? It was a similar name – just Hastings.”
“And they unfolded blueprints? Like our campus maps, you know?”
“Yes, they had blue maps; I saw them when I picked up my shattered cup. – It is all very well for Adele to blame his thumb; I blame him – he is too fat, and thinks himself very smart.”
Tillie pouted. Evidently her caller had not been too polite, perhaps he had mistaken her for an ordinary waitress.
A distant “honk-honk” startled the girls. Cora rushed out to the road, and before the others knew what she was about she was in conversation with Ed Foster. So quickly did he run up to the Grotto in Jack’s car that no one but Cora realized who he was until the machine was stopped and he was out beside her. There was a stranger with him -a business-like looking man. He did not leave the car.
“There!” exclaimed Ray. “Didn’t I tell you? It was this Co-Ed business that kept her. Cora can’t fool me.”
“Hazel,” said Cora, stepping up to the porch, “Ed thinks you had best not go on with us. Paul is not well – he is not very sick, though – “
Hazel turned white, and Cora put her arm around her. “Now you must not be frightened. It is nothing serious, and I will go back with you,” she said.
“Indeed you shall not!” exclaimed Hazel, now calling up all her courage, and proving herself to be the girl she really could be in an emergency. “I shall go back with Ed, if I may.”
The girls glanced from one to the other. They understood this was an emergency, that Hazel had been called back to her sick brother, yet with girlish curiosity some of them, at least, showed surprise that Hazel should offer to ride back with Ed Foster.
“But I am not going back,” said Ed; “at least not until we – this gentleman and I – have followed the trail a little farther. You see, girls, we are out on a `bear hunt.'”
But the girls did not see – only Cora looked as if she understood. She said to Hazel:
“There is no hurry, dear. You can go with them when they come back. They have to pass this way, don’t you, Ed?”
“Would you mind, Cora,” said Ed suddenly, “if the gentleman outside asked you a few private questions?”
“A reporter!” exclaimed Ray, all excitement.
“Dear me! I do hope he won’t ask for our pictures. Mother would never permit it.”
Ed smiled broadly. He looked a sort of assent, but did not otherwise express it.
Cora stepped up to the auto, whereat the man left his place, and, under pretext of walking along idly, and perhaps thus gaining Cora’s “private ear,” he was soon out of reach of those on the porch.
“It is like a double robbery,” he said after exchanging some preliminary remarks, “and the child is disconsolate. Her mother is sure it was not stolen, but lost, while we feel otherwise. It seems there is a handsome young man, a cousin of the child’s, interested. His father is a lawyer – the lawyer who has the case against Mr. Robinson. Now this book – the promise book – contained the names of those who visited the cottage on the day that the papers were taken out of the mailbag. It is comparatively easy to guess the sequence.”
“You mean they might call on those whose names appear in the book?” asked Cora, beginning to see something of the complex situation.
“Yes, and more than that. They would obtain valuable information from that little book – a clear description of the missing table. If they can find it they will be able to keep the property where it is now – in the possession of Rob Roland, Wren Salvey’s rival cousin.”
“Rob Roland!” exclaimed Cora. “Why, he was in the party at Robinson’s the other evening. He was even attentive to a friend of ours.”
“To whom, may I ask?” inquired the detective politely.
“A Miss Thayer, a young student,” she replied.
“Miss Thayer! I heard her name mentioned in court this morning. Is she a friend of yours?”
“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed Cora, now alarmed. “What could be said of Cecilia Thayer?”
“Why, she has been on very intimate terms with the Salvey child, and lawyers devise all sorts of schemes, you know, to meet their own ends. It was hinted that Miss Thayer might know where the missing promise book was.”
“Clip take that from Wren! Impossible!” cried Cora. “Oh, this is all a mistake! I must go back. I cannot go on and let Clip be blamed for stealing the promise book.”
CHAPTER XV
ROB ROLAND
“Cora Kimball!”
Ed Foster stood up every inch of his height. He was always tall, but now, facing the girl whose name he had so vehemently spoken, he seemed a veritable giant. Cora wanted to be firm; she meant exactly what she said when she declared she would abandon the tour of the motor girls, and go back to Chelton to help Cecilia Thayer out of her difficulty.
But, after all, Cora was only a girl, and Ed was a great, strong man – he ought to know.
“If you cannot trust me, Cora, and allow me to help Clip, I really think you are not doing justice to Jack’s friend.”
Cora laughed a little. Ed put things so nicely. He never presumed upon her own intimacy – it was always just “Jack’s friend.”
“Besides,” he pressed, seeing, in, Cora’s eyes, his advantage, “I feel I can do more alone. I have got to take Hazel back to her brother, then I promise you I shall not rest until I have found Clip, and made sure of her exact situation.”
“Oh, I know, Ed, you will do everything possible. But it seems like treason for me to go on a pleasure trip and leave two very dear friends in such trouble. Even Jack may be implicated.”
Ed turned away to hide his own tell-tale face. He knew perfectly well that Jack was implicated, knew that Rob Roland had deliberately accused him of taking Cecilia Thayer out to the Salvey cottage for the purpose of gaining possession of the promise book. For this very reason Ed wanted Cora to go on – to escape, if possible, the anxiety she must experience if she should have to know the real story.
“Well,” sighed Cora, “it is getting late. I suppose it will be best, Ed, as you say. Take Hazel back, and find Clip. Have her ‘phone me at Breakwater, tomorrow.”
“That’s the girl!” exclaimed Ed, taking both her hands in his own strong clasp. “See, the girls are looking at us. They think you have accepted me.”
“I have,” she answered, “accepted you, and your terms. Good luck, Ed. It is so nice for Jack to have such a good friend.”
Hazel was soon tucked in the little runabout, the detective going on in another car that was sent out to him in answer to his call over the telephone.
“Is your premonition all fulfilled, Cora?” asked Daisy, her voice far from merry. “I suppose you were ‘premonited’ that Hazel should go off like that.”
“If we keep on losing,” said Gertrude, “we will soon all fit in the Whirlwind.”
Cora stood gazing after the runabout – Jack’s car. Hazel’s eyes had burned their look upon Cora’s face – those deep, violet eyes always seem like live volcanoes, thought Cora.
And Ed – his eyes had been searching, his look – well, it was convincing, that is all Cora would admit even to her own heart.
She turned finally to those on the porch.
“Well,” exclaimed Belle, the sentimental one, “who is star-gazing, now? Cora, what did you forget in that runaway car?”
Cora smiled. She had been remiss, and she owed it to the girls to see that their trip was a success. She would atone now.
“Tillie,” she said suddenly, “couldn’t you and Adele shut up shop for a week and come with us? You have been working hard all summer, and you have made up the required pennies. Now, don’t you think it would be perfectly splendid to take the run with us?”
Every one instantly agreed that this would be the very thing, and in spite of the hesitation of Adele and Tillie, who argued that it might not be agreeable to bring strangers into the homes where others had been expected, it was finally settled that the party should wait until the next morning, when the tea-house girls would be ready to start off with them.
Nor were the arrangements without a certain happy possibility – there were two other girls waiting to take up that same little Grotto – to earn college money, as had Tillie and Adele.
“Rena and Margaret will be here first thing in the morning,” announced Adele, after her telephone talk with Rena, “and they are perfectly delighted. Oh, isn’t it just splendid!”
Then Cora had messages to send. She called up Jack, but only got the maid in answer. She called up Walter, and he also was out. Finally she called up Ed. She waited until she felt he would be at his dinner quarters, and she was not disappointed in getting his own voice in reply.
He told her that everything was all right – that Clip was with little Wren, who had been very ill since the loss of her book, and that Paul Hastings was no worse. This last Cora considered evasive, but had to be content, for Ed would give no more definite information.
Such demands as were made upon that little tea-house telephone that evening! Every one of the girls called up her own home, besides calling up many relatives at the other end of the line, those with whom the tourists expected to visit during the trip.
The Grotto was well situated for business, being about half way between two country seats, and the same distance between two large cities.
“We will close exactly at sundown to-night,” said Adele, when a lady from Bentley, who stopped every evening for a cup of tea on her way from the village, had been served.
“Do let me keep shop for a while,” begged Cora. “I would just love to be in real business. Mother declares I have a bent for trade. Let me try, Tillie, while you and Adele go over to the cottage and get your things together.”
Thus it was that one hour later Cora Kimball was left the sole possessor of the Grotto; every other motor girl managed to either go for a walk, or go with some one who wanted to take a walk, but Cora was glad – she felt the need of rest which only solitude can give.
She sat on the porch; the gentle evening breeze made incense through the honeysuckle. It was delightfully resting; she could hear the voices of the girls in the meadow, after cowslips, buttercups, daisies and clover. They would fetch back a huge bunch, Cora knew, and they would discard them at the steps of the Grotto, as most girls do – run wild for wild flowers, then toss them away when the run is over.
“I hardly think I shall have any business,” thought Cora, “although I would just love to wait on somebody.”
The rumble of an approaching automobile caught her ear.
“There!” she thought; “the driver of that car may want a sip of Russian tea – I am glad it is not Turkish – that the girls serve here.”
The car was almost up to the sycamore tree, just at the side of the Grotto.
Yes, the driver was stopping.
Cora rocked nervously in the wicker chair.
Who would it be? The girls should not have gone so far away –
A young man alighted from the runabout. He stepped briskly up to the porch.
It was Rob Roland.
“Well!” he exclaimed, plainly as surprised to see Cora as she was to see him. “If this isn’t luck! Miss Kimball!”
Quick and keen as was his glance, making sure that Cora was alone, her own sharp wits were able to follow his.
“Yes,” she replied indifferently, “the girls have closed up the tea-room, and are just out in the meadow. I felt more like sitting here.”
He drew up a chair and sat down uninvited. Cora never did like Rob Roland, now she disliked him.
“You are the very person I am most anxious to talk to,” he began, “and this is an excellent opportunity.”
“About what, pray?” asked Cora. “I must go with the girls very soon.”
“Oh, no, you must not,” he replied, and, handsome though he was, there was that in his manner that deepened the very lines nature had done her best with, and his eyes were merely smoldering depths.
Cora felt she should not betray the least nervousness, for, though Rob Roland was known to be a gentleman, he might take advantage of her helplessness to gain from her some information. Ed had warned her to beware of him.
“Of course you know all about Cissy Thayer,” he began. Cora resented his insolence, but dared not show it. “You know how she has been getting around my little cousin, the cripple.”
Cora glared at him. She felt that his cowardly attack was simply a display of weakness, and she knew a coward is easily overcome. She deliberately drew her chair closer to him.
“Rob Roland,” she said calmly, “my friend, Miss Thayer, is not only a lady, but she is also a student of human ills. She has been interested in little Wren that she might be cured. It appears that some of her relatives consider her incurable.”
“Cured!” he sneered. “That misfit made right! Why, she has only a few months to live. Your friend is very foolish. She should put her energy on something worth while. And she should be careful how she handles their property. That scrapbook, for instance.”
“How dare you, Rob Roland!” exclaimed Cora. “Miss Thayer says the child has been ill-treated through alleged treatment, and it appears the man who has been treating her was paid by your father.”
“Oh, my!” The fellow sank deeper into his linen coat. “I had no idea of your dramatic powers, Miss Kimball. I beg a thousand pardons. I never dreamed that the Thayer girl was so close to you. In fact, I rather thought you merely took her up out of charity. Every one in Chelton knows that the Thayers are just poor working-people.”
That was too much for Cora. She stepped to the door of the tea-room with dismissal in her manner. He knew she intended him to leave at once.
“But what I want to know,” he said, deliberately following her, “is just who this Thayer girl is. It is important that we should know, to go on with the – “
“We!” interrupted Cora. “Pray, who are `we’?”
“Why, my father’s firm, the lawyers, you know,” he stammered. “Some day, Miss Kimball, I expect to represent the firm of Roland, Reed & Company.”
Cora turned and looked at him. It was on that very spot that she had turned to Ed – Ed was so like this young man, the same dark, handsome youth, and just about his age.
But Ed was, after all, so different – so very different.
Cora was gaining time as she strove to hold him by her magnetic glance. Any youth would accept it; he did not despise it.
“Mr. Roland,” she said, in her own inimitable velvet tones, “you are making a very great mistake. If you really believe that Cecilia Thayer had anything to do with the loss of that child’s book, you are wrong; if you think she had any other than humane motives in visiting the child, you are wrong again. Cecilia Thayer – “
“Oh, now come, Cora,” he interrupted. “You don’t mind me calling you Cora? I know the whole scheme. Your brother Jack is – well, he is quite clever, but not clever enough to cover up his tracks.” He grasped Cora’s arm and actually dragged her to him. “Don’t you know that Cissy Thayer and Jack Kimball are suspected of abduction? That Wren Salvey has been stolen-stolen, do you hear?”
CHAPTER XVI
A STRANGE MESSAGE
Uproarious laughter from the girls with the wild flowers aroused Cora. Rob Roland was gone.
Had she fainted? Was that roaring in her ears just awakened nerves?
“Cora! Oh, Cora! We had the most darling time,” Bess was bubbling. “You should have been along. Such a dear old farmer. He showed us the queerest tables. And he had the nicest son. Cora – What is the matter?”
“Oh,” lisped Ray, “another Co-Ed message over the telephone.”
“Cora, dear,” exclaimed Gertrude, “we should not have left you all alone. Are you ill?”
“Cora! Cora!” gasped Adele.
“Cora, dear!” sighed Tillie.
“Oh, Cora!” moaned Belle. “What has happened?”
“Cora, darling,” cried Maud, “who has frightened you?”
“Cora Kimball,” called Daisy, “have you been drinking too much tea?”
“Too little,” murmured Cora. “Will some of you girls leave off biting the air, and make a good cup of tea?”
There was a wild rush for the alcohol lamp; every one wanted to make the good cup of tea.
“I saw a runabout moving away as we came up,” said Ray. “I hope, Cora, your caller was not obnoxious.”
“Oh, just an autoist,” replied Cora indifferently. “I did not take the trouble to brew tea for one solitary man.” The color was coming back into her cheeks now, and with the return of animation her scattered senses attempted to seize upon the strange situation.
Jack and Clip to be arrested for abduction!
Could that fellow have known what he was saying?
If only Jack would call her up on the telephone. She had left word for him to do so, no matter how late the hour might be when he should return home.
“Now drink every sip of this,” commanded Adele, as she turned on the lights and fetched Cora a steaming cup of the very best Grotto Hyson. “There is nothing for shaken nerves better than perfectly fresh tea, and, you see, we make it without soaking the leaves.”
“It is delightful,” said Cora, sipping the savory draught. “I must learn how to make tea this way – it is so different from the home-brewed variety.”
Gertrude sat close to the reclining girl. “Is there nothing I can do, Cora?” she asked. “No message I can send?”
“Yes,” whispered Cora; “you can manage to get the girls out of here before you and I leave for the night. I want to use the telephone privately.”
Gertrude understood. She had not been a roommate with Cora Kimball for two years without knowing something of her temperament. She pressed her friend’s hand gently, then said loud enough for the others to hear:
“We will soon have to get our machines under cover. Tillie says her grandfather has all sorts of sheds over around his country place. In fact, he has a regular shed-farm. Cora, I am just dying to try running a motor. Would you trust me to get the Whirlwind in the shed safely?”
“Of course I would, Gertrude,” and Cora jumped up from the wicker divan. “I would suggest that some one go along, though – perhaps Ray. She has had some experience, and you know the Whirlwind”
“Is not a prize-package machine,” interrupted Gertrude. “All right, Cora. I will humbly take instructions. Come along, girls. It will be dark directly, and then we might have to waste time lighting the lamps.”
“And grandfather’s man has offered to look over every machine early in the morning,” said Tillie. “He is quite expert; we will be sure that every nut and bolt is in perfect order.”
This was good news to the motor girls, especially to Daisy, who had her own secret doubts about her father’s best car – she was accustomed to running the substitute.
Presently all except Cora and Adele were attending to the cars. Cora was just about to call up her own house when the tinkle of the telephone bell startled her. She picked up the receiver and was not surprised to find the party inquired for was herself.
“This is Jack,” came the welcome voice. “Is that you, sis?”
“Oh, yes, Jack, dear!” she replied. Adele had gone out to fetch the chairs in from the porch. “I have been almost frantic. Where are you? Where is Clip? Where is Wren?”
“Oh, easy there, now, sis,” and Cora thought she had never before appreciated the value of a real brother. “I can’t answer everything at once, although I can come pretty near it. First, I am here – at home. Next, Clip is here – at our home, and third, the other party – I won’t mention names – is here also.”
“All at our house?” exclaimed Cora.
And the answer came: “Exactly that. But you mustn’t say a word to any one. You know, there has been a sort of rumpus. Do you want to speak with C.? She is here.”
“Hello, Cora,” came Cecilia’s voice. “How are you? Not getting on with your trip very fast, I guess.”
“Oh, Clip!” said Cora. “I cannot understand it – “
“You are not supposed to,” replied the other. “We are all right, you are all right, and what more do you ask?”
“How is Paul?”
“Well, he did have quite a time, but is improving. Say, Cora,” and the voice was subdued, “don’t call us up until you hear from me. I can’t explain now. But where shall I write – say in two days’ time?”
“Two days!” repeated Cora. “Do you expect me to exist that long and not know – “
“I am afraid you will have to. We are being watched” – this was barely breathed – “and a break would spoil it all. Surely you can trust me.”
The girls were coming back-were actually on the porch. Cora was obliged to say a few disconnected words, and then she hung up the receiver.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ROAD TO BREAKWATER
“What a delightful morning!” exclaimed Maud. “The wait was certainly worth while. I do believe there is something inspiring about the morning air.”
“Yes,” rejoined Daisy, throwing in the second speed, “it always makes me feel like a human rain-barrel. I want to go out in a great, big field, and sit down in a lump. Then I want to throw back my head and open my mouth very wide. That is my idea of drinking in the fresh morning air.”
“Well, never mind the dewy morning business,” called Cora. “Just get your machines well under way. You know, we must make twenty-five miles by noon.”
Cora was, as usual, in the lead. Daisy and Maud came next, then Bess and Belle lined up the rear, as Cora thought it best that the two big machines should lead and trail.
Cora tried her best to be cheerful. She had definite ideas about a friend’s duty to a friend, and no one could say she failed in that duty. Why should she think of Jack and Clip and Wren when she was captain of the Motor Girls’ Club, and they expected a good time on their initial run?
“Oh, I am so glad everything happened!” exclaimed Tillie, who was in the Whirlwind; “for if everything did not happen we never could have come along.”
“And we never could have had all our camping things,” put in Gertrude. “I am just dying to get out on the grass and light up under the kettles. That was a very bright idea of Adele’s to fetch along part of the tea-house outfit.”
“Won’t it be jolly to build miniature caves to keep the wind from the lamp?” suggested Cora. “I tell you, after all, the motor girls were poor housekeepers – we had to take lessons from our business friends.”
This pleased Tillie immensely. She was the sort of girl who is glad to prove a theory, and in keeping the tea-house she had proven that girls – mere girls – are not always sawdust dolls.
Daisy was speeding up her machine to speak with Cora.
“There’s Cedar Grove over there!” she shouted; “and Aunt May’s is only four miles from the turn in the road.”
“But we are going to lunch on the road,” replied Cora. “The girls are bent on camping out.”
A cloud fell over Daisy’s sensitive face. “I must telephone to papa that I am all right,” she remarked. “Aunt May expected us last night, and if you girls do not want to come, Maud and I will go. We can meet you farther on.”
“Oh, of course,” Cora hurried to say, “we must go on, since we are expected. We can have the camping out to-morrow. I had actually lost track of our plans in the mix-up.”
“Isn’t it too bad that Hazel had to turn back?” said Ray. “I do hope her brother is not seriously ill.”
“I heard last night that he was very much better,” replied Cora. “It seems that robbery unnerved him. Ridiculous as the situation appeared, it was no fun to Paul. I don’t wonder he broke down.”
Bess, Belle and Adele were in the Flyaway, and they, like the others, seemed to take new pleasure in flying over the roads since they had realized what it meant to have to stand still.
Adele was all enthusiasm. She had not often been privileged to enjoy automobile sport, and the prospect of the trip seemed like an unopened wonder book to her – every mile revealed new delights.
Along the shady byways, through the Numberland Hills, past the famous springs, where everybody stopped to drink and make a wish, the motor girls took their way.
“Let me lead now, Cora?” asked Daisy. “I am just dying for Aunt May to see us come up. And say, girls, I’ve got the dearest, darlingest cousin – a young doctor!”
A scream went up from every throat. Daisy had not told of her attractive cousin until the party were within very sight of him.
“Me first!” shouted Belle. “I have been a perfect angel ever since we left Chelton; didn’t even speak to the nice man with the short thumb – Clip’s friend.”
At that moment an auto dashed by. Tillie seized Cora’s arm.
“That’s the man who talked about Hastings!” she exclaimed. “The man who took tea in our house yesterday.”
“And that’s the very man we met on the road the day Paul was help up,” Cora declared. “Oh, now I see the coincidence. Of course they heard of the hold-up, they being on the road about the time it happened, and when they were at your house they might have been discussing the latest account of the affair – there was something in the daily paper about it, you know.”
Cora was not sure she believed herself, but at the moment she decided it would be best for the happiness of the party to think lightly of the meeting with the strange men. Rob Roland’s voice still rang in her ears like a threat, and while she was no coward neither did she invite trouble.
There seemed now to be clearly some connection between the missing papers from the mailbag and the missing promise book, but of the two Cora’s girlish heart considered the loss of the book the more serious.
“Did you ever see such old-fashioned houses in all your born days?” asked Bess. “Look at that one over there. If our table is not in that house, then we had better abandon the antique and look in some new, first-class hotel.”
“That house over there is my aunt’s!” shouted Daisy, laughing at Bess for making the blunder, “and I am going to tell Duncan exactly what you have said about it.”
Bess begged off, and made all sorts of apologies, but Daisy insisted that her cousin, the doctor, should hear what Bess thought of one of the finest old mansions in Breakwater.
“Here we are!” called Daisy, pulling up on the gravel drive. “And there are Duncan and Aunt May.”
Out on the broad veranda stood a young man – plainly a professional, for while at a glance a girl might decide that Duncan Bennet was “up to date,” still there was about him that disregard for conventionality that betokens high thinking, with no room for the consideration of trifling details of every-day life.
Cora instantly said: “There! He’s fine!”
Ray was thinking: “How unpolished!”
Bess whispered to Belle: “I see trouble ahead. Gertrude will want to take him along.”
Maud was “adjusting her eyes.” She could not forget her famous “imploring look.”
But Duncan Bennet, with one bound, left the veranda, clearing the steps without touching them, and he was in front of Daisy’s car dangerously soon.
“Look out, Duncan!” called Daisy. “Do you want to spatter yourself all over my nice clean machine?”
“Not exactly,” he replied, “but I felt I should do something definite to welcome you. I suppose I may extend the kiss of peace?”
“Oh!” gasped Maud. “Will he really kiss us?”
“Without a doubt,” replied his cousin, laughing. “Duncan Bennet is famous for his hospitality, and quite demonstrative. Don’t worry, dear. He is an awfully nice fellow.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CLUE
Jack Kimball sat in his study, with his hands laced in his thick, dark hair. He was thinking – Jack claimed the happy faculty of being able to think of one thing at a time, and to do that thoroughly.
Suddenly he jumped up, and, whistling a tune that only a happy youth knows how to originate, he dashed up the polished stairs, three steps at a time, and finally reached the third floor of his home.
He was met in the hall by a matronly woman with a tray in her hands, and at his approach she stepped back to allow him to enter a room, the door of which was swung open.
“Morning, Miss Brown,” he said. “How’s the baby?”
“Doing splendidly, thank you,” replied the woman, “and she is very anxious to see you. Won’t you step in?”
“Sure thing,” answered Jack. “That’s just what I came up for. I want to chat with her myself.”
He stepped lightly into the apartment. It was plainly furnished, with a keen appreciation of what was needed in a sick room, and what should be left out of it. Jack sank into a steamer chair beside the white bed.
“How are things, Wren?” he asked, stroking the delicate hand that was put out to greet him. “Are you almost strong enough to – play football?”
The child smiled, and turned her head away. She had never known any one in all her life like Jack Kimball, so big and strong, and yet so kind. He almost made her feel timid and shy.
“I’m better every minute,” she managed to say. “But, of course, I ought to be.”
She glanced at her nurse, Miss Brown, who was bringing the morning’s beef tea.
“She is really doing splendidly,” put in the nurse. “But she is a model patient – never wants what is not good for her.”
“Is Clip coming to-day?” asked Wren, hesitating as she said “Clip.”
“I hope so,” replied Jack, “but you know she is very busy, and may not get here. But if she does not” – noting the child’s disappointment – “she will surely come to-morrow. She telephoned so last night.”
“Did she say anything about the book?” queried the little one.
“That’s exactly what I want to talk about,” he replied with nice evasion. “I wonder are you well enough to try to remember about that book. Where did you last have it?”
“Out in my chair, with mother. I asked a little boy along the road to hand me some flowers, the book slipped back of me, and, as mother wheeled me along, I could feel that it was all right. When we got home it was gone.”
“And you didn’t speak with any other persons than this boy?” Jack continued.
“Oh, there were a lot of people out to see the firemen’s parade, and lots of them spoke to me.”
“But did any one walk along with you to talk with you?”
“Yes,” she said with hesitation, trying to recall that day’s momentous happenings; “there were two people. They were strangers. I think they had been in an automobile, for the girl was dressed like a motor girl, and the young man wore a long duster.”
Jack stopped and made a mental note of this remark. He had evidently expected this intelligence.
“What did they look like – I mean personally?”
“The girl had red hair – I particularly noticed that,” replied the child; “but I have no idea what the man looked like, for he walked back of my chair.”
“I’m not tiring her, am I, Miss Brown?” asked Jack, turning to the nurse. “I can wait for the other details.”
“Go right on,” assented the woman, who was dressed in the garb of a nurse. “I think the talk will do her good; she has been so anxious about it all.”
“And these two people talked with you?” pursued Jack.
“Why, yes. The girl sat down on the roadside, and mother stopped my chair. Let me see; I think mother went into the little candy shop and left them with me. They were very pleasant. I am sure they would never touch my book.”
“Did you tell them what it was?”
“I did, of course. I always told everybody what my precious book was. I asked them to sign my promise, and they both did so.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Jack, whistling his punctuation. “They did sign, did they?”
“Why, I thought you knew that,” replied Wren. “But I did not see the book after they signed, so I do not know their names. You see, mother was in a hurry, and they just gave me the book and – Oh, what could have become of my precious book!” she broke off, her voice like a cry from her very heart.
“Well, now there!” soothed Jack. “I knew I should not have distressed you about it. But, you see, I had to know, else I could not find it. Now I feel I shall have it back to you in jig time. Brace up, little girl”; and he tried to impart both courage and hope by his manner. “Don’t you know you are sure to get some wonderful blessing for having to stand this loss? That’s Cora’s pet theory. She almost drives a fellow after trouble declaring he will find joy at his heels.”
Wren was sighing. Her book had been to her so much. More, perhaps, than some animal pet is to the average cripple, both companion and distraction.
Miss Brown brought the bottle of alcohol, and bathed the child’s temples.
“Do you know, Mr. Kimball,” she said, “we have a secret for you. Wren stood up yesterday!”
“Bully for the legs!” cried Jack, with an absolute disregard of the way he was expressing his joy. The remark brought the color bark to Wren’s cheeks.
“Yes,” breathed Wren; “but they – my feet – are awfully full of pins and needles.”
“Save them, save them,” went on Jack. “I can never find a pin in this house. Cora fainted one day, and the doctor said it was pins. He had to take out twenty pins to give her back her breath.”
“I wish your sister were home,” said Wren, looking wistfully out of the low window beside the bed. “She is so like Clip – and Clip can’t be here.”
“She’ll be home soon, all right,” replied Jack, who was now standing at the door, “and when she does come we will all know it. Cora Kimball is a brass and a lawn mower, rolled into one piece. You should be glad she is away,” he finished, his words actually accusing himself of falsehood.
“Fetch her, and let me see,” spoke Wren, trying to appear as cheerful as she, had been when her visitor entered her room.
“Well, I’ll fetch something next time,” he replied. “If I can’t get Cora or Clip I’ll get – ice cream.”
CHAPTER XIX
PAUL AND HAZEL
Meanwhile, at another bed of sickness sat a girl pale and wan from nights and days of anxiety. Hazel Hastings had left the motor girls’ tour and hurried to her sick brother with more apprehension stirring her heart than the report of his actual condition warranted. Paul had always been subject to peculiar spells – shocks they were termed – but Hazel knew what collapse meant, or what it might mean, unless –
Brother and sister were to each other what the whole world might be to others. Paul had kept up well under the strain of the hold-up, but when suspicion was pointed at him he collapsed.
Who could be at the back of the defaming scheme to spread the report? Who could have dared to say that he was in league with whoever took those papers from the mailbag?
“Are you better, Paul?” murmured the girl. “You had a lovely sleep.”
“Oh, yes,” he sighed. “I feel almost good. If only my head would stop throbbing. What time is it?”
“Almost noon, dear, and Clip will soon be here.”
“Will she fetch the morning papers? I must see how the thing is going on. They were to go to court this morning.”
“Now you must not think of that, you know, Paul,” commanded the girl gently. “If you are to grow strong enough to go and take your own part you will have to leave the others alone. There is nothing new, or I should have told you.”
“But Mr. Robinson called – I heard you talking to him last night.”
“Yes, you did, dear. But he came to inquire for you. He is very anxious about you.”
Hazel Hastings went to the dresser and slipped under the cover a piece of yellow paper. Paul was getting better, and he should not see Mr. Robinson’s check for money, which that gentleman had insisted upon leaving for the sick boy’s expenses. They were not poor, neither were they rich, but Paul Hastings should not want for anything through his sister’s pride.
“He was so glad to hear you were improving,” she went on, “and particularly said you were not to worry about the papers. It seems they have some important clue, and feel positive of recovering them.”
“If they only could,” sighed Paul. “To think that I should have lost them! And they meant a small fortune to the Robinsons. What if they should become poor, and through me!”
“Oh, you silly boy! Stop that nonsense this moment. There! I heard Clip coming. I am glad, for she knows better than I how to control you.”
It was Clip who entered the room, but what with her buoyant, happy way, and the great bunch of flowers she carried, one could hardly be certain it was only a girl – it might have been some fairy of sunshine.
“Well!” she exclaimed, glancing from Paul to Hazel. “You are better, Paul. Has Hazel been treating you again with some of her magic suggestion business? At any rate, I cannot deny its power.” She flittered over to the bed and playfully buried Paul’s face in the bouquet. “There! Aren’t they splendid? And you would never guess who sent them. Guess, Hazel.”
“Ed,” hazarded the girl.
“No, indeed. You try, Paul.”
“Walter Pennington,” replied Paul, smiling.
“Indeed, Walter probably has forgotten my very existence.”
“Then it was – “
“Oh, you would never guess. It – was – Rob Roland!”
A dark look stole over the face of the young man on the bed. “I don’t like him, Clip,” he said.
“Neither do I,” she replied promptly. “That is precisely why I am so nice to him. I have to keep friends with him just now. And I have not the slightest doubt his motive is identical with my own.” She paused to laugh indifferently, then she tossed aside her dust coat and stood revealed in spotless white linen. “How do you like me?” she asked, straightened up to her short height. “Am I not a full-fledged `strained’ nurse, now? You know I am summoned to court this afternoon, and all the papers will describe me.”
Her brightness seemed infectious. Paul leaned upon his elbow, and Hazel was actually interested in Clip’s new costume.
“Yes,” she went on. “You see, Mrs. Salvey has been called to account for Wren – did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous? Those lawyer relatives of hers pretend to believe that Wren is being neglected because we have taken her away from the supposed care of that absurd doctor. Well, I just told Mrs. Salvey to answer the summons and go to court. It will be the best thing that ever happened to have her get her real story before the public.”
“But what about yourself ?” asked Hazel. “They will ask you how old you are, and what is your occupation “
“And my friends will all fall dead.” Cecilia did not appear worried at the prospect. “Well, I shall say I am not as old as some girls, and that I am engaged in being a member of the Motor Girls’ Club.”
“That is precisely where your trouble will begin,” said Paul. “The motor girls will never stand for a ‘strained’ – “
“Indeed, I am not the least bit afraid that I shall lose the friendship of Cora and her brother. Even Walter and Ed will think it jolly to have kept up the joke. Of course” – and she hesitated – “some of the others – “
“Well, you can count on us,” declared Paul warmly. “And if ever I get out of this trouble, and am well again, I am going to take Hazel for a long tour. You might – “
“Oh, you silly! I might go along? Where on earth would I get seventy-five cents to go to Europe with?”
She placed the bouquet on the small table near the window. “There; I guess the flowers will not contaminate us. But when he gave them to me – or, rather, sent them, there was a note in the box,” she added.
Both Hazel and Paul looked their question.
“Yes,” replied Clip. “Would you like to hear the note?” She took from her pocket a slip of paper. “It always strikes me as odd that people who try hardest to do one thing, and mean another, fail utterly to hide the intention. Now this gentleman, who writes with such solicitation about Wren, says he really misses seeing her, declares frankly that Jack Kimball and I were seen to smuggle her off in Jack’s auto, and then – But let me read the finish. I am spoiling the effect:
“`Of course you have the child safe,'” she read, “`and no one questions your ability to care for her. All the little clandestine trips which you and your friend made to the Salvey cottage happened to have been observed.’ Just hear the boy! Happened to have been observed, when I knew he was watching – saw him on more than one occasion.” She turned over the page of business letter paper, and continued:
“`But the fact that I, her own cousin, am denied the privilege of seeing her makes the thing look odd.’
“Now do you see what that means?” asked the girl. “He is trying to make me feel that it would be better to produce Wren than to keep her away from the lawyers, because it looks `odd.’ Well, I’ll take my chances on the odds,” she said with a laugh; “and Wren Salvey will be `produced’ when I am sure that the motor girls’ strange promise will be kept. We have those smart men just where we want them now, and if they want Wren they must give us that table.”
“You think they know where the table is?” asked Hazel.
“I am not so sure of that,” responded Clip, putting away the paper and preparing to place upon the center table some of the contents of her satchel. “But I do know that this man, Reed, is Mrs. Salvey’s second cousin. She told me he was always interfering between Wren and the popular grandfather. Now, if the table contained the will, as Wren declares, and if that same table was sold at auction, by this man, Reed, or through his management, it seems more than likely that he could trace it.”
“But if he could find it, why would he not do so, and destroy the document?” asked Paul.
“Bright boy!” declared the girl. “That only goes to show, Hazel, that when a girl gets a thought she stops. When a boy gets one he looks for another. I think now that perhaps the old table is safe in some unthought-of place, and that perhaps – “
“That is why they wanted to get the promise book, to find if any clue to its whereabouts might be within its pages,” put in Hazel. “Well, I know that Cora Kimball will find that table if it is in any house around here. She vowed when she started out she would either bring back the table or acknowledge herself beaten. The latter possibility is actually beyond serious attention “
“Whew!” Paul almost whistled. “But our little sister is progressing. Talk about professions, Clip. I rather fancy there will be more than one to report at the final meeting of the Motor Girls’ Club.”
CHAPTER XX
AT THE MAHOGANY SHOP
It was Duncan Bennet who suggested the auto meet. The town of Breakwater had never gone beyond the annual dog show, and this progressive young man confided to his cousin Daisy that on a certain day next week he expected several of his friends from out of town, who were sure to come in autos, and:
“Why not tell them to `slick up’ their machines, and you girls could do the same? Then, oh, then!” he exclaimed, “we could run a real up-to-date auto meet. I can round up fifteen machines at least. And the girls! Why, the fame of the motor girls will then be assured. You will actually have to appoint a press agent.”
The cousins were strolling through the splendid gardens of Bennet Blade, as Duncan called the long, narrow strip of family property that, for years, had been famous for its splendid gardens, not flower beds, but patches of things to eat.
“I think it would be perfectly splendid,” declared Daisy, her eyes full of admiration for her good-looking cousin. “And I know the girls will like it.
That settled it. Duncan Bennet went straight to his room, scribbled off a number of notes, threw himself astride his horse Mercury (called Ivy for short), and was on his way to the post-office before Daisy had time to stop the exclamation gaps in the girls’ faces with the correct answers to their varied questions.
Some days lay between the proposition and the fete, and this time was to be spent on the road, as the girls had yet some miles to cover before they would turn back toward Chelton.
There was a visit to be made at a ruins in Clayton; this was an underlined note of Ray’s on the itinerary. Then Maud wanted so much to see a real watering place in full swing. This was put down as Ebbinflow, and would take up at least an entire afternoon. Tillie had a craze for antiques, and there was a noted shop only twenty miles from Breakwater. So when Cora facetiously suggested that the party start out from a given point, go their separate ways and get back to Chelton for the auto meet, the girls realized that they would have to “boil down their plans” to fit the time allotted for the tour.
The trip to the Clayton ruins occupied a whole day. The girls started early and took their lunch, which Bess said would be eaten in a crumbling, moss-covered and ivy-entwined tower. The ruins fully came up to expectations, and the girls, leaving their machines at the roadside, began their explorations.
“Isn’t it just perfect!” exclaimed Ray. “I wish I had my sketch book along.”
“She wants to outdo Washington Irving,” called Cora, poising on a tottering stone.
“Look out!” suddenly called Bess. “That stone, Cora – “
A scream from Cora interrupted her, for the stone began to roll over, and Cora only saved herself by a little jump, while the piece of masonry toppled down upon a pile of bricks and mortar.
“My! That was a narrow escape!” gasped Maud. “You might have sprained your ankle.”
“Which would have been all the more romantic,” added Cora, smiling faintly. “It would have been material for Ray’s sketchbook.”
“Never, Cora!” cried Ray. “But come on. Let’s go to some less dangerous part of this ruin. You know they say this was once a church, but was made into a sort of castle by an eccentric individual – “
“Who did dark and bloody deeds and whose spirit now haunts the place,” interrupted Maud.
“Oh, don’t!” begged Ray. “It’s not quite as bad as that, but I heard some one say that on certain dark nights that – “
“Stop it!” commanded Cora. “My nerves are all right, but I’m still shaky from that stone. Let’s see if – “
“Oh!” cried Bess suddenly. “There’s something there, girls,” and, with dramatic gesture, she pointed to a pile of leaves in one corner. “Something moved there, I’m sure of it!”
They looked, and all started as the leaves actually did move.
“Come on!” cried Ray. They gathered up their skirts and were hurrying from the old room into which they had penetrated when the leaves rustled still more, and from them came a tiny snake. There was a chorus of screams and Cora found herself alone in the ruined chamber. She was pale but resolute as she followed her companions sedately.
“Weren’t you awfully frightened?” asked Ray as Cora joined them.
“No indeed,” she answered. “I prefer a live and seeable snake to some haunting, unseeable rumor that only appears on dark nights. But let’s get out into the sunlight and admire the ruins from a better perspective. Besides it’s getting near lunch time.”
It was more reassuring out of doors, they all admitted, and after admiring the picturesque remains of what might have been either a church or fort as far as appearances now went, they got the hampers from the cars and feasted. Then, sitting in the shade, they discussed many things until lengthening shadows warned them that it was time to go.
“Now for a jolly day to-morrow,” remarked Maud as they neared their stopping place that night. “If only we have good weather.”