The Campfire Girls Go Motoring
by
Hildegard G. Frey
Part 2 out of 3
bed.
"What a record we are setting this week!" said Sahwah. "First night we
wandered into a Congressman's house by mistake and were put out; second
night we got burned out of a hotel and finished by getting lost in the
fog; third night we are put out of a lodging house for some mysterious
reason. There aren't enough more things that can happen to us to last
the week out." Which showed all that Sahwah knew about it.
When we had simmered down to something near normal again we realized
that we would need the trunk which was carried on the Glow-worm. Nyoda
drove the Glow-worm over and we carried the trunk up-stairs while she
ran the car back to the garage. It was heavier than we expected and we
were pretty well winded when we set it down on the floor of our room.
"Won't I be glad to see my dressing-gown again," said Sahwah, sucking
her thumb, which had gotten under the trunk when it was set down. "This
dress shrank when it got drenched in the fog last night and the
collar's too tight."
"Slippers are what appeal to me," I sighed, wishing Nyoda would hurry
back with the key. My shoes had been soaked in mud which had dried and
left them stiff, and walking around all day on the scorching sidewalks
had about parboiled my feet. Nyoda returned just then and opened the
trunk without delay, while we crowded around to seize upon our wished-
for belongings as soon as possible.
But when the cover was tilted back we fell over in as much surprise as
if a jack-in-the-box had sprung out at us. Instead of Sahwah's red
dressing-gown on top as we had expected there were rows and rows of
bottles. We stared stupidly, not knowing whether to believe our eyes or
not.
"You've got the wrong trunk!" we cried to Nyoda.
Nyoda went post-haste back to the garage. When she came back she wore a
puzzled look. "The garage man declares that was the trunk that came
with the Glow-worm," she said, in a dazed voice. "He says it was never
removed from the rack, as all the work was on the front wheel and front
fender."
Sahwah took one of the bottles from the trunk and held it up. It
contained some fluid guaranteed to make the hair stay in curl in the
dampest weather. There was a bright yellow label halfway around it that
bore the classic slogan, "One touch of Curline makes the whole world
kink." Sahwah began to giggle hysterically. At any other time we would
all have laughed heartily over that ridiculous trademark, but just now
we were too much concerned with the loss of our things to feel like
laughing.
"No wonder the trunk was so heavy," said Sahwah, rubbing her arms at
the remembrance of that climb up the stairs.
We searched our memories for the events of the previous day and tried
to remember just where the trunk had been all the while. Then we
remembered the scene of the fire and the fact that the Glow-worm might
have been unguarded for some time in the garage. The trunk had been
taken off the rack the day before when the repairs were made, because
they had some work to do on the tail lamp bracket, and I heard the man
say the trunk was in the way. This trunk with the bottles was the same
on the outside as ours with the exception of Gladys's initials, and it
might have been put onto the rack of the Glow-worm by mistake when the
repairs were finished.
Nyoda lost no time in getting the proprietor of the garage at
Wellsville on the long distance phone. When she returned this time she
was entirely cheerful again. "He says there's another trunk just like
it in the garage," she said. "He didn't know whom it belonged to. I
told him to send it to us by express and it will be here in the
morning. We will send this one back to him, for the rightful owner will
be coming back after it."
"Whatever would anyone want with a trunkful of this stuff?" asked Sahwah,
curiously.
"Probably a traveling salesman," suggested Nyoda. She took the bottle
from Sahwah's hand and put it back into its place in the trunk. "One
touch of Curline makes the whole world kink," she mused. "Well, 'one
touch of Curline' has put a 'kink' in our retiring arrangements, all
right."
She locked up the trunk with our key, which fitted the lock perfectly,
remarking as she did so that locks weren't quite as useful as they
might be, since other people's keys fitted them. The rest of the night
passed peacefully, and we were so tired out from having had scarcely
any sleep the previous night that we sank to slumber as soon as we
touched the pillows.
In the morning we took the stranger's trunk to the express office and
called for ours. We hailed that six-sided thing of boards and leather
as though it had been a long lost friend and cheered it lustily when it
was set down in our room. We could easily see where the garage man had
made the mistake in giving us the salesman's trunk, for the two were
identical. We opened ours up to see if our belongings were still
intact. It took us a few minutes to realize the import of what we
found. There, apparently, was our trunk, but the things in it were not
ours. _They belonged to the other girls. _There was Gladys's pink
silk crepe kimono; and Hinpoha's blue one; there were Gladys's Turkish
slippers with the turned up toes; there were Hinpoha's stockings,
plainly marked with her name.
We stared at each other with something like fear in our eyes. The thing
was so uncanny. Gladys's trunk had not been in the garage when we
arrived; it must have come after we left; and yet, _the Striped
Beetle had gone on to Chicago ahead of us_!
The thing was monstrous; incredible. Had the fairies been playing
tricks on us? We stood gazing with fascinated eyes at the open trunk
which stood in our midst like a silent portent.
CHAPTER VI.
For the second time Nyoda got the garage man at Wellsville on the long
distance phone. This conference only deepened the puzzle. He declared
solemnly that no car even remotely resembling the Striped Beetle had
been in his establishment and no party of girls such as we described.
He was as much in the dark as we were about the trunk. Had we been
carrying Gladys's trunk ever since we left home? we asked ourselves.
No, for we had opened ours several times on the road. We gave it up
when the puzzle threatened to addle our brains, and prepared to start
away on our journey. Margery felt well again and ready to travel. We
were standing in the street around the Glow-worm, and through gaps
between houses we could see Mrs. Moffat's house down on Main Street. We
saw a boy in the uniform of a telegraph messenger come along Main
Street and stop at her house.
"Maybe the Frog's sending her some more mysterious messages," said
Sahwah, idly.
But in a moment the boy ran down the steps again and retraced his steps
up Main Street. As he passed the street where we were he looked down,
and then he came toward us. "Which one is Miss Elizabeth Kent?" he
asked.
Nyoda stepped forward and he handed her the telegraph envelope. Nyoda
tore it open and a look of blank astonishment came over her face as she
read.
"What is it?" we all chorused.
"Read it," she said.
This is what we read: "Where on earth are you? Wait Rochester for us.
Coming to-day noon. Gladys."
It was sent from Indianapolis!
We looked at each other dazedly. Gladys in Indianapolis? What was she
doing there? Indianapolis was far out of our way, miles to the south.
With the main roads marked as they were it was impossible for her to
have gotten lost. Then on the heels of this question came another one;
if Gladys had gotten side-tracked and had fallen behind us on the road,
who had passed ahead of us along the northern route to Chicago whom we
had been blindly following? How had Gladys in Indianapolis received the
telegram we had sent to Chicago, giving our address in Rochester? If
Gladys had not come along the northern route, how came her trunk to be
in Wellsville? It was a Chinese puzzle no matter which way you looked
at it, and as Sahwah remarked, not being Chinamen we had no cue. But we
sighed with relief at the thought that Gladys and the rest would be
with us at noon and the mystery would all come to an end. Till noon
then, we would possess our souls in patience.
To kill time we decided to look around at some of the stores. To the
city bred the small town store is as much of a curiosity as the big
city store is to the country bred. Most people think that the
department store is a product of the big city, but I think it is a
development of the general store of the country town. We found a place
where they sold everything from handkerchiefs to plows, and wandered
about happily, looking at farm implements whose use we did not even
guess, and wonderful displays of crockery and printed calico. We seemed
to create quite a sensation when we came in although there were other
people in the store. The proprietor came forward hurriedly and asked us
what we wanted. A strange look came into his face when we said we just
came in to look around. He and his wife and the two or three clerks in
the place all looked at each other, but they said no more. But as we
moved up one aisle and down another he was always right at our elbow,
and he never seemed to take his eyes from us. I picked up a pile of
handkerchiefs to look them over, thinking I might buy some, as mine
were in the lost trunk nobody knew where, but they were all cotton and
I despise cotton handkerchiefs. As I put them down again and passed on
I saw the proprietor pick them up and although he turned his back to us
I could see that he was counting them.
We became conscious of a chill in the air. It seemed that everybody in
the place was watching us with suspicious eyes. With one accord we
moved toward the door and stepped out into the street, where we faced
each other questioningly. What was this baffling thing that we were
running up against of late? The people around here seemed to know
something about us which we did not know ourselves. Last night our
landlady for no satisfactory reason had put us out of her house, and
here were the store people plainly suspicious of us. Was Margery the
cause of it? She had not come with us this morning, as she thought it
would be wiser to stay in her room. But even if they knew about Margery
we would hardly have expected them to act this way. Why did they make
no attempt to take her away from us?
Everywhere we turned we came against a wall of mystery. Was the Frog at
the bottom of it? But why did he always loiter in the background and
never openly molest us? There was something more terrifying about this
silent, skulking foe than there would have been about an armed
highwayman. So far to-day he had not appeared, but we did not doubt
that he was lurking in the shadows somewhere. As we stood there we saw
the motorcyclist walking down from the upper end of the street in our
direction.
"Let's wait until he comes up and thank him for telling us about the
other rooms," suggested Sahwah.
So we stood still and waited. But no sooner had he seen us standing
there on the sidewalk than he paused suddenly, turned abruptly and went
up a side street.
"Even he is avoiding us!" said Sahwah. "What on earth can be the
reason?"
We wished with all our hearts for noon, when Gladys would come and we
could get out of this wretched town. But there were still two hours
until then. We decided to go into another store and see if they would
treat us the same way. They did, only perhaps a little more so. The
proprietor followed us around like a shadow and heaved an audible sigh
of relief when we went out. Utterly disgusted, we went back to Margery.
The time passed heavily until noon and then we went out on Main Street
to watch for the arrival of the Striped Beetle. The events and
accidents we were ready to pour out to the coming girls were enough to
fill a volume, and we were sure that nothing they would have to tell
would match our story of the fire and the night in the fog.
The telegram had said they would come at noon and we were to wait for
them. Noon came and went; one o'clock; two o'clock; and like the Blue
Alsatian Mountains, we were still watching and waiting. There was no
sign of the Striped Beetle. The sun beat down mercilessly on the
glaring earth and we grew faint and dizzy straining our eyes up the
road. It was several degrees hotter than the day before. We ate our
dinner in squads, one squad eating while the other did sentinel duty.
We beguiled the time by singing "Wait for the Wagon", "Waiting at the
Church ", and every other song we knew on the subject. People looked at
us curiously as we sat in a row on a low stone wall. One man asked us
if we were waiting for the circus parade, because if we were we had our
dates mixed; the circus was not due until the next day. The afternoon
advanced; carful after carful of tourists came down the dusty road, but
none of them the ones we so eagerly awaited. Margery had refused to sit
there where everyone could see her, and stayed in her room, and we took
turns sitting with her.
"Are you sure we didn't dream that telegram?" asked Sahwah wearily, at
half past three.
Nyoda shook her head. "It's real, all right," she answered. "I have it
here in my coat pocket."
"Let me see it again," said Sahwah, "and see at what time it was sent."
Nyoda put her hand into her pocket. When she brought it out again she
held to the light, not the yellow telegraph form, but a queer, bluish
beetle-like thing. She stared at it with amazed eyes and we were all
too much astonished to speak.
"What is it?" asked Sahwah, finding her voice first.
"It's a scarab." answered Nyoda, "the ancient Egyptian figure of a
beetle. There are several in the museum at home."
We passed it from hand to hand with growing wonder and admiration. But
how came it into Nyoda's coat pocket? Was this also a part of the
witchcraft that had sent Gladys's trunk to us so mysteriously?
"Curiouser and Curiouser," said Sahwah.
"Are you sure you didn't pick it up somewhere without knowing it?" I
asked. "People sometimes do those things absent-mindedly, you know. I
came home from down-town once with a gold-handled umbrella and I hadn't
the slightest notion of where I got it. And the next day there was a
notice in the paper, 'Will the young lady who took the gold-handled
umbrella from the wash-room of Levy & Strauss's yesterday afternoon
please return same to the office? She was recognized and followed.' And
I couldn't remember being in the wash-room of Levy & Strauss's at all!"
Nyoda racked her brain. "It's impossible," she said. "I haven't been
anywhere since noon but up to that restaurant and Sahwah and I sat
alone at a table. There wasn't anything belonging to anyone else near
us."
"You didn't get it this morning when we were looking through the
stores?" I asked.
"No," said Nyoda, "I didn't. It wasn't there when I started up to
dinner. Besides," she added, "that scarab never came from a store in
this town. Things like that are handled by dealers in curios in large
cities, and by private collectors." Her brow was puckered into a
bewildered frown.
"However it got there," she said, "it doesn't belong there and I have
no right to keep it. I'm going to turn it over to the police, and if
anybody reports the loss to them they will find it intact."
As we stood there looking at the curious scarab in Nyoda's hands a
motorcycle putt-putted past in a cloud of dust and we recognized our
light-haired friend apparently leaving town.
"We'll never get a chance to thank him for that address!" I said, half
regretfully. Little did we think that the only decent thing fate did
for us on that trip was to withhold that chance!
Nyoda and I went in search of the police station, leaving Sahwah and
Nakwisi sitting and watching for the Striped Beetle. It was only Sahwah
who was doing any watching out, however, for Nakwisi was looking
through her spy-glass at the clouds. After some inquiry we found the
police station. When Nyoda told her story about finding the scarab in
her pocket, the policeman in charge looked at her with a peculiar
expression and a wise grin. But when she wanted to leave it there he
waved her away.
"Wouldn't have it around here for a farm," he declared. "Lady left a
necklace here once: said she found it in the road. The next night the
police station burned down and the necklace disappeared. We just got
this new station and it nearly broke the town and we can't have any
more accidents. You take it on to the next town and tell 'em you didn't
find it till you got there, see?" Half angry and half amused at this
dauntless representative of the law we went back to the girls, with the
mysterious scarab still in the pocket of Nyoda's coat. If only we had
followed Sahwah's joking advice and stuck it on an ornamental shrub
near us to startle passers-by and left it there!
"Something must have happened to the Striped Beetle," said Nyoda in a
worried way, when we had exhausted our patience with waiting. "I don't
know but what it would be a good idea to set out in the direction of
Indianapolis and try to find them. We will surely come upon a trace of
them somewhere."
"What strikes me queer," said Sahwah, "is, if Gladys knows our address
and wired that she would be here at noon, why she didn't wire again
when she found she couldn't get here. She might know we would begin to
tear our hair when she didn't appear."
Nyoda began to look uneasy. "That's what makes me think something has
happened to her," she said. "Somehow I always have visions of the
Striped Beetle lying smashed up somewhere and our girls being carried
to a hospital. I can't get it out of my mind. Something has happened to
Gladys which has kept her from wiring and it is our duty to find out
what it is."
"Maybe she did wire and they didn't deliver it to us," suggested
Sahwah. Nyoda and I promptly went up to the telegraph office and
inquired if any later message had come for us. Nothing had, we were
told.
Nyoda made up her mind at once. She consulted the road map she had
bought after the marked one had gone with Gladys and looked at the
route to Indianapolis. "If any message comes to this office for us,
kindly forward it to the office at Kokomo," she directed. "We will stop
there and inquire."
We got into the Glow-worm without delay, picked up Margery from the
house, piled the other girls into the car and shook the dust of
Rochester (it was nearly a foot thick) from our tires. I looked around
every little while from my seat in the tonneau to see if the Frog was
following us, but there was no sign of him. In fact, I may as well tell
you now, that we had seen the last of him until we saw him in such an
amazing attitude two days later.
Driving gave us a little relief from the heat, for the motion of the
car created a little breeze, although there was none of any other kind
stirring. I think if we had sat out in that hot street any longer I
should have been overcome. It was bad enough in the car, for the dust
rose up in choking whirls until we could taste it. I have never known
such a hot day before or since, although I have seen the thermometer
higher; but that day the air seemed to be minus its breathing qualities
and we gasped like fish out of water. We kept a close watch on Margery
for signs of collapse, but she seemed to be bearing up pretty well; I
suppose it was because she had not been sitting out on Main Street for
four hours.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we had a thunder shower to-night," said
Nyoda, scanning a bank of apoplectic-looking clouds that were lying low
over the distant horizon.
"I hope so," I replied. "Anything to break this heat. The air over the
street looks like the heat waves over the radiator." I could not help
wishing fervently that Gladys had chosen a cool breezy day to get lost
on.
We stopped at so many places and asked if they had seen a brown car
with black stripes carrying four girls in tan suits that our voices
became husky on those words. Sahwah suggested that we print our inquiry
on a pennant and fasten it across the front of the car. But nowhere was
there a sign or a trace of the car for which we were seeking. People
had seen brown cars, but no girls in them, and they had seen tan coats
in black or red cars, but nowhere was the tan and brown in combination.
Looking for a needle in a haystack has several advantages over looking
for an automobile on a hundred mile stretch of road. For one thing,
there is only one haystack, so you are pretty sure of finding your
needle there if you look long enough; whereas there were several roads
to Indianapolis; and for another thing, your needle is stationary and
not traveling through the haystack, so you are reasonably sure when you
have ascertained that it is not in a certain part of the haystack that
it will not be there at a later time; whereas the Striped Beetle might
be moving from place to place, in which case we were going to have a
lively time catching up with it.
Especially did we inquire if there had been any accidents. Once we had
a scare; we were told that a brown car had been struck by a suburban
car that morning and several girls seriously injured. The injured ones
had been taken to a hospital in Indianapolis, but the automobile was in
a repair shop in the village of D----. We hastened to D---- and elbowed
our way through the crowd in front of the repair shop to see the wreck
of the car and sighed with relief when we saw it was not the Striped
Beetle. One door was still intact and that bore the monogram DPS in
large block letters.
If Fate has anything to do with the color of paint, or rather, if the
color of paint has anything to do with Fate, brown must be an unlucky
shade to paint a car. The number of brown cars which had come to grief
along that road was unbelievable. In another place one had turned
turtle on a bridge and thrown its passengers into the river beneath,
but those passengers were all men, we were told, and we did not stop to
investigate further. One woman told a story of having seen four girls
walking along the road almost frantic because their car had been stolen
while they got out to look at something in a field, and we thought
these might possibly be our girls. Hinpoha is crazy about calves and if
she saw a calf in a field she would not only go over and pet it
herself, but drag all the others along too. When asked to describe
their dresses the woman said vaguely that they had had on some light
kind of coats or suits, she couldn't remember which, and she wasn't
sure about the veils. They might have been green for all she knew, but
she always had been color blind and hated to make a definite statement
because she had been fooled on more than one occasion. Where the girls
were now she did not know; she thought they were walking to the nearest
town to notify the police.
While there was nothing definite about this information it was just
enough to tantalize us, and we wondered if the Striped Beetle really
had been stolen and the girls were wandering about in distress. We
strained our imaginations trying to picture what had happened to Gladys
that she did not appear in Rochester, and conjured up all sorts of
circumstances to account for it. But I doubt if an imagination as rich
as the mine of Ophir could have guessed at the truth, so I don't see
how we can be blamed for missing it entirely.
The clouds that had been reclining along the horizon all afternoon
began to mount and deepen in color, and the occasional mutterings of
thunder became more frequent. From being oppressive the air became
stifling and we were all on the verge of collapse. The fatigue of
getting out of the car so often to follow up things that looked like
clues was beginning to tell on us. And the suspense was worse than
anything else. Up to now, when we thought that Gladys was on the road
ahead of us and we would catch up with her in Chicago, we had
cheerfully put up with all the mishaps which had befallen us, for none
of them turned out seriously and we were entirely light-hearted. But
now we were really worried about Gladys. Her not appearing after she
had wired us that she was coming began to take on a sinister meaning.
It is much easier to live through mishaps yourself than imagine them
happening to someone else.
Taken altogether, that afternoon's trip is one on which I like to put
the soft pedal when harking back in memory. And happy for us then that
we did not know what it was going to end in. The sky behind us had
turned inky black and it became evident that the storm which was coming
would be no ordinary one. A wind sprang up that increased in velocity
with a peculiar moaning sound. A strange light was in the air that made
the white farm houses and barns gleam sharply against the dark sky.
Nyoda looked with some anxiety at the lowering clouds.
"I think it would be a wise plan to make the next town before that
storm breaks loose," she observed, thoughtfully. "You know the storm
curtains don't fasten tightly on the one side, and if we're caught
we're going to be drenched."
The next town was Kokomo, about ten miles away, where we were to stop
at the telegraph office and see if there was a message from Gladys.
Then began a race the like of which I have never seen before. It was
the speed of man matched against the speed of the storm gods. Behind us
the storm was breaking; we could see the grey wall of the rain in the
distance; the wind was rising to a tornado and the thunder claps seemed
to split the earth open. And there we were, scudding along before it,
like a tiny craft fleeing from a tidal wave. The Glow-worm bore us
onward like a gallant steed, and I compared our headlong flight with
the King of Denmark's ride when his Rose of the Isles lay dying.
"Think of something cheerful," said Sahwah, crossly; "Gladys isn't
lying at the point of death."
After all, the comparison didn't hold good, for the King's steed
reached his destination and the Glow-worm didn't. We had been so taken
up with our search for Gladys that we had neglected to supply the life
blood to our iron steed, namely, gasoline, and we came to a dead stop
in the road four or five miles from town. Our exclamations of disgust
were still hovering in the air when the storm struck us. As Sahwah has
always described it, "And then the water came down at Lodore." I could
devote several pages to the fury of that rainfall, but what is the use
of taking up the reader's time when her own imagination will supply the
details? Just imagine the worst storm you were ever caught in, or ever
saw anyone else caught in, and multiply it by two or three times and
you have our situation.
With a shriek of delight the wind seized the loose end of the storm
curtain and tore the whole curtain from the car with one neat pull.
When we last saw that storm curtain it was traveling eastward at the
rate of sixty miles an hour. In one minute we were all as wet as if we
had fallen off the dock at home. We abandoned the car and ran for the
shelter of a big tree near-by. We were no sooner under its spreading
branches when, with a sound like the crack of doom, lightning struck it
and it went crashing to earth in the opposite direction from us. We
didn't stop to reflect what would have happened to us if it had fallen
in our direction, but made for the open road where there was nothing
but the sky to fall on us, which it was doing as hard as it could.
We were just wondering how long it would take the inside of the Glow-
worm to dry out, and whether rain made spots on the leather when a
closed limousine came along the road. The driver, in rubber coat and
cap, stopped his car and asked if he could be of assistance. Nyoda,
suddenly conscious that the color was running out of her dripping veil
all over her face, put her hand in her pocket to find her handkerchief
and wipe her face. Along with the handkerchief out fell the curious
scarab which we had forgotten in the search for Gladys. The man eyed it
intently as Nyoda put it back into her pocket. A change seemed to have
come over him. Before he was merely an automobile driver offering help
to a stranded motorist, but now he acted like a minion in the presence
of a queen. He touched his hat with the greatest respect, got down from
his seat in a hurry and opened the door of the limousine.
"Get in quickly," he said, and we did, glad of the glass enclosed
shelter from the downpour. With deft motions he fastened the Glow-worm
behind the limousine with a tow line and then sent his car rolling down
the road at a rapid pace.
CHAPTER VII.
We had not proceeded very far up the road when the car turned into a
long winding driveway of gravel, bordered on either side by well kept
lawns and trim trees. We could see that much through the windows of the
car when the rain would cease its furious whirling against the glass
for a moment. Soon we came to a stop under a wide sheltering porte-
cochere, and the driver got down and opened the door ceremoniously. It
was quite dark, but we could see that the house at which we had stopped
was an immense mansion, probably the country home of some millionaire.
"I will see that the tanks are filled in good time," said the
chauffeur, touching his hand to his cap. He had been driving without
gloves, and I noticed that the little finger on both of his hands was
turned inward at the second joint. I believe that is what brother Tom
calls a baseball finger.
Just then the door of the house opened and a trim looking maid appeared
and greeted the chauffeur familiarly as "Heinie". He replied by a wink
and a series of movements with his eyebrows which threw the maid into a
spasm of amusement. Then he started the limousine, with the Glow-worm
still in tow, around the side of the house, presumably toward the
garage, although from where we stood we saw no building. The maid held
the door open for us and we stepped into an entry paved with marble.
"If we could stay here a few minutes until the rain is over--" began
Nyoda. For no reason at all the maid began to giggle violently. I
suppose she was still amused over the grimaces of the chauffeur. It
takes so little to amuse some people.
"Come this way," she said, and led the way from the entry into a hall
and up a flight of stairs. There was a big triple window on the landing
and as we passed the rain was dashing against it so violently that we
thought the glass must give way. Severe as the storm had been when we
were caught in it, it was twice as bad now, and we gave a thankful sigh
that we were under shelter, and blessed the gasoline for giving out
when it did, for if it hadn't we must have been overtaken on the road
and would have missed this chance of getting in the dry. We went up-
stairs as quickly as possible so as not to drip on the rich carpet that
covered the steps. The maid threw open the door into the most luxurious
bedchamber I have ever seen. It was clear that we were in the house of
a very wealthy man. Another maid was in the room which we entered and
she looked at us five dripping refugees with a stare of curiosity.
"Some friends who were caught in the rain," explained the maid who had
acted as our guide. "Come, get them some dry clothes."
The two of them bustled about laying out things for us to put on, and
for the first time in my life I was waited on by a maid. The first one,
whom the other addressed as Carrie, was inclined to be talkative, and
sympathized noisily with our drenched state. She was quite pretty, with
rosy cheeks and black hair and black eyes. There was something odd
about her appearance at first and upon looking at her closely I
discovered this odd appearance came from the fact that her eyes did not
seem to be on a level. But she was very deft in her movements and had
our wet garments hung up on hangers and spread out before the little
grate fire in no time. I felt a passing envy for the woman who was the
mistress of this maid and who did not have to worry whether she threw
her clothes in a heap on the floor or not, as she would always find
them properly taken care of when she wanted them again. Taking care of
my clothes is the greatest trial of my life.
The other maid spoke not at all; she seemed newer at her job and obeyed
the directions of the first meekly and in silence. Carrie picked up
Nyoda's soaked coat and shook it, and as she did so the scarab flew out
of the pocket and fell to the floor. She hastily picked it up and held
it in her hand for an instant, turning it over and looking at it
curiously. I saw her glance sidewise at Agnes, the other maid, who
stood with her back to us putting Nyoda's shoes onto trees; then she
looked boldly at Nyoda and deliberately winked one eye! Nyoda looked at
her with a puzzled frown. Carrie became all meekness and deference in a
moment; she laid the scarab down on the table beside Nyoda's purse and
went about her duties without raising her eyes.
In a moment she left the room and we sat listening to the rain beating
against the panes and wondering when it would stop and how soon our
clothes would be dry so we could resume our journey. Agnes went out
presently and when she came back she carried a tray full of cups of
steaming broth and a plate of sandwiches. We were very thankful for
this favor, as we were beginning to feel chilled through. Getting
drenched that way when we were so hot was bad enough, but the wind that
accompanied the shower was decidedly cool and we were pretty
uncomfortable by the time we were picked up.
"To whom are we indebted for this hospitality?" asked Nyoda of Agnes.
"Ma'm?" said Agnes.
"In whose house are we?" asked Nyoda.
"This is the home of Simon McClure," answered Agnes.
"Oh-oh!" we said altogether. The name of Simon McClure was a household
word with us. It was his yacht that had sprung a leak and gone down the
summer before just as it was on the point of winning the cup race. We
had all heard about this millionaire sportsman and his horses, dogs and
boats. Well, we were not sorry, after all, that the heat had ended up
in a shower. It was worth a drenching to be taken into such a house.
I'm afraid our anxiety about Gladys faded a little in the enjoyment of
our unique position. The rain had gradually subsided from a cloudburst
into a steady downpour and we trembled to think what the road would be
like. In our mind's eye we saw ourselves stuck up to the hubs in yellow
clay from which it would require the pulling power of a locomotive to
release us.
I suppose Carrie must have told her mistress of our presence, for after
one of her absences from the room she said that Mrs. McClure had said
we were welcome to stay all night if we wished. We looked at each other
with rather comical expressions. To our widely varying list of night's
lodgings there was about to be added one more, as different from the
rest as they had been from each other. One more adventure was to be
added to our already long list! But even then we did not guess that
this one was to surpass all the others as the glare of a rocket
outshines the glimmer of a match!
Carrie returned again presently and after looking at Agnes steadily for
a minute, with a peculiar expression in her black eyes she turned to
Nyoda and said respectfully that Mrs. McClure was giving a fancy dress
ball that night and, as several of the invited guests had been
prevented from coming at the last moment, which would spoil the number
for a certain march figure she had planned, she wanted to know if we
would mind attending the ball in their places. She begged us to excuse
her for not coming in to speak to us herself, but she was in the hands
of her hair-dresser.
Would we mind attending the ball! Did things ever happen to other
people the way they happened to us? And such a ball as the McClures
would give would be like a page out of the Arabian Nights to us, who
knew nothing of high society.
"But what could we wear?" asked Sahwah, always the first to come to
earth and see the practical side of the question.
Carrie flashed her a sparkling look from her black eyes, giggled, and
then shifted her gaze to Agnes, whom she watched narrowly. Agnes looked
indifferent, both at her and at us. The stony expression on Agnes's
face began to puzzle me; I wondered if there was any mystery about her.
Carrie finally took her eyes from Agnes's face and allowed them to
travel around the room to where our touring suits hung up to dry. "The
automobile suits," she suggested respectfully, "and the veils, and the
goggles--You could masque as a party of tourists. The clothes are quite
dry."
Our spirits revived again, for the thought that we might have to miss
this grand opportunity of witnessing a gorgeous spectacle because we
had nothing to wear had sent our hearts down into our shoes.
Carrie was summoned away then by a soft purring little buzzer and
directed Agnes to help us dress. I must say that we made very nice
looking tourists in our tan suits and green veils. Agnes had the suits
pressed until there were no wrinkles left in them and arranged our
veils with a practised hand. All the while we were dressing we could
hear automobiles driving up under the porte-cochere, and guests
arriving, and we were in a fever of anticipation. Strains of music
floated up from below, together with the subdued hum of many voices. We
judged from the direction of the sounds that the ballroom was on the
first floor.
It was after ten o'clock when we were finally ready and Carrie appeared
in the door for us. She took us down another stairway into a vast hall
filled with paintings and statuary, where a man in a dark blue suit and
silver braid (I suppose that's what you'd call a footman in livery),
stood stiffly as the statues around him. Carrie said something to him
in a low tone (I presume she was explaining our presence without cards
of invitation, such as he was collecting from the other guests), and he
looked at us with an impassive eye and nodded his head. He was a very
homely man with an exceedingly red nose with one bright blue vein
running across it that gave him somewhat of a singular appearance. I
remember thinking that if I were his mistress I should set him to
working in the garden where nobody could see him, instead of posting
him in the front hall to admit the guests.
After Carrie had turned us over to the Nose with the Vein she went up-
stairs again and the man slid back a door on the left side of the hall.
We found ourselves in the ballroom and in the midst of a scene as
bewildering as it was gorgeous. Of course, our first thought had been
to find our hostess and make ourselves known, but there was no way of
telling which one Mrs. McClure was. Everybody was masked and frolicking
around and there didn't seem to be anyone doing the duty of a hostess
whom we could suspect of being Mrs. McClure. Later on we discovered
that there was a reception-room off at the other end of the ballroom
where Mrs. McClure had been receiving her guests, but at the time we
saw nothing but the shifting masses of light and color around us, that
resolved themselves into kings and queens and princes and Indians and
turbaned Hindoos and pirates and Turks and peasants and fairies. The
orchestra was playing the opening bars of a waltz and the dancers were
seeking partners. We withdrew into a corner behind a large palm to look
on. To our surprise and somewhat to our embarrassment we were asked to
dance before the waltz was over. My partner was a Scottish highlander
and a good dancer, and he evidently thought I belonged in the set who
were the guests at this ball, because he kept pointing out different
people and asking if I thought they were this one or that one. I did
not speak much, however, and do not think he ever guessed that I was
not a friend of Mrs. McClure's, was an outsider at the ball, and was,
in fact, the mere tourist I was supposed to represent. I thought,
however, I might get one piece of information out of him.
"I don't see Mrs. McClure," I said, looking over the dancing couples.
Then it was that the Highlander told me about the reception-room at the
other side of the conservatory that opened out of the ballroom, where
Mrs. McClure was. I mentally thanked him for this piece of information
and purposed to tell Nyoda about it as soon as the dance was over. But
when that dance came to a close we were claimed by other partners for
the next, and so on, and we did not get out of the ballroom.
The memory of that ball is like some queer oriental dream and even
while we were in the midst of it I had to pinch myself to make sure
that I was awake and the things around me were real. But the events
that followed were real enough for anyone to know that they were not
dreaming. There came an intermission in the dancing at last, and we
five found ourselves in the glassed-in sun parlor opening from the
ballroom while somebody was going for ices for us. As it happened we
were the only ones in that little room, for the bigger conservatory
next to it was a more popular resting-place. Sitting there waiting we
began to talk about the scarab and the queer effect it seemed to have
had on the chauffeur.
"Let me look at it again," said I. I was utterly fascinated by the
thing.
Nyoda put her hand in the pocket of her coat where she had put the
scarab for safe keeping, and drew out, not the odd-looking beetle, but
something that flashed in the light like a thousand rain-drops in the
sunshine. It was a diamond necklace, with a diamond pendant at the end,
the stones arranged in the form of a cross. The thing blazed in Nyoda's
hand like liquid fire running down over her fingers, and we fairly
blinked as we looked at it. We were too astonished to say a word and
simply stared at it as if we were hypnotised.
"Girls," said Nyoda in a horrified tone, "there's something queer going
on here and we're mixed up in it. The sooner we get out of this house
the better. There's a gang of thieves at work at this ball--there
usually are at these big affairs--and unless we want to find ourselves
drawn into a net from which we can't escape easily we'll have to run
for it."
It was a good thing that the sun parlor was empty and the crush around
the table where the ices were being served kept our friends from
returning. Nyoda put the necklace into a jardinier containing a
monstrous fern and we looked around for a way out. We thought we would
slip out to the garage and get the Glow-worm. The sun parlor must have
had a door leading to the outside, but it was so full of plants in pots
and jardiniers that if there was a door it was covered up. We fled back
into the conservatory, where couples were sitting all over, but there
was no outside door from there. After that we got into a library filled
with people playing cards at tables. We were looking anxiously around
for a door into the hall which led to the porte-cochere entrance when
we saw the maid Carrie come into the room with a tray full of glasses.
When she saw us standing there she came up to us and under the pretense
of offering us refreshments she whispered: "You are looking for the way
out? Follow me."
We followed her across the room and out the door at the opposite side,
which opened into a small reception-room. There stood the footman with
the vein in his nose and without a word he led the way through various
rooms and hallways to the porte-cochere entrance. We passed out
quickly, and to our surprise there stood the Glow-worm under the porte-
cochere with the lamps all lighted and the tanks filled. In a moment we
were speeding down that driveway again and out into the midnight. The
events of the evening were whirling through our heads. As yet we could
make neither head nor tail to them. Bit by bit we began to see the
significance of things, although, of course, the whole story was not
clear to us until a day later, when things came to a head and the
resulting explosion cleared up all mysteries.
This much we did understand, however, that someone had stolen a diamond
necklace from one of the guests at the ball and expected us to get away
with it. Also that the servants must have been in the plot, for how
else had our get away been made so easy? And how came the Glow-worm to
be standing at the door ready to drive away?
We laughed when we thought of the diamond necklace which they had
supposed was safe in our possession, lying in the jardinier in the sun
parlor. We fancied the commotion that would take place when the owner
discovered its loss, and the equal dismay in the breasts of the
conspirators when it was found in the jardinier.
But here we were again, without a place to spend the night, when we had
expected to sleep in such luxurious beds. With one accord we decided to
drive all night and put as much distance between us and the house as
possible. We were constantly afraid that we were being pursued as it
was, and strained our ears for the throb of a motor behind us that
would tell of the chase. We did not make very fast headway, for the
roads were abominable after the storm. In places we went through
regular lakes and the water was thrown into the car by the wheels, so
that we were drenched a second time, as well as spattered with mud from
head to foot. Then we came to a hold-up altogether. In one place a
small stream had risen from the flood and carried away the bridge by
which we were supposed to cross. The water was too deep to drive
through and we had to turn back and find another road. Then our
troubles began in earnest.
The main road had been bad enough, but these side roads full of deep
wagon ruts and mud holes were ten times worse. It would have been a
problem to drive through there by daylight, but after dark it was a
nightmare. Our electric head lamps were dim that night for some reason
or other and only partly showed up the bad places, and several times I
thought we were going to upset. The drizzling rain was still falling
and we were soaked and uncomfortable. After a time we gave up trying to
find another bridge to cross the stream and get back on the main road
and frankly owned that we were lost. Once in a while we saw the dark
outline of a farmhouse far back from the road, but we hesitated to wake
up the people at that time of night and ask our way.
Margery complained of the feeling of her wet coat and Sahwah suggested
that we all sing "How Dry I Am", and see if there was anything in
mental suggestion. So we stopped still at the cross-roads and sang
hoarsely in the rain and darkness like disconsolate frogs. The starter
refused to work when we wanted to go on again and Nyoda had to get out
in the mud and crank the engine.
"She stoops to crank her," said Sahwah, but none of us had the ambition
to pinch her for making a pun.
We were apparently traveling through the country in a sort of Roman key
pattern, up one road and down another without getting any nearer to the
town for which we imagined we were headed. Suddenly something white
loomed up before us which proved to be the gate of a fence; we were
evidently on private property. Sahwah got out to open it but she could
not do it alone, so both Nakwisi and I jumped out to help her. The mud
was piled up so high under the gate that it was all we could do to
swing it back. The Glow-worm passed through slowly and we closed the
gate again. Just then a gust of wind sent down a heavy shower of drops
from a near-by tree and we ran hastily for the shelter of the car.
Nyoda started immediately and we found ourselves in the main road once
more. The gust of wind continued and blew our veils into our faces and
made us screw our eyes shut. In such fashion did we travel down the
king's highway, and if ever my ardor for automobile touring was
dampened, it was then. For a long time nobody had a word to say, not
even irrepressible Sahwah. Each one of us sat apart wrapped in our own
gloomy thoughts. Finally Nakwisi spoke.
"Does the water run down over the tip of your nose if your nose turns
up? Sahwah, yours turns up, will you look and see which way the rain-
drops are going?"
There was no answer.
"Well, don't answer, if you don't want to," said Nakwisi, rather
crossly. We took our veils down from our eyes and looked around to see
the cause of this unusual silence on Sahwah's part. Then we got the
second big shock of the evening. _Sahwah was not in the car!_ She
had vanished utterly, silently, mysteriously, into the rainy darkness!
CHAPTER VIII.
If I were an experienced writer of fiction I would know how to weave
all the various odds and ends of my story into the telling so as to
keep the action moving forward all the time, with all parts nicely
balanced. But as it is, I am afraid that I have been trying to tell it
all at once and am getting it rather one-sided. So far I have told only
what happened to us girls in the Glow-worm, and I fear that the reader
will have forgotten by this time that there were eight girls who
started out on the trip instead of four. So now I am going to carry you
back to a point almost at the beginning of the story; the point where
we almost struck the old woman and where the Striped Beetle vanished
from sight. As I said before, I am going to tell the story just as if I
had been along and seen everything, without stopping to quote Gladys or
Hinpoha or Medmangi or Chapa.
You will remember that we were proceeding westward through Toledo at
the time and the Striped Beetle was in the lead. Hinpoha sat in the
front seat with Gladys, holding Mr. Bob in her lap. The street was
crowded with vehicles and Gladys was driving carefully. A wagon loaded
almost to the sky with barrels threatened to fall over on them and they
had a narrow squeeze to get through between it and the curb. Some small
boys on the sidewalk shouted at the driver of the wagon and he shouted
back; a street car trying to make headway on a track from which a sand
wagon refused to move itself raised an ear-splitting racket with its
alarm bell; the noise was so deafening that the girls put their hands
over their ears and did not take them down again until Gladys had
turned a corner into a quieter street. They had turned another corner
before they discovered that the Glow-worm was not right behind them.
Gladys merely stopped the car and waited for us to come up.
"They're probably caught in that line of wagons and trucks on T----
Street," said Gladys, when we did not come immediately. "I hope their
engine didn't stall on that corner."
The minutes passed and we did not appear.
"Run down to the corner and see what is keeping them," said Gladys to
Chapa and Medmangi. The two girls got out and retraced their steps. But
nowhere did they see the Glow-worm. Puzzled, they returned to Gladys
and she promptly turned the Striped Beetle around and drove back
through the streets the way she had come. The Glow-worm had apparently
vanished off the face of the earth. Inquiry at frequent points brought
out the fact that the Glow-worm had knocked down an old woman (that is
the way such things are exaggerated) and had gone on again. Their
asking which way it had gone started an argument which ended in a fist
fight, for the two small boys they asked each maintained stoutly that
it had gone in a different direction. Then the mother of the boys ran
out from a grocery store to see what the racket was about and seizing
them by the back of their necks she shook them apart, boxing their
ears. When the cause of the argument was made known to her she settled
it in an emphatic manner by pointing with a fat forefinger down the
street.
"They went that way," she declared. "Four girls in tan suits and green
veils just like yours."
They took her word for it and started in pursuit of the Glow-worm,
expecting to come upon it at every turn, their wonder growing
momentarily. They could not understand why Nyoda had ceased to follow
them and was taking a route which was not marked in the route book.
They inquired at numerous places and found that we had passed just
ahead of them.
"I don't blame Nyoda for going this way," said Gladys, "it's lots
quieter than the other way; sort of back streets. She probably turned
off when the jam occurred on T---- Street and thought we saw her and
followed. It seems a little strange that she didn't wait for us to come
up, though."
Mr. Bob, our long-eared mascot, had a most angelic disposition, but
nevertheless, he knew when he was outraged, and when a yellow cur of no
special breed and no breeding at all snarled impudently at him from the
curb he jumped through Hinpoha's restraining arms with the intention of
chewing up the insolent one. The yellow dog saw him coming and, turning
tail, he fled yelping up a side street. Hinpoha shouted commands in
vain; Mr. Bob had set out to put his teeth into that yellow dog and he
would not be turned aside from his purpose. Gladys stopped the car and
Hinpoha ran after Mr. Bob. The yellow cur knew his neighborhood and
turned into an alley just as Mr. Bob nearly had him. Mr. Bob, with
Hinpoha hard after him, also turned into the alley. The back door of an
empty store offered the fugitive a safe refuge and he darted inside. So
did Mr. Bob, growling ferociously, and so did Hinpoha, panting for
breath and holding her hand to her side. From the back room of the
store the dogs passed to the front and Mr. Bob caught the yellow dog in
a tight corner behind a counter. For all he had run in such a cowardly
fashion the yellow dog was a good fighter and the battle which occurred
when the two clinched frightened Hinpoha out of her wits. She seized an
old broom which was standing against the wall and ran behind the
counter to beat them apart. In the darkness behind the counter she
almost fell over something on the floor, and the broom clattered out of
her hand. In her astonishment she forgot the fighting dogs. The thing
she had fallen over and which she had, at first, thought was a sack of
something, stirred and huddled up against the wall and Hinpoha heard
the sharp intaking of a breath. Then she made out the form of a girl; a
girl in a blue suit sitting on the floor with her hands over her face.
"Did--did the dogs frighten you?" asked Hinpoha. The girl dropped her
hands and looked up quickly. Just then the yellow dog broke away from
Mr. Bob and retreated through the back door. Mr. Bob, who had evidently
derived honorable satisfaction from the encounter, came over to Hinpoha
and subsided at her feet. With a look of wonder Hinpoha turned to the
girl crouching on the floor. She had moved into the light from a window
and Hinpoha could see that fear was written all over her face. It was a
girl about eighteen years old with a round cherubic countenance, framed
in fluffy light hair, wide open guileless blue eyes, with an expression
as innocent as a baby's. Just now the eyes were swimming in tears.
"You are in trouble?" asked Hinpoha, with ready sympathy.
The girl reached out her hand and took hold of Hinpoha's jacket as a
child holds on to its mother, in spite of the fact that she was
evidently older than Hinpoha. Hinpoha caught her hand and held it
tightly.
"Tell me about it," she said, gently.
The girl gulped down a big sob and wiped her eyes. "I'm--I'm hiding,"
she said, in a shaky voice.
"Hiding from what?" asked Hinpoha.
"From--from the man I work for," said the girl. "He said I stole
something and I didn't, and he says he can have me arrested," she said
with fresh sobs.
"But how can anyone have you arrested if you didn't steal anything?"
asked Hinpoha.
"I don't know," answered the girl, "but I'm afraid he will." She cried
for a moment and then collected herself and went on. "My name is Pearl
Baxter," she said. "I used to live on a farm down state with my mother
and then she died and I came here to the city and went to work in an
office. I was the only girl in the office and I knew the combination of
the safe. A few days ago Mr. Sawyer, that's one of the men I work for,
asked me to get certain papers out of the safe, and when I went there I
couldn't find them. He made an awful fuss and said I had taken them.
They were bonds, if you know what they are. He said he would have me
arrested. I believe his son took them because he knew they were there.
When the other partner of the firm found they were gone he insisted on
having the office searched and the bonds were found in my desk drawer.
They would not believe me when I said I did not put them there. That
was yesterday and I ran away and hid here all night and I'm afraid to
go out for fear they will get me."
She broke down again and wept into her handkerchief. Tender-hearted
Hinpoha was ready to weep in sympathy. "You poor thing!" she exclaimed.
"Have you no friends who would help you?" she asked.
The girl shook her head. "I don't know anybody up here," she said.
"I've only been working here three months."
For Hinpoha there was always one court of last resort. That was Nyoda.
"You come along with me," she said. "I know somebody who can tell you
what to do."
She led the girl out to the Striped Beetle and told her story to the
other girls. They all agreed that the only thing to do was to take her
to Nyoda as quickly as possible. She sat in the tonneau of the car
between Chapa and Medmangi with her veil tied down over her face,
through which she peered nervously to the right and left as the car
moved on through the streets. Gladys's brow was drawn up into a frown
of perplexity as corner after corner was turned and they still did not
come upon the Glow-worm. Boys playing in the street told them that it
had gone past over fifteen minutes before. Hinpoha anxiously wished for
a sight of the familiar car so that Pearl could be turned over to Nyoda
very soon.
"It's like a game of Hare and Hounds," said Chapa from the back seat
"Nyoda is the hare and we are the hounds. She's probably doing it on
purpose to see how well we can trail her to the city limits. You know
how fond she is of putting us to unexpected tests."
"I'll make it," said Gladys, determinedly.
Several times she consulted her route book and then she laughed. "The
joke is on Nyoda after all," she said. "This way leads to the southern
route and not the northern, and they'll have the pleasure of crossing
the city again. Won't we have the laugh on them, though, when we meet
them at the city limits?"
But the Glow-worm was not waiting for them at the city limits and they
were much surprised to learn that it had traveled on over the road to
the west. "The southern route?" asked Gladys, wonderingly, "I can't
imagine what Nyoda is doing. I'm sure she understood we were to take
the northern. It's all right, of course, because there is no great
difference in the routes, they each lead to Ft. Wayne, but I can't
imagine why she changed without telling us."
"Maybe she couldn't stop the car," said Hinpoha, beginning to giggle.
"It's happened before. The fellow next door to us bought a motorcycle
and got it started and couldn't stop it again and he whizzed up and
down the city until the gas gave out, and there were eleven policemen
chasing him before he got through."
The picture of the Glow-worm traveling across country with the bit
between its teeth, carrying its passengers willy-nilly over the wrong
road, was so funny that they all laughed aloud, in spite of the
improbability of it.
"Maybe she'll make us trail her all the way to Ft. Wayne," said Gladys,
musingly. "It's really our fault for losing her; we should have kept a
better lookout. But it's a cold day when the Striped Beetle can't catch
up with the Glow-worm." And Gladys put on full speed ahead.
Hinpoha was not worrying much about us and our disappearance; her
thoughts were taken up with Pearl and her night in the empty storeroom.
Hinpoha always takes other people's troubles so to heart.
At Napoleon they stopped for gasoline and learned that the Glow-worm
had passed some time before and had also stopped for gasoline.
For the most part Pearl sat silent, turning her head every little while
to watch the road behind them. She was that pink-and-white-doll-baby-
helpless-in-emergency type of girl who ought never be allowed away
from home without a guardian. After they had been traveling awhile she
leaned back against the seat and looked so white and faint that the
girls became alarmed.
"Do you feel ill?" asked Medmangi, feeling her pulse with a practised
hand. Medmangi is going to be a doctor and is in her element when she
has a patient to attend to. Pearl opened her big blue eyes languidly.
"I just got light-headed," she said, in a weak voice. "I think maybe
it's because I'm--I'm hungry."
"Why didn't we think of it before?" asked Hinpoha, filled with self-
reproach. "We might have known you hadn't had anything to eat since
yesterday if you stayed in that storeroom all night. We'll stop in this
village and get you something."
"I'd rather you wouldn't," said Pearl, in a somewhat embarrassed
manner. "I really don't want anything to eat."
"Not want anything to eat!" echoed Hinpoha. "Why don't you want to eat
if you're hungry?"
"You see," answered Pearl, still more embarrassed, "when I, when I ran
away, I didn't stop to take my purse and I haven't any money to pay--"
"That's nonsense," said Gladys, firmly. "You have got to let us help
you. It isn't any more than you would do for someone in the same
position."
They stopped and got her something to eat and the others drank pop to
keep her company. In spite of her being as hungry as she must have been
Pearl did not eat very much; her trouble had evidently taken away her
appetite. The girls exerted themselves to cheer her and assured her
that everything would come out all right as soon as they found Nyoda
and got her advice.
Somebody must have been moving a crockery store in the neighborhood and
dropped it in the middle of the road, for, as they were passing through
the outskirts of the little village where they had stopped they ran
into a regular field of broken china. Gladys stopped short when she saw
it, but it was too late, they were already in the midst of it. Both the
front tires breathed their last. I think it should be made a criminal
offense to leave things like that in the road. But then maybe the man
carrying the china was knocked down by an automobile in the first
place, and left the pieces in order to get revenge on some member of
the auto driving fraternity. Ever since then I have been wondering how
many of our calamities are brought down upon us by our best friends.
Gladys backed out of the mess and set about repairing the damage. The
Striped Beetle carried two extra tires done up in a nice shiny cover
all ready for emergency, but for some reason or other Gladys couldn't
get the old tires off. It seems the demountable rims refused to
demount, or whatever it is they are expected to do when you take a tire
off.
Don't expect me to get the details straight or I shall throw up the job
of reporter right here. I never could see through the workings of a
motor car. I am like the Indian who had the automobile explained to him
until he knew every part like a brother and then, when asked if he
understood it, he replied that he understood all but one thing and that
was what made it go without horses. So if the reader, who knows a car
from A to Z, will kindly forbear to smile when I muddle things up, I
will be her debtor forever.
Gladys saw that she would have to have help in getting those tires off
and began scanning the horizon for a man. There are times when a man is
a most useful member of society. There was not a man on the horizon at
that time, though, and the only promising thing was a house set far
back from the road in a grove of trees, and with a vegetable garden
running down to the road. They had already left the village behind and
habitations were scarce. Gladys went up to the house and returned in a
short while with a man, who wrestled with the tires awhile and then
proposed driving the car into the yard in the shade of the trees, as
the sun was scorching hot in the road. Gladys accepted the invitation
with alacrity.
While the Striped Beetle was holding up its poor cut front shoes for
the man to take off the girls strolled over to the pump for a drink. A
tired-looking woman, holding a fretful baby in her arms, came to the
door and asked the girls to come up on the porch and sit down until the
exchange of tires was made. Medmangi promptly offered to hold the baby
while the woman finished her work. With a sigh of relief the woman
handed her the baby.
"Such a time I've had with him to-day," she said, mopping her forehead.
"He's cried steady since morning. He acts sick and he's got a fever."
Medmangi took the fretful child and endeavored to soothe him while his
mother went about her work. Hinpoha, who is crazy about babies,
insisted on holding him half the time, but neither of them could make
him stop crying. A three year old girl, red-faced and heavy-eyed, as if
she had recently awakened from sleep, peered shyly through the screen
door and Chapa coaxed her to come out and sit in her lap. The mother
came to the door every few minutes to tell us how thankful she was for
the relief.
The relief promised to be one of considerable length, for the Striped
Beetle steadfastly refused to put on its new tires. At last, the man
proposed going after another man who lived down the road to help him.
Gladys joined us on the porch while he was gone and helped amuse the
babies. Still the little fellow cried. Medmangi explored for pins with
a skilled hand but there was nothing sticking into him. Neither did he
appear to be teething.
"There's something the matter with this baby," she said to the mother,
when next she came to the door. "Hadn't you better have a doctor?"
The woman came out on the porch and looked down at the child in a
worried way. "I sent my husband to town for the doctor this morning,"
she said, "but he had gone out into the country on a call and would not
be back until late to-night. The next dearest doctor is in B----;
that's eight miles away and we have no horse. So we'll have to wait
until Dr. Lane gets back from the country."
"Wouldn't you like to have me drive over and get the doctor from B----
as soon as the tires are on?" asked Gladys. Gladys is always the one to
offer the helping hand.
"Would you?" asked the woman, eagerly.
"I would be very glad to," said Gladys.
The man came back with his friend and between the two of them they
managed to get the Striped Beetle shod anew. Gladys drove off to B----,
leaving Chapa and Medmangi and Pearl and Hinpoha on the porch with the
babies and taking Mrs. Martin with her. She had seen Mrs. Martin give a
wistful glance toward the big car and surmised rightly that she had few
chances to go automobile riding. They were back in less than an hour
saying that the doctor would be right along, and he appeared presently
in a dusty roadster with another man beside him, probably a friend.
I suppose everybody has been taught from childhood that virtue is its
own reward and one good turn deserves another. But once in awhile they
discover that the reward of virtue is just as apt to be trouble as not,
and that one good turn can unscrew the lid of a whole canful of
calamities. Thus it was that Gladys's generous offer to fetch the
doctor from B---- ended up in disaster for all five of us. For the
doctor examined the fretful baby and the heavy-eyed little girl and
announced that they both had scarlet fever.
Scarlet fever! The girls looked at each other in dismay. Not one of
them had had it. And they had all handled both the babies; Medmangi had
hung over the little boy most of the time.
"If we have ourselves disinfected," said Medmangi, as they moved
hastily toward the car, "there won't be much danger of our getting it.
Scarlet fever isn't really contagious in the first stages."
"Stay right where you are," said the doctor, in a tone of authority.
"No one must leave this house. You are all under quarantine."
"But we can't stay here," said Gladys. "We're touring and only stopped
here."
"That makes no difference," said the doctor. He was a very young doctor
and had recently been appointed health officer in his district. There
was a serious epidemic of scarlet fever in that part of the state which
it was almost impossible to check because people would not keep to
themselves when they had it in the house. Young Dr. Caxton had made up
his mind that the next case that was reported would be as rigidly
quarantined as they were in the big cities. And automobile tourists
would be the very ones to spread the infection abroad through the
countryside. He was determined to hold them there at all costs.
They argued and pleaded in vain; he was obdurate. He had brought a
friend with him in the car and he proceeded to station him as guard
over the house to see that no one left it. Oh yes, he would see to it
that they got all necessary supplies; they would suffer no hardship,
but, on no account, would a member of that household set a foot off the
grounds. He ordered the babies put to bed and the curtains taken down
in that room and the rugs taken out. Mrs. Martin obeyed his orders in a
flutter of distress. She was frightened because her children had the
scarlet fever and worried half to death at the predicament her passing
guests were in. She had been so grateful to Gladys for taking her along
in the automobile to B----.
But her distress over it was nothing compared to theirs. To be held up
in the midst of a tour and quarantined with a scarlet fever case!
Whatever was to become of them? If Nyoda were only there!
"Now you'll have to telegraph your father," said Chapa.
Gladys's face was drawn with distress. "Mother would be frightened to
death if she knew about it," she said. "I don't believe I'll tell her
yet. I'll wait until I hear from Nyoda."
"How will we get word to Nyoda?" asked Hinpoha.
"Ft. Wayne," answered Gladys. "We were to stay there to-night and she
must be there by this time."
"You'll send a wire for us?" she asked the doctor beseechingly.
"Certainly," he answered, amiably. "Any service--"
But Gladys cut him short. He was plainly enjoying the situation. The
doctor departed with his horrid shiny little case and the message in
his pocket and left the guard to watch the house. The first thing he
did was to take something out of the Striped Beetle--I don't know
what--so Gladys couldn't start it and make a dash for liberty. Gladys
was ready to cry with rage at this high handed act, but that was all the
good it did her.
"Well, there's one thing about it," said Hinpoha, who was far more
philosophical than the rest, "if we have to stay prisoners here we
might as well get busy and help Mrs. Martin. It's no fun to have five
people quartered on you when there are two sick children in the house."
Medmangi was already in the sick room giving medicine and drinks of
water in an accomplished manner. It seems that the Winnebagos have a
specialist in every line.
The others went down to the kitchen and finished paring the peaches
which Mrs. Martin had been trying to can.
Later in the evening the guard slipped an envelope through the screen
door. It was a telegram. It was signed by the telegraph company and
read: "Yours date addressed Elizabeth Kent Potter Hotel Ft. Wayne
undelivered. Party not registered."
CHAPTER IX.
The girls were entirely at sea at not reaching Nyoda at Ft. Wayne. They
had counted so confidently upon her advice to help them out of the
difficulty in which they found themselves. Being lost from her was the
worst calamity they could conceive of. They were very much puzzled and
a little hurt that she should have run away and left them as she did.
It was so unlike Nyoda. On all other expeditions she had kept them
under her eye every minute, like the careful Guardian she was. None of
them slept much that night for worrying over the strange predicament
they were in. Besides that they had to sleep three in a bed. Gladys
made up her mind to wire her father in the morning when the doctor
came.
When they looked out of the door in the morning the guard of the day
before was gone and a new one had taken his place. Evidently Dr. Caxton
was going to do the job thoroughly. Towards noon a buggy drove into the
yard and a white-haired man got out and came up on the porch. He
carried a shabby medicine case.
"Why, Dr. Lane!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin cordially, when she saw him.
"You left a call for me yesterday when I was out in the country," said
Dr. Lane, in a pleasant voice. "I did not get in until early this
morning. What's the trouble?"
"It's the children," said Mrs. Martin. "They've got scarlet fever. I
was so worried about Bobby yesterday that I sent for Dr. Caxton from
B----. We'll have to keep him now, I suppose, but do you want to look at
them anyhow? Mary doesn't want to take her medicine, and maybe you
could--"
"Certainly I'll go up and see them," said Dr. Lane. He was the kind of
man you would love to have for your grandfather. His pockets bulged
suspiciously as though they contained bags of lemon drops or peanuts.
Talking cheerfully all the while he entered the sick room and looked at
the patients.
"So Dr. Caxton said they had scarlet fever!" he said, musingly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Martin.
"Scarlet fever your grandmother!" returned Dr. Lane. "They've got
prickly heat. If Dr. Caxton called that scarlet fever, what would he
call a real case of scarlet fever?"
A minute later the man on guard heard a laugh that almost shook the
windows of the house. Not long after that he was pedaling down the road
on the bicycle that had brought him, very red in the face and very hot
under the collar. The quarantine ended right then and there. Whether
Dr. Caxton came again or not we never found out, for the girls left
immediately. They sped over the road to Ft. Wayne as fast as the
Striped Beetle could carry them. They went to the Potter Hotel and
naturally discovered that we had not stayed there. I believe they had
held to the hope all the time that we had arrived after the telegram
had gone back undelivered. They stood around irresolutely until the
check man to whom we had talked spied them and told them that we had
left not half an hour before and were on our way to Chicago by way of
Ligonier. They could hardly believe their ears when they heard that
Nyoda had gone off and left them the second time. But as they were so
close behind us the only thing for them to do was to follow.
Gladys stopped at a service station and had the Striped Beetle's
carburetor adjusted, or something that sounded like that, and then
started post-haste on the road to Chicago. Pearl looked from one to the
other of the girls with fear and suspicion in her face. "Is there--is
there really such a person as you say you are taking me to see, or are
you taking me somewhere else?" she faltered.
And the girls had a hard time convincing her that Nyoda was not a myth,
although they began to wonder if she had not turned into one. Gradually
Pearl began to thaw out under their persistent cordiality and was
really not such a bad companion after all. She still furtively watched
the road behind them as if she feared pursuit, but some of the scared
rabbit look was going out of her eyes when she began to realize that
the width of a whole state lay between her and her persecutors and they
had absolutely no clue to her whereabouts. She repeatedly expressed her
amazement that a group of girls so young had the courage to travel by
themselves in an automobile, and were not frightened to death to have
gotten separated from their chaperon, but were calmly following her up
as fast as they were able.
She was much interested when she heard they were Camp Fire Girls, and
wanted to know all about the Winnebago doings.
"I wish I could have belonged to something like that in the city where
I worked," she said with a sigh, "maybe I wouldn't have been so
lonesome all the time. And I would have had a Guardian--is that what
you call her?--to go to when I got into trouble."
"Maybe you'll get into a group yet," said Hinpoha, optimistically.
"There are some in the city where you live."
Pearl was as great a curiosity to them as they were to her. How any
girl of eighteen could be so babyish and helpless as she was was a
revelation to them. Everyone of them wished devoutly that she could
become a Winnebago so they could make something out of her. Hinpoha
began making plans right away.
"As long as you have no people and it doesn't matter where you work,
why couldn't you come to Cleveland and find work, and possibly join our
group?" she suggested. "I'm sure Nyoda would take you in. When Migwan
goes to college she won't be able to attend the meetings regularly and
there will be a vacant place. Couldn't you?" she cried, warming to her
plan, and the rest of the girls voiced their approval.
"Oh, do you suppose I could?" asked Pearl timidly, clasping her hands
before her in a nervous manner. "Oh, I never could do it. I'm afraid to
go to a bigger city for fear I'll get into trouble again. And I never
could do the things you girls do, I just never could." And she looked
at them with appealing helplessness in her big blue eyes.
"Nonsense," said Hinpoha, "you can do anything you want to if you only
think you can do it." And she told her a marvelous tale of how I earned
the money to go to college when things seemed determined to go against
me. Which is all perfectly nonsensical; the chance of earning money to
go to college fell right into my lap. Pearl only opened her eyes wider
at Hinpoha's recital and answered with a sigh, "Oh, I never could do
it!"
The girls went on happily planning how they would take her back to
Cleveland with them and make her one of the Winnebagos.
They had to slow up the Striped Beetle along the road for a cow and a
calf that were monopolizing the right of way and Hinpoha decided to
take a picture of them. "Oh, this film's finished," she said
impatiently, examining her camera. "I'll have to stop and reload. Oh,
Gladys, do you mind if I open the trunk here on the road? My extra
films are all in there."
"Go ahead and open it," said Gladys good-naturedly, handing her the
key.
Hinpoha got out and went behind the machine to get her film from the
trunk, all the while calling out to the cow and her calf in a friendly
and coaxing manner not to walk away before she could take them. But she
stopped suddenly in the midst of a persuasive "Here, bossy, stay here,"
to utter a surprised exclamation.
"What's the matter?" asked Gladys.
"There isn't any trunk here." cried Hinpoha. "It's gone!"
Consternation reigned in the Striped Beetle. The trunk, containing all
their extra clothes, had vanished from the rack at the back of the car!
"And my scarf was in it," said Hinpoha, ready to cry with distress,
"that mother sent me from Italy!"
"Don't worry, we'll get it again," said Gladys soothingly, although she
was as much dismayed herself. "Where did we have it last? We had it in
Ft. Wayne, I know, because we opened it there. It must have been taken
off in the service station where we had the carburetor adjusted. We'll
have to go back and see if it's there."
Accordingly they turned around and drove swiftly back to Ft. Wayne.
Inquiries at the service station at first brought out nothing, because
the proprietor declared that the trunk had not been touched--whoever
heard of taking off a trunk to adjust a carburetor? But a repairman
coming in just then, heard the talk about the trunk and said he was the
man who had made the adjustment on the car and he noticed that the
trunk rack seemed to be sagging and took off the trunk to fix it. He
had not put the trunk on again, because just then he had been called to
help install new gears in a car for a man who was in a great hurry and
had called one of the helpers to put on the trunk and fill the tank.
The helper was called and admitted that he had put a trunk on a car,
but it was not the Striped Beetle; it was a similar car owned by a man
who was driving to Indianapolis. He had thought the trunk belonged to
him.
The girls looked at each other tragically. Their trunk on the road to
Indianapolis!
"How long ago did he start?" asked Gladys.
"About an hour," answered the repairman.
"We'll have to go after him," said Gladys, resolutely. "We need that
trunk. Can you tell us what the man's name is?"
"Hansen," replied the repairman. "George Hansen. Driving seven
passenger touring car, brown, with black streamer and gold striping. He
was driving to Indianapolis over the road that goes through Huntington,
Marion and Anderson; I heard him talking about it. That's one of the
main roads out of here. You ought to be able to overtake him on the
way; he's a slow driver and his motor was missing pretty badly.
Wouldn't let me fix it though, because it would take too long and he
wanted to get to Indianapolis in time to see the races. He lives there,
so you ought to be able to find him; runs some kind of a store."
He poured out his information eagerly; he seemed anxious to do anything
he could to aid in the recovery of the trunk, since he had put it on
the wrong car. "Funny how well it fitted that other rack!" he said. But
Gladys says there is nothing peculiar about that because the two cars,
being the same make, had the same style rack, and the trunk was the
ordinary one carried by automobilists.
She hastily looked up the route to Indianapolis and started in pursuit
of the unconscious thief. It was then nearly five o'clock in the
evening. They really did not have much hope of catching the other car
on the way, since it had an hour's start, but they were confident of
recovering the trunk in Indianapolis, where they could find out the
man's address and follow him to his home. Fortune played into their
hands in that they found good roads all the way and had no breakdowns,
and sometime after eight they reached Indianapolis. There were half a
dozen George Hansens in the telephone book, four of whom were away on
automobile trips. But further inquiry brought out the fact that one of
them did own a seven passenger brown W---- car. He was expected home
that evening, but had not yet arrived. His wife (it was she who was
talking) was very sorry about the trunk, but if it had been placed on
the rack of her husband's car it would undoubtedly arrive when he did.
He would probably come home during the night, as he was very anxious to
see the races, which were to take place the next two days. Would they
call later?
Somewhere on the road they had passed him, but it was too late now to
wonder where. The only thing to do was to wait until he came. At ten
o'clock he had not arrived yet. The girls went down to the Young
Women's Christian Association, where they could spend the night. Gladys
concluded that Nyoda must be told if possible where they were, and
judging that she had reached Chicago by that time she wired the Carrie
Wentworth Inn, where they had planned to stay that night, telling what
had happened and saying she would arrive in Chicago the next day.
They called the Hansen home the first thing in the morning and learned
to their dismay that Mr. Hansen had not yet returned. But he was
expected any minute and Hinpoha would not hear of leaving without the
trunk. Shortly afterward their telegram came back undelivered from the
Carrie Wentworth Inn in Chicago, with the notation, "Party not
registered." That threw them into a state of bewilderment, but Gladys,
after thinking hard and long about the matter, remarked that the Glow-
worm had a habit of breaking down at inconvenient times and that
probably accounted for our not having reached Chicago the night before.
Every half hour they called up the Hansen home to find out if Mr.
Hansen had returned and every time they received a negative answer.
Finally, Hinpoha suggested that they drive out to his house and sit on
the curbstone where they could see him coming, before they spent all
their substance in a riotous feeding of nickels into the public
telephone. Which they proceeded to do. But their vigil was vain, for he
came not and it became apparent that they must either depart without
the trunk or stay there another night. Gladys was for going on and
having it sent after them, but Hinpoha refused to budge until she had
seen that scarf with her own eyes. Accordingly, they sent another wire
to the Carrie Wentworth Inn, thinking surely Nyoda must have arrived by
that time, and stayed a second night in Indianapolis.
The next morning they received the news that Mr. Hansen had arrived,
but alas, he had brought no trunk with him. He knew nothing about the
matter at all. He could remember no trunk being on the back of his car
when he left the repair shop in Ft. Wayne, but then, he had not looked
particularly. He had made several stops on the way home on business--he
was a traveling salesman--and that was how they had passed him on the
road. The car had stood for a time in a dozen different places, the
trunk could easily have been stolen, and he had never known the
difference. Possibly they could hold the repair shop responsible.
The girls were much downcast at this news, especially Hinpoha, on
account of the scarf that had been the last gift of her mother. Where
was the trunk now? It might be anywhere between the north and south
poles in that length of time. Gladys's only hope was now that it had
been mislaid and not stolen, and that it would fall into the hands of
some honest person who would ferret out the owner.
They were just about to start out for Chicago again when they were
handed a telegram. It was from the Carrie Wentworth Inn and was dated
midnight of the night before. It read: "Wire from party you want says
address Forty-three Main Street Rochester Indiana."
That wire threw them into great perplexity. What were Nyoda and the
girls doing in Rochester, when they had been on the road to Chicago two
days before?
"The Glow-worm is more like a flea than a glow-worm," said Hinpoha.
"It's never where you expect to find it. I really believe Nyoda has
lost control of the car and it is taking her wherever it wants to."
Gladys was consulting the route book. "Rochester is on the direct road
to Indianapolis," she said. "We can make the run in a few hours. I'm
going to wire Nyoda that we're coming and she should wait for us."
So she sent the wire we received that morning in Rochester:
"Where on earth are you? Wait Rochester for us. Coming to-day noon."
That was Friday, the day of the big races in Indianapolis. The town was
full of people. Tourists from all over managed to make the city just at
that time, and the streets were crowded with motor cars of every
description. Gladys looked sharply at every car they passed on the way
out of the city to see if her trunk was on the back of any of them, but
in vain.
"I suppose I'll never see that scarf again," said Hinpoha, sadly.
Pearl looked a little enviously at the women who came to town in their
big fine cars with drivers and bull dogs. "It must be lovely to be rich
and taken care of," she said, with a sigh.
Pearl was the kind of a girl who should have been born to a life of
luxurious ease. She certainly had no backbone to fight her own battles
in the world. She was a Clinger, who would curl around the nearest
support like a morning glory vine. She didn't seem to have any more
spirit than an oyster. Hinpoha, still imbued with the idea of taking
her in hand and making a Winnebago out of her, kept trying to draw her
out with an idea of finding out what her possibilities were. It was
rather a matter of pride with us that each one of the Winnebagos
excelled in some particular thing. When Hinpoha asked her what her
favorite play was she answered that she had never been to the theater
and considered it wicked. She opened her eyes in disapproval when
Hinpoha mentioned motion pictures. Hinpoha had been on the verge of
launching out on our escapade with the film company the summer before,
but checked herself hastily. She also suppressed the fact that I had
written scenarios, which fact Hinpoha glories in a great deal more than
I do and which she generally sprinkles into people's dishes on every
occasion. The fact that Gladys danced in public seemed to shock her
beyond words. Clearly she was unworldly to the point of narrowness, and
Hinpoha began to reflect that, after all, she might be somewhat of a
wet blanket on the Winnebago doings if she came and joined the group.
Pearl showed such marked disapproval of Gladys when she remarked that
she wished her father were in town so they could have gone to the races
that an awkward silence fell on the group. No topic of conversation
seemed safe to venture upon.
They were driving along country roads now and in one place they crossed
a small river with the most gorgeous early autumn flowers growing along
its banks. They caught Hinpoha's color-loving eye and she must get out
and wander among them. Gladys and Chapa and Medmangi decided that they
too would like a stroll beside the river, after sitting in the car so
long. Pearl did not care to get out; she offered to stay in the car and
hold the purses of the other girls until they returned. The four girls
walked along the stream, admiring the flowers, but not picking any,
because they would only fade and wither and if left on the stems they
would give pleasure to hundreds of people. Now and then they dabbled
their fingers in the cool water.
"It's such a temptation to go wading," sighed Hinpoha, who never will
grow up and be dignified if she lives to be a hundred.
Gladys was afraid Hinpoha would yield to the temptation if it stared
her in the face too long, and announced that it was time to be under
way. Reluctantly, Hinpoha tore herself away from the river and followed
Gladys to the road.
What a rude ending that little wayside idyll was destined to have!
For when they returned to the road where they had left the Striped
Beetle there was nothing but empty air. Car, Pearl, and four purses,
containing every cent the girls had with them, had vanished!
CHAPTER X.
At first the girls could not believe their eyes. But it was all too
true. The deep tracks in the dust of the road showing the well-known
prints of the Striped Beetle's tires told beyond a doubt that the car
had gone on and left them.
"But I never heard it start!" said Gladys.
"It was the murmuring of your old brook, Hinpoha, that you were raving
about," said Chapa, "that filled our ears."
It took them actual minutes to realize that Pearl, the spineless
clinging doll-faced girl they had befriended, had sold them out.
"And we took her for such a baby!" said Hinpoha, in bewilderment.
"Who would ever dream she could drive a car?" gasped Gladys. "She was
afraid to toot the horn." To lose your automobile in the midst of a
tour must be like having your horse shot under you. One minute you're
en route and the next minute you're rooted, if the reader will forgive
a very lame pun. And the spot where the Striped Beetle had been
(figuratively) shot from under the girls could not have been selected
better if it had been made to order for a writer of melodrama. There
was not a house in sight nor a telephone wire. The dust in the road was
three inches deep and the temperature must have been close to a
hundred. They were at least five miles from the nearest town. Chapa
looked at Medmangi, Medmangi looked at Hinpoha, and Hinpoha looked at
Gladys. Gladys, having no one else to look at, scratched her head and
thought.
"Well," she said finally, "we can't stay here all day. We might as well
walk to the nearest town and tell the police. They may be able to trace
the car. It was stolen once before and they found it in a town forty
miles away."
Whenever anyone mentions that walk in the heat the four girls begin to
pant and fan themselves with one accord. They had gone about three
miles when they came upon the Striped Beetle standing in the road,
abandoned. With a cry of joy the girls threw themselves upon it. The
cause for its abandonment soon came to light. The gasoline tank was
empty. Otherwise it was undamaged. But before it could join the
innumerable caravan again it must have gasoline, and naturally there
was none growing on the bushes.
"You two sit in the car and see that no one else runs away with it,"
said Gladys to Medmangi and Chapa, "and Hinpoha and I will go for
gasoline."
It was not until they had finished the two miles to town and stood by a
gasoline station that they remembered that they had no money. The
gasoline man firmly refused to give them any gas unless they paid for
it. Gladys was aghast. Hinpoha leaned wearily against a post and mopped
her hot face. Hinpoha suffers more from the heat than the rest of us.
"Pretty tough to be dead broke, aint it, lady?" asked a grimy urchin,
who had been an interested witness of Gladys's discomfiture.
"Worse to be alive and broke," jeered another one. Gladys's face was
crimson with heat and embarrassment. She turned and walked rapidly away
from the place, followed by Hinpoha.
"You'll have to wire home for money now," said Hinpoha.
"And lose the bet," said Gladys, disconsolately. "And father'll laugh
his head off to think how neatly we were beaten.
"I know what I'll do," she said, resolutely. "I'll not wire him at all.
I'll wire the bank where I have my own money and have them wire me
some."
Accordingly, she hunted up the telegraph office and sent a wire collect
to her bank, feeling much pleased with herself at the idea of having
found a way out without calling on her father for aid.
The telegraph office was in the railway station and she and Hinpoha sat
down after sending the wire and waited for the ship to come in,
wondering what the other girls would think when they failed to come
back with the gasoline. It was past dinnertime but there was no dinner
for them as long as they had no money. From jaunty tourist to penniless
pauper in two hours is quite a change. An hour passed; two hours, but
no gold-laden message came over the wire. Hinpoha had been chewing her
fingers for the last hour.
"Oh, please stop that," cried Gladys irritably, "you make me nervous.
You remind me of a cannibal."
"Isn't there a poem about 'My beautiful Cannibalee?" returned Hinpoha.
"I'll go out and eat grass if that will make you feel any better," she
continued. She strolled outdoors, leaving Gladys listening to the
clickety-click of the telegraph instrument and growing more nervous
every minute. Presently Hinpoha came back and said she couldn't stand
it outside at all because there was a crate of melons and a box of eggs
on the station platform, and she was afraid she wouldn't have the
strength to resist if she stayed out there with them.
"And it's going to rain," she announced. "You ought to see the sky
toward the west."
And then the darkness began to make itself felt; not the blue darkness
of twilight, but the black darkness of thunder clouds through which
zig-zags of lightning began to stab. A baby, waiting in the station
with its mother for the train, began to wail with fright and Hinpoha
forgot her hunger in an effort to amuse him. Then the storm broke. The
train roared in just as it began and mingled its noise with the
thunder. Hardly had it disappeared up the track when there came a crash
of thunder that shook the station to its foundations, followed by a
dazzling sheet of blue light, and then the telegraph operator bounded
out of his little enclosure, white with fear. His instrument had been
struck, as well as the wires on the outside of the building and the
roof began to burn. Gladys and Hinpoha rushed out into the rain
regardless of their unprotected state and found shelter in a near-by
shed, from which they watched the progress of what might well be taken
for a second deluge.
"If the water rises much higher in the road we won't need any
gasoline," remarked Hinpoha. "The Striped Beetle will float."
"I only hope the girls got the storm curtains buttoned down in time,"
Gladys kept saying over and over again.
"If it starts to float," persisted Hinpoha, "do you suppose it will
come this way, or will they have to steer it? Would the steering-wheel
be any good, I wonder, or would they have to have a rudder? Oh," she
said brightly, "now I know what they mean by the expression 'turning
turtle'. It happens in cases of flood; the car turns turtle and swims
home. If it only turned into turtle soup," she sighed.
Gladys looked up suddenly. "What time was it when we sent that wire to
my bank?" she asked.
"A quarter after one," replied Hinpoha, promptly. "I heard a clock
chiming somewhere. And I calculated that I would just about last until
you got an answer."
"A quarter after one," repeated Gladys. "That's Central time. That was
a quarter after two Cleveland time. The bank closes at two o'clock.
They probably never sent me any money!"
"Now you'll have to wire your father after all," said Hinpoha.
For answer Gladys pointed to the blackened telegraph pole which was
lying with its many arms stretched out across the roof of the station.
There would be no wires sent out that day.
By the time the rain had ceased the darkness of the thunder clouds had
been succeeded by the darkness of night, and Hinpoha and Gladys took
their way wearily back over the flooded road to where the Striped
Beetle stood.
"Did you have to dig a well first, before you got that gasoline?"
called Chapa, as they approached. (They _had_ put down the storm
curtains, Gladys noted.)
Gladys made her announcement briefly and they all settled down to
gloom.
"Talk about being shipwrecked on a desert island," said Hinpoha. "I
think one can get beautifully shipwrecked on the inhabited mainland. We
are experiencing all the thrills of Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss
family Robinson combined."
"We haven't any Man Friday," observed Gladys.
"What good would he be if we had him?" inquired Hinpoha, gloomily.
"He could act as chauffeur," replied Gladys, "and supply the modern
flavor."
"This is Friday, too," remarked Medmangi.
"That's why the car won't start," said Hinpoha, "it won't start
anything on Friday."
"Couldn't we dig for oil?" suggested Chapa. "We're in the oil belt.
There must be all kinds of gasoline in the earth under our very feet,
and we languishing on top of it! It's like the stories where the man
perishes of thirst in the desert right on top of the water hole."
"We really and truly are Robinson Crusoe-like," said Gladys, looking
out at the flooded fields and deserted road.
"Robinson Crusoe had the advantage of us in one thing," said Hinpoha,
returning to her main theme. "He had a corn-stalk, and clams, and
things."
"'If we only had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we only
had some eggs,'" quoted Gladys.
"Here's where the Slave of the Lamp would come in handy," sighed
Hinpoha.
"You might rub the lamp," said Gladys, pointing to the tail light, "and
maybe the Slave will appear."
"I want baked potatoes on my order," said Gladys.
"And I want broiled chicken," said Chapa.
Hinpoha got down and solemnly rubbed the tail lamp of the Striped
Beetle, exclaiming, "Slave, appear!"
Something black bounded out of the darkness at the side of the road and
landed at her feet. It was Mr. Bob, who had gone off for exercise. He
carried something in his mouth which he laid decorously on the ground
beside her. She stooped to look at it. It was an apple.
The girls all shouted. Hinpoha straightened up. "Girls," she said
solemnly, "coming shadows cast their events before, I mean, coming
events cast their shadows before. Where there's honey you'll find bees,
and where there's apples you'll find trees. The famine is over, and now
for the feast."
She led the way down the road with Chapa and Medmangi on either side.
They found the tree, close beside the road, and loaded with fruit. They
filled their pockets for Gladys and returned to the Striped Beetle, and
then for some time, as Hinpoha said, "Nothing was heard in the air but
the hurrying munch of the greening."
"It must be a disadvantage to be a negro," remarked Hinpoha
reflectively, "you can't tell the difference when they're clean."
"May I ask," inquired Gladys politely, "just what it was that caused
you to make that remark at this time?"
"Greening apples," returned Hinpoha, calmly. "You can't tell which are
ripe and which are green."
"You can tell by the seeds," said Gladys.
"All seeds are black by night," returned Hinpoha.
"Not changing the subject," said Chapa, "but where are we going to stay
to-night?"
"You're not _going_ to stay," replied Hinpoha, "you're staying.
Right here. The Inn of the Striped Beetle.
"Under the wide and starry sky
Fold up the seats and let us lie!"
"We'll sleep with the raggle taggle gypsies, O!" added Gladys.
"I want a fire," said Hinpoha. "We always have a fire when we sleep
out."
"Well, build one in a puddle, if you can," said Gladys. "Your hair will
be the only blaze we have to-night."
Chapa and Medmangi stood up together on the running-board and began to
sing dolefully,
"Forsaken, forsaken, forsaken, am I,
Like the bones at a banquet, all men pass me by."
"I wish a few would pass by," said Gladys, "By the way, have you
noticed that not a single car or wagon has passed through here since
we've been stranded? I thought this was the main road."
"If this is the main road," said Hinpoha, "I'd hate to be stranded on a
by-path."
Of course, the girls did not know then that the storm had washed out
the bridges on either side of them and the roadway had been closed to
traffic. They sat peering into the darkness like Columbus looking for
land and wondering why no one came along to whom they could appeal for
a tow into the village. The moon shone, a slender sickle in the west
that Gladys said reminded her of the thin slices of melon they used to
serve for breakfast at Miss Russell's school.
"I think it looks more like a toe nail," said Hinpoha, squinting
sidewise at it.
"Don't look at it squarely, it'll bring you bad luck," said Chapa.
"I'm not looking at it," said Hinpoha, "it's looking at me."
"Where does the man in the moon go when it turns into a sickle?" asked
Medmangi.
"That doesn't worry me half so much as where Pearl went with my silver
mesh bag," said Gladys. That brought them all down to earth again and
back to the cause of their predicament, and the moon turned into a
yellow banana and fell off the sky counter while they voiced their
indignation. And, of course, they all turned on Hinpoha for being taken
in by her in the first place, and Hinpoha vented her irritation on Mr.
Bob, who was sitting with his head on her knee in a lover-like
attitude.
"It's all your fault that we are in this mess," she said to him,
crossly. "If you hadn't jumped out of the car after that yellow dog and
chased him into the empty store I wouldn't have had to go after you,
and if I hadn't gone after you I would never have discovered Pearl and
brought her along with us. It's the last time I'll ever travel with
you." Mr. Bob, feeling the reproach in her tone, crept away with his
head down.
"O come, let's not quarrel about whose fault it was," said Gladys. "It
isn't the first time people have been taken in."
"We seem to be left out, rather than taken in," murmured Hinpoha.
"You're unusually brilliant to-night," remarked Chapa. "It must have
been the apples, because on an ordinary diet you never say anything
bright."
"Is that so?" said Hinpoha.
"Look at the stars," said Gladys hastily, "aren't they brilliant to-
night?"
"Almost as brilliant as Hin--" began Chapa.
"If we sit up late enough," said Gladys, cutting in on Chapa's remark,
"we may see some of the winter stars. I actually believe there's Orion
now."
"And the Twins," cried Hinpoha, forgetting her momentary offended
feeling in the interest of her discovery.
"And Sirius and the Bull and the River," added Gladys. "It's just like
getting a peep at the actors in their dressing-rooms before it is time
for them to come out on the stage, to see the winter stars now."
"I hate to look at the stars so much," said Hinpoha, dolefully. "They
make me feel so small."
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