The Camp Fire Girls Go Motoring; Or, Along the Road That Leads the Way

ble conclusion first, as she always does, "Where are they?" she repeated. "Why, stranded in some place along the road, just as we are, of course. We're not the only ones that can have acciden

must ask at every village whether the Striped Beetle is there. Wouldn't we laugh to

hen I saw the now familiar roadster traveling leisurely along behind us. I mentioned the fact casually to Nyoda as I was sitting beside her, and while she made no comment whatever, I noticed that she began gradually to increase the pace of the car. As yet neither of us had hinted at our unspoken antagonism to this persisten

on did. And I have learned by experience to respect those intuitions. Out of a whole dining-room full that man had been the only one who had attracted my attention, and I felt antagonistic toward him instantly. I had the same feeling when I saw him behind us on the road to Napoleon. And the worst part of it was that he had done absolutely nothing to make me feel that way toward him. He hadn'

by the day before and at one place it had stopped for gasoline, but no one knew of any repairs that had been made on it. The thing began to loom

h. "Gladys may have friends there and they may have stayed with them." That fact was so very probable that we

tain time and then counting them as we passed to see how near she came to being right. As we were keeping a sharp lookout on each side of the road so as not to miss any, we s

e were afraid to speak. I looked back to see if the Frog was gaining on us. The red roadster had disappeared. The girl who stood before us looked about eighteen or twenty. She wore a plain suit of dark blue cloth with a long ski

some miles to the south. We were hurrying to Ft. Wayne to find out what had become of Gladys and why our telegram had come back unanswered. But this girl was plainly in troub

o Decatur very badly

here, the train for Louisville." She checked herself when she had

train in Ft. Wayne. We are going directly to Ft. Wayne and are nea

back. "No, no, not there," she said in evident t

een what we did not. "My dear," she said, in a b

of desperation, "but I'm not running away from home. I'm running back home. Home

never fails to win a confidence. The girl looked into Nyoda's

said. "You know now who I

ter Margery. The law had given her to her mother, but she had been kidnapped twice by her father and the last that had been published about her was that she

never see my mother again," she said. "I want my

ound her. "You shall go to your mother, my

se's clothes to make herself look older. She was only thirteen after all. Nyoda had been able to observe this right away when she had

d be delayed an hour or so by going to Decatur, but none of us minded. We were all keenly interested in this much talked of young gi

e train leave Decatur?" asked

irty," sai

we would not make it. We knew Nyoda would make it if she possibly could do so. Margery looked at her inquiringly, and Nyoda answered with a bright reassuring smile. Once Nyoda and I caught each other look

rsting of a tire! But to this day I hold that that tire did not burst of its own accord. Fate deliberately jabbed a pin into it. We carried an extra and with the help of a farmer who was

bbling verses in my note-bo

tires, I know no

ted from the

ning of their

ir with a te

n a sudden

is than drea

iends beside on

ds; past fields

as drops of g

, and sit ther

es was completed and we were off onc

is it?" ask

he bursting of the tire had caused us to miss the train. Nyoda calculated closely and announced that we would have time to stop and buy gasoline. She was not sure whether we had enough to make Decatur or not, and it would be a shame to go dry outside the very walls of Rome, she said. I

half an hour slow. We hurried to the station in the hope that the train was late, but there was no such luck. It had been on time for once. Marge

o Louisville?" Nyoda inqu

-morrow noon,"

ou go to Ft. Wayne and get the train there? The fast trains that

d expect me to go there and would have the station watched. That's why I wanted to go to Decatur.

oda made up her mind on the spot that she was not th

"does your mother e

d. "She doesn't even

get there. Your uncle will probably be having trains watched and would never think of you in an automobile. It is the best solution of the problem. We'll get you a dress and veil like th

relief that it was plain to be seen what an or

ed the city, and it threw us off our bearings to find they were not there. Even Nyoda was plainly puzzled what to do. We found the little Potter Hotel where we were to have stayed and asked to see the register. It was possible that the girls had been there after all in spite of the

nter looked at us closely when we came up. There was n

just like you here

an by 'just lik

irls in tan suits and green veils an

e four girls were evidently our

ere they her

" he answered. "They checked some things

should all have reached Ft. W

ere they have gone no

eard them talking about it. They seemed to be in a great hurry and were only in the

om us for the fun of the thing, you can rest assured. I never thought so from the first. She's probably taking some distr

e had some urgent reason for actin

hwah, but Nyoda's mind was too busy with

do is to follow them as f

so too,"

way to Chicago by way of Ligonier, the way we had planned in the beginning, and had undoubtedly not fallen by the wayside. We did wait long enough in Ft. Way

adys?" we asked each other, as we took the road

u!" At the same time she increased the speed of the car. Naturally, I looked ahead in the direction in which she was looking, but there was nothing in sight. Then I looked behind. A

he back of your head?

e answered, trying to hide her annoyance in a jok

g us, never coming any nearer, never saying anything, but yet, never losing sight of us. Those mask-like goggl

h very good time, for the car began to act badly, and it was soon evident that something was wrong. We began to run slowly. Involuntarily, I glanced around to see how much the roadster was gaining on us. It had slowed down too and was going at exactly our pace. By this time

utter little squeals of distress. There was nothing left to do but hunt up the one garage in town, which fortunately had a repair shop in connection with it, and get someone to look at the engine. I don't pretend to know anything about the machinery of the car, so I haven't the slightest idea what was the matter, but the man talked knowingly about

veral different keys at once. All around the room sat men, smoking until the air was blue, and talking in loud voices, or shouting snatches of the songs. They seemed a rather noisy lot and from the scraps of conversation we heard we judged that they had come from somewhere to attend the September horse races which were being held in the neighborhood. At any rate, the hotel was swarming with them and we were glad that we were to get out of there by eight o'clock and did not have to stay all night. Once one of them walked into the parlor where we sat and said "Good evenin', ladies," in an impertinent sort of way, but we all froze him up with a glance and he went out without saying anything more to us. We s

but some of the parts were scattered out on the floor and the man was wrenching away at what was left in the car and did no

r nine-thirty, Mis

before it was finally ready and that was too late to start. We realized that we would have to stay in that inn all night, much as we were disinclined to do so. The racket was still in full blast when we returned and were shown to rooms. We had

rather disdainfully, "and I don't believe that ha

od batting average for a hotel quilt," giggl

gery didn't like the room at all and cried while she was undressing, and Nyoda had to pet her and make a fuss over her before she would lie down in the bed. I couldn't

o make our acquaintance. Possibly he meant to, later, only we upset his plan by going out when we did, I reflected. It really had been rather an eventful day, I thought, even if we hadn't made much progress with our trip. Think of spending a