The Motor Girls in the Mountains; or, The Gypsy Girl's Secret

CHAPTER IV
THE STERNER SEX

“Talking of the boys——” began Bess.

“Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” drawled her sister.

Bess flushed.

“You think of them just as much as I do, Belle Robinson, and perhaps more!” she countered. “But what I was going to say when I was so rudely interrupted was to wonder when they were ever going to catch up with us.”

“Jack said they’d surely overtake us before night,” replied Cora. “Walter and he were all ready, but Paul had had some things to wind up for his firm before he started in on his vacation. He had telegraphed, though, that he would be in Chelton before noon, and Jack said he’d show us just how fast that car of his could travel. He’s awfully proud of that car, but between us, girls, I don’t think he has anything on this car of mine in the matter of speed,” and she patted the wheel affectionately.

“Let’s hope they don’t get arrested for speeding,” said Belle.

“Or run over any babies,” put in Bess, with a lively recollection of the thrilling episode of the afternoon.

“I guess there’s no danger of that,” said Cora. “Jack’s keen on speed, but he’s a careful driver for all that. I tell you what we’ll do, girls. You keep a sharp lookout in the rear, for they may come into sight at any minute now, and the minute you see them coming you let me know. Then I’ll let out a little and we’ll try to tease them by keeping just far enough ahead of them to drive them crazy.”

“That’ll be dandy!” said Belle eagerly. “It’ll do them good to take some of the conceit out of them. I suppose they think we’ve been pining to have them with us.”

“Well, haven’t you?” asked Bess mischievously.

“No, I haven’t,” declared Belle, but in a tone that somehow failed to carry conviction.

“That looks like their car now!” cried Bess excitedly, as she caught a glimpse of an automobile that had just swung around a curve in the road about half a mile in the rear.

Belle craned her neck in the same direction.

“I guess it is,” she confirmed. “I can make out three people in it, but they’re too far away to see their faces.”

“We’ll let them get a little nearer so we can make sure,” said Cora, settling herself in her seat and taking a tighter grasp on the wheel, “and then we’ll let them take our dust and see how they like it.”

Belle knelt upon the seat to get a better view.

“Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see a man?” chanted Bess.

“Three of them,” replied Belle, “and they’re coming like all possessed. I’m almost sure it’s Jack that’s driving. There, one of them has taken out a handkerchief and is waving it!”

“It’s them,” pronounced Belle a moment later, forgetting her grammar in her excitement, and scrambling back into her seat again. “Now, Cora, it’s up to you to show them what the Motor Girls can do.”

“See that your hats are on tight, girls,” laughed Cora. “We’re going to stir up some little breeze.”

They had a long stretch of road in front of them at the time, with no house or vehicle in sight. The conditions could not have been better for a race, and Cora increased her speed gradually until the car was going like the wind.

The car behind had taken up the challenge at once and was also coming along at a tremendous rate. But Belle, venturing sundry peeks behind, announced gleefully that it was not gaining an inch.

“But that isn’t enough,” Cora flung back. “We want to make them actually drop farther behind. When we’ve once done that I’ll be satisfied. Then we’ll slow up and let them catch up to us.”

Two minutes later, Belle clapped her hands in delight.

“We’ve done it! We’ve done it!” she cried. “They’re a quarter of a mile farther back than they were when we started in.”

“Oh, how we’ll rub it into them!” gurgled Bess.

“Well, enough is as good as a feast,” laughed Cora, in great satisfaction. “Now we’ll give the lords of creation a chance to explain how they came to let mere girls run away from them.”

“It will take some explanation,” remarked Belle.

“They’re great little explainers, though,” said Bess. “They’d rather die than admit we had the faster car.”

Cora gradually slackened speed until the car, while still running swiftly, had reached a more reasonable rate. Belle’s glances behind told her that their pursuers were overtaking them by leaps and bounds.

A moment later there was a wild chorus of shouts, and Jack’s car drew up alongside. His two friends, Walter Pennington and Paul Hastings, were with him, both tall, athletic young fellows, with frank, pleasant faces.

The girls looked up with well simulated surprise, and pleasure that was not at all simulated.

“Why, it’s the boys!” they cried in chorus.

Both cars had by this time come to a full stop, and the masculine contingent, deserting theirs, came round to the girls’ car to greet them and to shake hands. Jack went further and gave his sister a hearty kiss, a proceeding which brought a look of envy to the faces of his companions.

“Where in the world have you slowpokes been?” asked Belle.

“Not much of a compliment, keeping away from us so long,” pouted Bess in a way to show a most bewitching dimple.

“I guess they’ve been glad enough to be rid of us for a while,” chimed in Cora.

Looks full of reproach and denial greeted this onslaught.

“That’s pretty good!” remarked Paul.

“Rich!” assented Walter.

“Just as if we hadn’t been breaking speed laws all day long in order to overtake you,” mourned Jack.

“What’s the use of living when you’re so misunderstood?” groaned Walter.

“After all the ice-creams and sodas we’ve blown in on these girls, too!” wailed Paul.

“Let’s find a hole somewhere and crawl away and die,” suggested Jack.

“It seems to me that the shoe’s on the other foot anyway,” said Walter, becoming accuser in his turn. “It’s you who didn’t want us. Who was it just now that was trying to run away from us?”

“Run away from you?” repeated Cora innocently. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know perfectly well, you little minx,” said her brother with mock sternness. “There we were, waving handkerchiefs at you and hustling the old machine along to beat the band. I know you saw us, for one of you was looking back.”

“I did see some one waving a handkerchief,” admitted Belle. “But it looked as though some ill-bred person was trying to flirt with us, and of course we didn’t pay the least attention.”

“No,” said Bess primly, “we’d die before we’d flirt.”

“If we’d wanted to flirt we had a perfectly good chance to-day while we were eating lunch,” said Cora. “He had a perfectly lovely necktie, too, a good deal brighter than any of yours.”

Jack threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.

“No use, fellows!” he exclaimed. “You can’t pin them down to anything.”

“But what did you have to wave your handkerchief for anyway to make us stop?” asked Cora demurely. “All you had to do was to put on more speed and catch up to us. That car of yours is so fast, you know. At least that’s what you’ve always said.”

The boys looked at each other a little disconcertedly.

“W-well,” stammered Jack, “the oil—the sparking wasn’t working just right——”

“Tell the truth, Jack,” spoke up Walter, with a fine assumption of candor. “The real reason, girls, was that we were afraid of bumping into you——”

“And we didn’t want to spill you all over the road,” finished Paul.

A groan went up from the girls.

“Oh, Ananias!” exclaimed Bess.

“Ananiases, you mean,” corrected her sister. “One’s just as bad as the others. They all hang together.”

“We’re like Ben Franklin when he signed the Declaration of Independence,” laughed Paul. “He said they’d all have to hang together or they’d hang separately.”

“I’ll admit that you have a good car, sis,” said Jack.

“And if that isn’t enough to take us back into favor, we’ll do anything else you say,” said Walter, wringing his hands in pretended agitation.

“We’ll put on sackcloth and ashes, jump through a hoop, roll over and play dead,” chimed in Paul. “No one has anything on us when it comes to humility.”

“It almost affects me to tears,” said Belle, pretending to reach for her handkerchief.

“They say cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited by the Constitution,” laughed Cora, “so we won’t deprive you of the refining influence of our society. Heaven knows you need it badly enough. We’ll let you trail along with us if you’ll promise to be very, very good.”

“We will,” promised Jack.

“There’s one thing yet that needs to be explained, fellows,” remarked Walter, as they climbed into their automobile. “What about that fellow with the iridescent necktie? I feel the demon of jealousy gnawing at my vitals.”

“Come, girls, ’fess up,” admonished Jack.

“He was just charming,” said Cora promptly.

“Perfectly lovely,” agreed Belle.

“Such soulful eyes!” exclaimed Bess languishingly.

“That I should ever have lived to hear this!” groaned Walter.

“I guess our cake is dough,” said Paul.

“Eftsoon and gadzooks!” cried Jack, striking an attitude, “lead me to him, and sooth it shall go hard with me if my trusty sword drink not the caitiff’s blood.”

“I guess you don’t need to go as far as that,” laughed Cora. “Leave him alone and the police will take care of him.”

“A-ha, a criminal!” cried Walter.

“That only makes him the more romantic,” declared Paul.

“It doesn’t help our case one bit,” said Jack. “Haven’t you heard of how women will deck a murderer’s cell with flowers?”

“I don’t think he’d have the nerve to be a murderer,” remarked Belle. “His specialty is stealing purses.”

And while the boys listened intently and threw in occasional indignant exclamations, the girls told of the young man’s attempt to scrape acquaintance, and of how later he had almost succeeded in getting possession of Cora’s purse.

“The cur!” growled Jack. “I wish I’d happened along when he was trying to get fresh!”

“You helped me out just the same, even if you weren’t there,” replied Cora. “You ought to have seen how he made tracks for his buggy when I said my brother would be along shortly.”

“You see,” said Jack, throwing out his chest, “how the terror of my name has preceded me.”

“It’s comforting anyway,” chimed in Walter. “It proves that we men are good for something.”

“And that the girls ought to have us with them all the time as trusty knights and vassals,” added Paul.

“You’re too ready to jump to conclusions,” rebuked Cora. “But now we’d better be hurrying along. It’s getting towards dark, and we’ll have all we can do to get to Aunt Margaret’s in time for dinner.”

“Dinner!” exclaimed Jack. “Where have I heard that word before? Lead me to it!”

“Do you think you can keep up with us in that car?” asked Cora wickedly. “If not, I’ll give you a tow.”

“Listen to her rubbing it in!” moaned Paul.

“It wasn’t enough to beat us,” complained Walter.

“I guess that fellow was right,” remarked Jack, “who said that Indians and women were alike. They both scalp the dead.”

CHAPTER V
A GROUP OF VAGABONDS

The two cars rolled along smartly, for the various happenings of the day had put the Motor Girls behind the schedule they had hoped to make. But despite their best efforts, dusk was settling down and the stars beginning to peep out when they drove up to the Kimball’s Aunt Margaret’s door.

She greeted them affectionately, and after they had washed off the dust of travel they were seated at the sumptuous meal she had had prepared in anticipation of their coming. After dinner was over, a number of young people in the neighborhood who had been invited to meet the tourists dropped in, and there was music and dancing. But Aunt Margaret’s watchfulness over her charges prevented this from being prolonged to an unseasonable hour, and by eleven o’clock all the tired travelers were sleeping the dreamless sleep of vigorous, healthy youth.

They needed a good sleep, for the longest lap of their journey still lay before them. And it was at an early hour the next morning that, after a hearty breakfast and cordial thanks and good-byes to their gracious hostess, they climbed into their cars and drove off.

“Off at last for the Adirondacks!” cried Jack gaily, as he drew in great draughts of the fresh morning air.

“And for Camp Kill Kare!” added Paul.

The girls had started off a little ahead of them, but the boys soon drew alongside and Jack signaled for Cora to stop.

“I would have speech with thee, fair maiden,” he remarked, as his sister obeyed.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Cora in pretended vexation. “Here are those rude boys interrupting us just when we were having the loveliest talk.”

“I guess you weren’t talking about anything very important,” replied Jack.

“No,” said Bess, dimpling, “we were talking about you boys.”

“And saying what a lovely thing it was to be all by ourselves for a little while,” put in Belle.

“Girls,” exhorted Walter solemnly, “remember that if there was an Ananias there was also a Sapphira.”

“We’re not so keen on having a stag party ourselves,” explained Jack, “and we thought it would be a dandy thing if one of you girls would come into our car and one of us fellows go to yours. That would make life one grand sweet song.”

“It all comes from what Cora said yesterday about the refining influence of feminine society,” said Walter. “I feel the need of that. In fact, I have a consuming desire to become refined. And I can’t be, as long as I associate with these two low-brows. So you’d better let me ride in your car.”

“And leave us in our native coarseness?” queried Paul. “Not on your life, old man! I need refinement just as much as you do.”

“Peace, brethren,” interposed Jack. “We’ll do this thing on the level. My claims to coarseness are just as strong as either of yours, but do you see me engaging in unseemly brawls? Nay and again nay. We’ll pull straws for it and may the coarsest man win.”

“I don’t know that we want any of you,” said Cora. “We don’t take incurable cases.”

“Don’t be too harsh, Cora,” said Belle. “You know they say there’s a spark of good in the very lowest.”

hummed Bess.

There were no straws at hand, but some matches served as well, and Walter proved to be the lucky one. Belle agreed to go to Jack’s car, and Walter took her place alongside of Bess.

“Hurrah!” cried Walter, as he availed himself of his good fortune. “I’m saved. I’m doomed to refinement.”

“Doomed?” laughed Cora.

“Did I say doomed?” Walter answered. “How careless of me! Of course I meant destined to refinement.”

“I suppose you’ll be eating lotus blossoms and water lilies before long,” called out Jack, as the cars started up again.

“Watch me when lunch time comes,” grinned Walter. “But I don’t mind what you fellows say. I’ve got two refining influences while you have only one.”

“You need all you can get,” was Jack’s parting shot.

With merry chaff and banter, the time flew by as though on wings. They had lunch at a quaint little inn by the roadside, and Walter proved that the charms of feminine society had not yet begun to affect his appetite. But then, as he explained, the cure would be all the more effective if it were gradual, and he had plenty of time yet to climb to higher planes.

In the early afternoon they were turning a bend in the road, when Cora gave a sudden exclamation.

“Look!” she cried, pointing to a little glade at the right of the road. “There’s a camp of some kind. I do believe it’s gypsies!”

“Guessed it right the first time,” declared Walter.

“That’s what it is,” agreed Bess. “Oh, Cora, don’t you think we might stop a few minutes? I’d dearly love to have a look at them, if you think we can spare the time.”

“I’m not so very keen about it myself,” said Cora dubiously, for as those familiar with her previous adventures will remember, her experiences with these picturesque vagabonds had not been devoid of unpleasantness and danger. “But I’ll see what Jack says about it, and if he thinks we have time, I won’t mind stopping.”

She hailed Jack, and, after consulting his watch, the latter agreed that they could easily spare a half-hour or so for a visit to the gypsy camp.

They drew their cars to the side of the road and picked their way through the woods to the little dell where the gypsy encampment lay.

It was a typical camp of those strange nomads in whose blood runs the “call of the wild,” and who in their mode of life are almost as far removed from other human beings as though they lived upon another planet.

There were perhaps a dozen vans, from which came strange smells of cooking, amid which onion and garlic predominated. Unkempt children in tattered clothing played with dogs that seemed to be legion, while wrinkled and slatternly women sat on the steps of the vans or made their way through the grounds, whining their requests to visitors to cross their palms with silver and learn in return all that pertained to their present and future. Swarthy men, some of them with huge ear-rings and with sashes and turbans that reminded one of the pirates of tradition, lay sprawled out on the grass watching the throng with eyes that were sometimes indifferent and again sullen and smoldering.

There were just two elements that redeemed the camp from its general aspect of squalor and forlornness. One was the fine horses that were scattered here and there, for the gypsy has the keenest eye for a good animal of any trader on earth. The other was the presence of several gypsy girls of a wild barbaric type of beauty, whose flashing eyes and gaudy trinkets contrasted with the prevailing ugliness of their surroundings.

There were a large number of visitors present, due to the proximity of a large town a mile or so away, through which the automobiles had passed just before reaching the camp.

“Here’s the place to have your future told,” said Jack.

“Lucky they can’t tell our past,” remarked Walter. “What a give-away that would be for some of us.”

“I hope you haven’t any deep dark secret that would ‘chill the young blood, harrow up our souls’ if it were told,” laughed Cora.

“Walter just wants to make himself interesting,” gibed Bess.

“Well, whatever I may have been, I’m all right now that you girls have undertaken to refine me,” replied Walter.

“I’m realizing more and more what a tremendous contract it is,” Cora came back at him. “But look at that girl over there? Isn’t she a beauty?”

“She isn’t hard to look at, for a fact,” said Jack judicially, as his eyes fell on the gypsy girl his sister had indicated. “I think I’ll get her to tell my fortune. I want to know whether I’m born to be hanged or drowned.”

“It’s safe to say that you’re booked for a long life anyway,” remarked Paul. “Only the good die young.”

The girl had seen that the party were regarding her with interest, and she came over to them.

“Do you ladies want to have your fortunes told?” she asked with a winning smile that showed two rows of beautiful white teeth.

The girls hesitated.

“Go ahead, girls, and show the sporting spirit,” urged Jack. “You can get the promise of a perfectly good husband for fifty cents. And that’s cheap in these days of high prices.”

“It’s more than some of them are worth,” laughed Belle.

“I hope that isn’t a shot at us,” said Paul. “I’d be a bargain at a dollar.”

“She must have been thinking of that Higby fellow over at Roxbury,” said Bess. “Why, what’s the matter?” she asked, as the gypsy girl started violently and turned deadly pale.

Cora sprang to the girl’s side and put her arm around her to steady her.

CHAPTER VI
A PERPLEXING PROBLEM

The gypsy girl regained her self-control in a moment and gently put Cora’s helping arm aside.

“It is nothing,” she said. “I just had an attack of dizziness. The heat of the sun, perhaps.”

It was evident that this last remark was only a pretext, for a pleasant breeze was blowing and they were standing under a great tree that shaded them completely.

“I hope it wasn’t anything I said that startled you,” said Bess curiously.

“How could it have been?” put in Belle incredulously. “You only referred jokingly to that Higby fellow who nearly got away with Cora’s purse when we were shopping yesterday. I’m sure there’s nothing in that to startle anybody.”

Cora had been watching the girl intently, and at this second mention of the young man’s name she saw a swift spasm—was it of pain or fright or a combination of both?—sweep over the girl’s face.

“Well, never mind,” said Cora briskly, “if you’re sure you’re all right now. Perhaps you’d better have a drink of water. Jack, suppose you go to the car and get one of the drinking cups.”

Jack started promptly to obey, but the girl objected so strongly that he stopped and stood irresolute.

“No, no,” she said, “please not. Only leetle deezy, but all right now,” she continued, dropping into the slipshod gypsy manner of speaking. “Let me tell pretty ladies’ fortunes.”

But just then one of the gypsy men, who had been watching the group sharply, stepped up to the girl and spoke to her roughly in a jargon that the girls could not understand. It was evidently a command, for the gypsy girl turned instantly and went away, disappearing into one of the vans, while the man, after a scowl that included all the party, sauntered away and dropped on the grass beside some of his comrades.

“Well, what do you think of that?” demanded Belle in amazement.

“Just when she had a husband picked out for each of you, too,” chaffed Paul. “But cheer up, girls. We’re here yet. Count on us to the last breath. You can’t lose us.”

“No such luck,” retorted Bess. “But what on earth made that man act that way?”

“It isn’t like gypsies to let good money get away from them,” said Jack, “and they must have seen from our open countenances that we were easy marks and ready to cough up.”

“Jack,” said Walter severely, “please pass up that line of chatter—I mean, please refrain from such vulgar slang. In my unregenerate days I could have stood for it—I mean, endured it—but since I have become refined it hits me on the raw—I mean, it affects me painfully.”

“Oh, stop your nonsense, you boys,” chided Cora. “Can’t you see I’m trying to think?”

“Cora’s trying to think!” exclaimed her irrepressible brother. “Heaven be praised that I have lived to see this day!”

Cora gave him a scornful glance, and Jack sagged down at the knees, pretending to wilt.

“Just how did that girl strike you?” asked Cora thoughtfully.

“A peach,” replied Jack promptly.

“A pippin—I mean, she was very good looking,” added Walter.

“I’m asking the girls,” said Cora witheringly.

“She didn’t seem to me like a gypsy at all,” answered Bess. “And yet I suppose of course she must be, since she’s here with them.”

“Did you notice the way she spoke when she was off her guard for a moment?” asked Belle. “She said that she had ‘an attack of dizziness.’ Later on, she was a ‘leetle deezy.’”

“Her eyes were blue,” remarked Cora musingly, “and that is something unusual in a gypsy.”

“But her complexion was as dark as any of the others,” objected Bess.

“That might be accounted for by the tan from the open-air life,” replied Cora. “And then, too, it would be easy to color it artificially.”

“I didn’t know girls ever did such things,” interrupted Jack with a pained expression.

“And then too,” went on Cora, unheeding, “when her sleeve fell back, I saw that her arm was white. But what I’m trying to get at especially is whom she looks like. She resembles some one that I’ve seen before, but I can’t remember who it is.”

“What do you suppose made her act so queerly when I spoke of the stealing of your purse?” asked Bess.

“It wasn’t the robbery itself that startled her,” said Cora. “It was the name of the man, Higby. He was mentioned twice, and each time she looked frightened.”

“I wonder if she knows him,” murmured Belle.

“He said there were lots of girls who would be glad of his company,” laughed Bess. “Perhaps she is one of them.”

“There was no liking in that look of hers,” replied Cora emphatically. “It was positive alarm.”

“If a mere man may break into this discussion,” said Jack humbly, “you fair detectives haven’t yet told us why that pirate over there took the girl away from us.”

“That’s easy,” interposed Walter. “He was jealous. It was my fatal gift of beauty that worried him. The girls all fall for it—I mean, are attracted by it.”

“Girls,” asked Cora exasperatedly, “why are those long legs of Walter’s like organ grinders?”

“Why?” asked Belle.

“Give it up,” said Bess.

“Because,” explained Cora, “they always carry a monkey about with them.”

Walter staggered back.

“Stung!” he moaned. “Penetrated, I mean.”

“Well, don’t suffer too much, poor boy,” said Cora soothingly. “If it’s any comfort to you to know it, your two accomplices in crime are just as bad. Women are the only sensible human beings anyway.”

“Are they human?” asked Walter. “I’ve always thought of them as angels.”

“Stop trying to square yourself,” said Paul.

“Don’t knuckle down to them,” Jack adjured him.

“I must,” replied Walter, “or they won’t let me ride with them any more.”

“We’re not going to, anyway; that is, for the rest of this afternoon,” said Cora. “I want to have the girls in the car with me where we can talk over this thing without being interrupted.”

“Shut out from Eden,” groaned Walter bitterly. “You wash your hands of me. You cast me into outer darkness. Just when the better part of my nature was getting uppermost, you put me back into low company. I wouldn’t have believed it of you, girls.”

“Back to the kennel, you hound!” exclaimed Paul, seizing him by the collar. “You might have known that the girls would throw you down. They always do, sooner or later.”

“Well, now that Lucifer as lightning has fallen from heaven,” remarked Jack, “what do you say to hustling along? The afternoon waneth and my appetite waxeth. Dinner at Camp Kill Kare sounds awfully good to me.”

“I suppose we’ll have to,” assented Cora reluctantly; “but I would like to have another glimpse of that gypsy girl first.”

“Nothing doing,” said Jack. “We’re only visitors here anyway, and we haven’t any right to intrude on their private affairs when they show us so clearly they don’t want us to. Ten to one it’s only a mare’s nest anyway that you’re stirring up, sis, about the girl. Probably she’s an honest to goodness gypsy, just like the rest of them.”

“That’s what my common sense tells me,” agreed Cora, “but something outside of common sense tells me that she isn’t.”

“That’s the way I feel about it too,” echoed Bess.

“I too,” agreed Belle. “She may have been stolen when she was a child. That happens often enough.”

“Not so often as it used to,” said Paul. “The telegraph and the telephone make it too risky.”

“Well, how about it?” said Jack. “Are you three Graces coming along, or do we three scapegraces have to wend our way to Camp Kill Kare alone?”

“There she is now!” exclaimed Bess, as she caught sight of the gypsy girl looking at them from the door of the van.

But a wrinkled crone who was sitting on the top step of the van reached out a skinny arm and angrily pushed the girl inside and out of sight.

“They’ve evidently made up their minds that we’re showing too much interest in her, and for some reason they don’t like it,” sighed Cora. “Well, come along, girls. We’ll have to go. But that gypsy girl has a history and a secret, and I’d give a good deal to find out just what they are.”

CHAPTER VII
THE MOUNTAIN CAMP

The Motor Girls, followed by the boys, made their way briskly back to the cars and climbed in, Walter resuming his place with the other boys and Belle going back to Cora and Bess.

For some time previous to running across the gypsy camp they had been rising higher and higher into the mountains, and now the road became still steeper. They had to run more slowly in consequence, for although both cars were good hill-climbers, it took a good deal of power to make any kind of speed. Besides, as they got farther into the wilderness, the road was rougher and more neglected. But it was just this wildness they had come to seek, and their spirits rose with the difficulties they encountered.

“You go in advance, Jack,” said Cora, as the road grew narrower until it was difficult for the two cars to go side by side. “Of course, having the faster car, I suppose we ought to show the way, but we’re nothing if not magnanimous. If your car balks we’ll push you along. Besides, you have the map.”

“Don’t worry about pushing us along,” retorted Jack. “Just for that, I ought to shoot ahead out of sight and leave you to bitter regrets when you find yourselves lost in the wilderness. But I’m too noble to treat helpless girls that way, so you’re safe for the present. But beware, woman, of goading me too far! It’s a long worm that has no turning.”

“If you’re as mixed in your road directions as you are in your proverbs, I’m afraid we won’t get to Camp Kill Kare to-night,” rejoined Cora. “But go ahead now like a good boy, and think up some more bright things to spring on us. We want to be by ourselves so that we can talk without foolish interruptions.”

“They want to talk,” muttered Jack. “What a novelty!”

“If women talk a good deal, I notice that lots of men take after their mothers,” replied Belle, as Jack’s car darted into the lead.

“Isn’t it tantalizing,” said Cora to her chums, resuming their interrupted conversation, “that I can’t think just whom that gypsy girl looks like? Don’t you know how it is when you are trying to recall a word or a line of poetry or something, and have it just on the tip of your tongue but can’t quite get it? I feel just that way about this resemblance. I’m perfectly sure I’ve seen some one very much like her. Can’t you girls help me out? We’re together so much, and we know the same people. Put on your thinking caps and see if you can’t give me a hint.”

“I only wish I could,” replied Belle thoughtfully. “There was something a little familiar about the girl, though it didn’t strike me as strongly as it did you.”

“There was a certain look in her eyes that suggested somebody I’ve seen,” said Bess, “but for the life of me I can’t remember who it was. But even suppose we did remember? It wouldn’t prove anything. There are lots of people in the world who look alike and yet who haven’t the slightest relation to each other.”

“I know it,” admitted Cora. “But just the same I have what the boys would call a hunch that in this case it would give us a clue to the gypsy girl’s secret.”

“If she has any,” laughed Bess.

“Get out your crystal sphere, Sybilla, and pluck the heart from this mystery,” smiled Belle.

“You girls can laugh if you want to,” rejoined Cora, “but all the same I’ll think about this and perhaps dream about it until I recall the face I’m groping for.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if we’d have something more practical to think of before long,” remarked Belle, pointing to the sky. “Do you see those clouds coming up there? I’ve been watching them for the last five minutes and they’re getting bigger and blacker all the time. I’d hate to be caught in a thunderstorm.”

“And get into Camp Kill Kare all wet and bedraggled,” added Bess. “Oh, Cora, let’s hurry!”

“It isn’t getting wet that bothers me so much,” replied Cora. “We could put up the top and keep dry enough. But a heavy storm would turn the road into a quagmire, and goodness knows it’s bad enough as it is.”

The boys ahead had seen the signs, and Jack shouted back:

“Give her all the juice she can stand, sis! If the storm only holds off for fifteen minutes we’ll make the camp.”

His own car shot ahead, and Cora threw in the speed and kept close behind. They could hear now faint rumblings of thunder, all the more noticeable because of the sudden hush that had fallen over the forest, as birds and animals and insects sensed the coming storm.

Darker and darker it grew and faster and faster the cars sped along, as their drivers called on the last ounce of speed they had in them. Despite their fluttering of anxiety, the girls had a keen sense of exhilaration in this race with the elements. Their veils whipped about their faces and their glowing eyes and reddened cheeks showed their inward excitement.

A jagged flash of lightning shot across the sky, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. It was evident that the bolt had struck not far off, for a moment later they heard the crash of a falling tree at a little distance to the right.

“Oh, hurry! hurry!” urged Bess and Belle.

“Do you think I’m creeping?” Cora called back. “I can’t talk to the car and encourage it as I might a horse. You’ll notice that the boys aren’t leaving us behind.”

As a matter of fact, the cars were nearly touching.

“Keep up your pluck, girls!” Jack called back. “If this map is all right, we’ll make the camp in five minutes more.”

“If we didn’t have an old tub in front of us, we’d make it in four,” sang out Cora.

“If the rain will only hold off,” murmured Belle.

But the prospect grew ever more threatening. The peals of thunder were redoubled and the lightning played so vividly across the sky that Bess covered her face with her hands.

“Suppose the car should be struck!” she exclaimed.

“If it were, we’d probably never know it,” was all the comfort her sister could give.

Just then there was an appalling roar, and a great tree, split from top to bottom, swayed for a moment and then fell with a deafening crash right across the road, about a hundred feet in front of the leading car.

There were shrieks from the girls, and a jumble of shouts came from the boys, as Jack brought his machine to a halt, and Cora, who had not lost her presence of mind, did the same.

All jumped out and ran forward. A glance told them that there was no getting past the tree. It blocked the road completely. Nor was it possible to get around the fallen monarch with the cars, for there was dense undergrowth on both sides of the road.

“No help for it, girls,” announced Jack, after a hurried examination of the conditions. “We’ll have to run for it. I caught a glimpse of the bungalow a minute ago, and it’s not far from here. We’ll have to leave the cars here and come back and cut a path for them after the storm’s over.”

“But suppose they should be stolen?” objected Belle.

“Mighty little chance of that in this neck of the woods,” replied Paul. “You notice we haven’t met any one for the last two hours. We’ll put up the tops so that the inside won’t get wet. And there’ll be some one at the bungalow that we can send out to guard them and keep you from worrying about them.”

“Now we’ve got to make tracks for the house. Come ahead, girls!” cried Jack, as soon as the tops had been put up.

Each of the boys took charge of one of the girls, and they skirted the tree, pushing their way through the underbrush till they reached the road on the other side.

The outdoor life of the Motor Girls had made them fleet and strong, and although of course with their clinging skirts they could not keep up with the boys, the latter accommodated their pace to theirs, and they came in sight of the bungalow in a few minutes.

But the rain was coming, too, and it was a pretty race. They could see it being driven before the wind in great gusts, and they felt the pattering of the advance drops. And just as they gained the shelter of the bungalow porch, the rain came down in torrents.

Their coming had been seen from the house, and Aunt Betty King came running out to meet them.

“You darlings!” she cried, as she tried to gather all the girls at once into her arms, and kissed them in turn. “How glad I am to see you! I’ve been watching for you for the last two hours and was beginning to worry for fear you wouldn’t get here before dark. And how lucky you were to get here ahead of the storm. But how on earth did you come?”