“And is that the reason—” began Nancy, while her friends trembled for fear of what the inquisitive child would ask next.

“The reason I was so blue?” he asked gently. “It certainly was. You guessed right again. If you had six guesses, I believe you would get six secrets from me, Miss Nancy,” he laughed.

“Then you are not a Mormon?” asked Billie.

“Most assuredly not. I was born in Kentucky, educated at Harvard and settled on this farm my uncle left me three years ago. But before that I spent some time in Salt Lake City.”

“What a shame!” exclaimed Mary.

“What’s a shame?” he asked.

Mary blushed and stammered.

“That you—that she—I mean, that the father——”

“It is a shame,” he interrupted, evidently enjoying his confession to the four earnest young girls immensely. “And the worst of it is that I can’t even write to her and as for seeing her, I might as well try and see the Empress of China. I can’t get a letter to her because all her mail is opened by that old dragon of a father.”

“And can’t Evelyn write to you?” asked Nancy, her eyes as big as saucers.

Daniel Moore began laughing joyfully.

“I’ve caught you,” he cried, his handsome face lit up with merriment. Nancy could have bit her tongue for having thoughtlessly mentioned the girl’s name. The other girls could not help joining in the laughter. Miss Campbell waked up a moment, smiled sleepily at the group and closed her eyes again. The thunder of the rain on the roof and the whistle of the wind as it blew around the corner of the house muffled their voices into far-away sounds.

“Confess, now, Miss Nancy. You know this young lady.”

“Only by sight.”

He looked at her puzzled.

“You’ve met her somewhere perhaps?”

“Only her snapshot smile.”

“Oh, ho!” he cried. “You’ve been reading Kipling.”

Nancy bowed her head.

“We couldn’t help reading the message at the same time we saw the postcard. We know it was impolite.”

“I only wish it had been more of a message,” said Daniel Moore. “It was the last one I have ever had from her.”

“Why don’t you go and find her?” suggested gallant Billie.

“I have been,” he answered. “I’ve almost camped out in front of her house. I’ve done about everything I could do without breaking down the door and abducting her. If I could only get one more message to her, somehow——”

“Why couldn’t we take it?” asked Billie. “We’re going to Salt Lake City.”

Daniel Moore rested his chin on his hand and sat thinking.

“Why, you could,” he said at last. “You could do that thing for me and I would be everlastingly in your debt. It could be done in this way without any risk for any one concerned. You could write her a note as if you were an old school friend and ask her to meet you.”

“But she wouldn’t know who I was,” protested Billie.

“No; I’m thinking of that, too. But she would recognise this line: ‘Have you forgotten that jolly day at Fontainebleau?’”

“Oh,” said Billie.

“Then you could give her the note from me and that would be all you had to do.”

At this moment the master of the house was called away by one of the servants, and the girls began discussing in low voices the romantic errand which was to cast a glamour of even greater interest around Salt Lake City. As they leaned over the maps chatting together there was a blinding flash of lightning and a terrific clap of thunder. Miss Campbell, frightened from her nap, hurried to them. They waited a moment in silence. Presently far down the avenue they heard the whirr of a motor car. There was something ominous and terrifying in the sound. Another moment, it had stopped in front of the house. The hall door was flung open; there was the noise of hurrying footsteps; then the living-room door was opened and in the dim light there stood before them, just for the fraction of a second, Peter Van Vechten. There was a wild look in his eyes which searched their faces without recognition. The door closed as suddenly as it had opened, and he was gone.

“The third wish came true,” whispered Nancy as they pressed together in frightened wonder.

Presently there was a noise of footsteps and low voices in the hall. All the household must have been gathered there speaking in muffled tones. Tramp, tramp, tramp down the hall went the footsteps. A door closed somewhere and all was as still as death. Then came the sound of the motor again, gradually dying out as it flew down the avenue.

Had anything happened, they wondered. They were frightened and uneasy. The house seemed to be filled with a mysterious silence.

Their host did not come back to them that afternoon, but retiring to their rooms they put on their prettiest frocks to do honor to his dinner, where he joined them at seven o’clock, looking a little pale and worried, they thought.

CHAPTER V.—AN INCIDENT OF THE ROAD.

But Evelyn’s name had not been mentioned again, and the name of the aviator also had never been introduced. The girls had waited, hoping there might be some explanation, but there was none, and they did not care to be accused of another act of curiosity.

What he could have been doing in that house, where he came from out of the storm and whither he went, they could not even guess. It was like a dream, a sudden vision flashed before them in the lightning and then gone.

They had been driven over the farm that morning by the master himself; had seen, with the other fine horses, Pocohontas pawing the ground with her small forefoot, while a groom rubbed her smooth, satin coat with a piece of chamois. And now the Comet stood under the center tree of the seven oaks, waiting to carry them on their journey.

One Japanese servant was strapping on the suit cases in the back while the other was storing a hamper of lunch and a box of provisions in the motor.

While Billie was waiting for the others to settle themselves in the motor, Daniel Moore handed her a letter.

“The name and address are on it,” he said; “but promise me one thing: Don’t deliver it if you feel any fear or hesitation. All I can say is, that if you do, you will probably be making two people happy forever, because I can’t seem to get at her in any other way, and I have a conviction they have made her believe I have given her up. If you should ever need me,” he added, “telegraph me to this address.”

Then, with a last hand-shake and nods and smiles of farewell and waving of handkerchiefs, the red motor car shot down the avenue and they were off.

The handsome, kindly face of the owner of Sevenoaks with his genial blue-gray eyes and his pleasant smile seemed to float after them like a good genie along the way.

They lunched on the roadside that day under a big mulberry tree. A spring rippled near-by on purpose for Elinor’s tea and they sat on cushions on the ground, picnic fashion. It was great fun, and there was much to talk about. Billie drew out the letter and showed it to the girls. “Miss Evelyn Stone, No. 6 —— Street, Salt Lake City, Utah.”

Before delivering the letter the girls realized that they must obtain Miss Campbell’s consent, and they had been putting their heads together to devise a scheme by which their sprightly little chaperone should be won over to the cause of the lovers.

“Cousin Helen,” began Billie, “did you notice anything peculiar about Mr. Moore?”

“Peculiar? No. I thought he was one of the most normal, well set-up, well-bred young men I had ever met.”

“So did we,” echoed the girls. “We liked him so much.”

“But didn’t you notice how sad he was, cousin.”

“On the contrary, I thought he seemed very gay.”

“He told us he was sad, at any rate. His heart is almost breaking.”

“Tut, tut!” said Miss Campbell, “he has much too good a circulation for such nonsense.”

“But he’s in love, Miss Campbell,” cried Elinor.

“Deeply, hopelessly in love,” added Mary.

“With a beautiful girl,” went on Billie.

“Who has a cruel father——”

“Who is a Mormon——”

“And won’t let her marry any one but Mormons——”

“Mormons,” cried Miss Campbell. “She can have only one at a time, child——”

“And Mr. Moore is not a Mormon. He’s a Kentuckian,” finished Nancy.

“Dear, dear,” ejaculated Miss Campbell. “So that’s the way the ground lies, is it? Poor fellow! Poor unhappy soul. I’m sure I feel very sorry for him indeed!”

“He is unhappy, dearest cousin, and he can’t reach her without breaking down the door,” went on Billie. “Her father reads all her mail and Mr. Moore simply can’t get at her.”

“Has the girl no mother to take her side? I don’t wish to preach disobedience, but why doesn’t she run away? She might look the wide world over and never find a nicer husband than that fine young man.”

“That’s what he can’t understand,” said Billie. “His letters have all been returned and he thinks they have told her something about him.”

“He says if he could only get one more message to her——”

“Just a line——”

“Just a word——”

“And we——”

“And we’ve got the word,” finished Billie in great excitement, flourishing the letter. “We are not to deliver it if we feel that it would be dangerous, but if we can manage to slip it to her it will make two people very happy.”

“But how can it be done? It sounds like a very risky adventure to me.”

The girls exchanged sly glances while Billie related the plan. Many a time had they won Miss Campbell over to their schemes by touching her romantic heart.

“It’s quite simple, you see, Cousin Helen. The mention of Fontainebleau will explain everything to Evelyn. You see, they met in Paris, and spent one beautiful day together at Fontainebleau.”

There was a long pause while Miss Campbell considered the situation.

“I don’t think any harm would be done,” she said at last. “He has been very kind to us, and if we could help him along a little, bring two loving souls together——”

She paused and looked into the eager, interested faces of the four young girls. Could she refuse to help two lovers?

“I’ve always heard those Mormons were a very revengeful race of people; but we’ll take the risk, dear children. I don’t see that there will be much danger in it for us. Billie can write a perfectly non-committal note saying that she is in Salt Lake City for a few days, and would like to see Miss Evelyn, and it would do no harm, I’m sure, to add, ‘Have you forgotten the beautiful time at Fontainebleau?’”

“Yes, yes; that is exactly the thing to say,” cried the others, and they began to count the days and weeks before they could reach Salt Lake City beyond the great wall of the Rocky Mountains.

They were still chatting in close conversation when a voice behind them startled them. A deep, sonorous voice that had an ominous ring like distant thunder, and yet the words spoken were commonplace enough:

“Ladies, do you wish to buy any shoestrings, jewelry, handkerchiefs, pins and combs?”

They looked up quickly.

A peddler had approached and was now about to open his pack. From his coarse dark skin and black hair, long enough to show underneath his slouch hat, they judged he was at least half-Indian, and he stood over them, a silent, statuesque figure, his narrow eyes becoming slits of blackness as he regarded them.

“I am very sorry,” said Miss Campbell politely,

“I’m afraid we don’t need any of those things. We are already well provided.”

This courteous lady was always apologetic when she couldn’t accommodate persons of a wandering character.

“Maybe the lady would like something better than shoestrings,” continued the man, slipping his pack to the ground and opening a lower secret compartment from which he drew a long, narrow box.

Spreading a square of dark green cotton material on the ground, the halfbreed emptied out a double handful of beautiful opals.

“These opals I found in Mexico,” he said, letting the stones drip through his fingers like glorified drops of milk. “They are very perfect ones. This one would make you a beautiful ring, madam. And this young lady would look well in a necklace of opals. I will sell them to you for half their value.”

The girls looked at the stones with grave interest, but nobody wanted an unset opal, and at the beginning of this long journey they had no intention of buying jewels.

“I am exceedingly sorry, my good man,” said Miss Campbell, “but we do not wish to buy anything, especially opals, because they are unlucky stones.”

“Only for those, lady, who are not born in October. Now, I should say that this young lady was born in that month,” he added, pointing to Billie.

“I was,” said Billie, somewhat startled, “but how could you tell?”

“Lady, those who sleep under the stars are sometimes gifted in that way. Since you were born in October, you should have an opal.

    “‘October’s  child  will  not  be  blest
    Who  wears  no  opal  on  her  breast.’”

“But I have one,” protested Billie, “only I left it at home.”

“Then you will not buy one of these stones!” exclaimed the halfbreed darkly.

“No,” replied Miss Campbell, gently but firmly, “we wish nothing whatever. I think we must be going now, girls,” she added, rising.

The man began to put away his wares sulkily while the girls gathered their belongings together and started for the automobile.

When he had fastened the pack to his back he walked over to the Comet in which they were already seated, while Billie cranked up the machine.

“Yesterday afternoon, in front of the place called Sevenoaks, a man in an automobile was struck by lightning and killed,” he said. “Only a little while before his master had refused to buy from me. And I cursed them for their meanness. I was poor and they had money, but they refused to buy. And now I curse you. I curse you and your country and your parents and your grandparents. I curse the machine which carries you. May your way be hard and full of dangers. May the lightning play about you and the thunder smite you. May you be lost in the mountains and starve in the desert and sleep without a roof over your heads. Curses be upon you and yours.”

Having delivered himself of his burden of hatred, he strode down the road, a very figure of vengeance and enmity.

“Great heavens! the dreadful creature,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, cowering in her seat fearfully.

“Don’t notice him, Cousin Helen,” said Billie over her shoulder. She had started the car and they were speeding along at a rapid rate. “He is insane, of course, and I’m glad we got rid of him so easily.”

“Dear, dear, I hope we won’t meet any more persons like that. He seems to be just a vessel of bitterness, as poor dear grandmamma used to say.”

They rode along silently for some time in the bright sunshine without speaking. At last Elinor and Billie burst out simultaneously, as if they had both been pursuing the identical train of thought and at the same moment had reached an exciting conclusion.

“The man struck by lightning,” they cried.

“Must have been Peter Van Vechten’s chauffeur,” went on Elinor.

“And that was why Peter Van Vechten rushed into the house yesterday in the storm,” pursued Billie.

“Then the poor chauffeur must have been in the house with us all night,” said Mary, shuddering.

“And that was why Mr. Moore was gone so long, and then wouldn’t tell us what was the matter. He was afraid it would frighten us,” added Elinor.

“It’s very strange, but I believe you are right,” observed Miss Campbell, shivering at the thought that there had been death and destruction about her while she slept all unconscious in the big leather chair by the fire.

That night they crossed the border line and slept in comfortable beds in a fine hotel in Omaha, Nebraska.

“Billie,” said Nancy, with the covers drawn well about her head, so as to shut out the memory of that revengeful individual who had cursed them in such round terms, “Billie.”

“Yes,” replied her friend sleepily.

“Did that peddler’s face remind you of anyone?”

“I can’t say it did,” she answered, almost slipping off into the region of dreams.

“Not Miss Hawkes, who was so fond of dates?” asked Nancy.

“There was a faint likeness,” answered Billie, making an effort to pull herself out of the deep pit into which she was fast sinking, and falling back again helplessly, like a prisoner shackled with too many chains to escape.

“Do you suppose she could have had Indian blood?” asked Nancy.

But there was no reply. Billie was sleeping deeply.

CHAPTER VI.—UNDER THE STARS.

About them, as far as the human eye could see, and many, many miles farther still where the human eye could not reach, rolled an infinite stretch of prairie. Like a misty, blue sea it spread before them. Here and there were groups of cattle grazing, and far back along the road they could see a black speck which they took to be a human being.

The five travelers were no longer homesick, and they were not tired. The peace of the plains had entered into their souls, and when the Comet suddenly gave an exhausted croak and stopped short, they exchanged good-natured smiles as if it were the commonest thing in the world for five lonely ladies from the East to be stranded on a Western plateau.

“There’s a screw loose somewhere,” said Billie calmly, jumping out and looking critically at the outer workings of the car. “Ladies, I must ask you to descend while I take a look at the Comet’s organs. His heart beats are not regular and his liver seems to be very torpid. The truth is, I think his condition is run down.”

“I should think it would be,” observed Miss Campbell, stepping nimbly to the ground. “Since eight this morning he’s been running it down.”

Billie, and Mary, who had been her pupil on the trip and was fast learning all that Billie could teach her, donned their “puncture coats,” as they called them. These were two long, brown linen dusters, the sleeves of which were secured at the wrists with rubber. They buttoned up from top to toe, and every vestige of dress underneath was protected.

Billie now became chief mechanician and Mary was her assistant. Together they opened up the front of the car and spreading a linen cover on the ground, Billie crawled under and fell to work.

You may think that Billie was unusually wise in her generation, but she had had a long training as a chauffeur and could pass muster with the best of them. However, she was not wise enough that evening to diagnose the Comet’s trouble. The two girls poked their inquisitive noses into every part of the machinery. They screwed and unscrewed and performed miracles of investigation in the Comet’s interior, but he persisted in the stand he had taken of suddenly becoming an invalid.

“I believe it’s the steering gear,” said Mary.

“No, child, listen to your grandmother talk. It’s this screw here that’s worn out.”

While they tinkered and worked, evening set in. There was a chill in the air, as there is always on these western plateaus after sunset. First one pale star and then another glimmered in the depths of the sky. And all the while the black speck on the road was drawing nearer.

At last the peace of the plains which had entered their souls became somewhat disturbed.

“This won’t do,” suddenly exclaimed Miss Campbell, breaking the long silence that had settled upon them. “This will never do in the world. Billie, child, can’t you fix that thing? It’s getting dark. We mustn’t be left in this lonely place all night. Hurry up, children. Do screw up something or other and let us be getting on.”

“I only wish we could,” exclaimed Billie ruefully. “I thought there was nothing about this machine I did not know, but I can’t find the trouble.”

“Besides,” pursued Mary, defending her captain, “it’s so dark we can’t see what we are doing.”

“What’s to be done?” cried Miss Campbell, spreading out her hands with a gesture of helplessness.

The girls looked at each other. What was to be done? In their infinite respect for Billie’s powers as a chauffeur, they had never conceived of a danger like this.

“We could make a tent for Cousin Helen of one of the rugs and use cushions for a mattress, and the rest of us could roll up in our steamer blankets and sleep on the ground,” suggested Billie with a certain thrill of anticipation in her voice. Deep in her secret soul she could not help enjoying this little adventure.

“Then, in the morning,” pursued Nancy, who was likewise a silent partner in this guilty pleasure, “we can go to the nearest farmhouse or ranch and ask for help.”

“But—” objected Miss Campbell and Elinor in one voice, and then paused for want of a better suggestion.

In the ocean of shadows, somewhere an immense distance away, one little light twinkled and blinked at them tantalizingly.

“Nancy and I might go over and ask for help where that light is,” began Billie.

“Never! never!” cried her cousin. “Oh! my child, what are you thinking of? Could you imagine for a moment I would let you and Nancy go wandering off into the wilderness? Better die together than apart.”

“But we won’t die at all, dearest cousin,” Billie assured her. “We’ll all live to tell what a wonderful night we spent together under the stars.”

“I think we’d better build a fire and get supper,” put in Mary.

This was an agreeable suggestion and settled the discussion without more words. In this high, dry climate appetites were too big to mention in polite society, and each one yearned for the comfort of her evening meal.

In another twenty minutes Miss Campbell and the Motor Maids had gone into camp. At the side of the road was a group of scraggy pine trees, and under these they pitched the blanket tent. While Billie and Nancy, armed with a hatchet, went in search of firewood, the other girls unpacked the alcohol stove and the tea basket and Mr. Moore’s box of provisions. In a little while the two foragers returned with their arms loaded with firewood. Their cheeks were glowing with exercise and there was a sparkling freshness in their happy laughter.

“We’ve turned wood choppers,” cried Nancy. “We found a dead pine tree, and lo and behold, we’ve converted it into logs.”

Together they built a fire on a most scientific plan and presently the fragrance of broiled ham filled them with pleasurable but subdued anticipation.

“Scramble the eggs now, Mary,” ordered Elinor as she brewed the tea.

“I think my girls are very capable,” observed Miss Campbell, watching the proceedings with much pride from her cushion seat near the fire. “If we live through this night we shall have much to tell about.”

“Just imagine you’re a gypsy, Cousin Helen,” called Billie, as she spread a lunch cloth on the ground. “And nothing ever happens to gypsies, although they live this way all the time.”

Nancy set the table with the jam pot in the middle for decoration, and presently they sat down like a company of hungry boys eager to be helped.

“Oh, how good things taste,” exclaimed Elinor. “I’m not a bit afraid out here in the dark. My only sensations are hunger and sleep.”

“Wasn’t it lucky we brought our steamer rugs?” cried Nancy.

“Wasn’t it lucky we came?” said Mary, going her one better.

“Aren’t we glad we’re living?” added Billie.

Miss Campbell tried to pinch herself awake. Was it possible that she, Helen Eustace Campbell, spinster, accustomed to every luxury in life, was about to lie down on the ground and sleep in a far Western, lonely, unprotected spot? She thought it was highly possible, and her heavy eyelids and unconquerable drowsiness urged her to hasten the business of getting ready for the night.

The four girls put on their polo coats and after building a big fire they rolled themselves into their steamer rugs and presently were sleeping as deeply and soundly as they had ever slept in their lives.

And now the moon rose and shed its radiance on them. The fire died down and the night grew deeper and stiller. A chill crept into the air and they snuggled closer under their blankets and slept and slept and dreamed.

Billie dreamed that the black speck she had seen on the road in the distance evolved itself into a man. He was riding a pony. She was sure of it, because in her dream she heard the sound of horse’s hoofs as they came nearer. Then the sounds stopped and all was silent again, a long, long silence. She remembered sitting up to see if the horseman had passed, but the invisible chains of sleep bound her closely and back she sank into slumber. But always in her dream she felt that some one was near. Had a light been flashed across their faces or was it the rays of the moon which hung in the center of the heavens like a great lantern, illuminating the landscape for miles around?

At last, after slipping into the immeasurable distances of time and space, which only a dream can compass, there came the sound of a motor. For a moment it was quite near, and then gradually it died away and the night was all serene again.

As the dawn crept up, Miss Campbell waked. But she waited, not wishing to disturb her sleeping companions. She lay with her back to the road, her face turned toward the limitless prairies which were now suffused with a rosy light. Then, trailing clouds of glory after him, the sun burst into view over the edge of the world. Never before had Miss Campbell seen a sunrise.

“Girls, girls!” she cried, “you must wake up and see this marvellous sight.”

They jumped up and stood in a silent, wondering row as the plains were flooded with light.

Suddenly Billie turned her face toward the road.

Throwing her hands over her head with a gesture of despair, she began to weep bitterly.

“Oh! oh!” she cried, “the Comet, my beloved Comet! He has been stolen!”

CHAPTER VII.—BARNEY M’GEE.

Her friends, who had been subdued and silent in the presence of her grief could hardly refrain from smiling at the notion of Billie’s sitting up all night to protect the automobile from kidnappers. Billie, her normal, cheerful self, was the most sensible person in the world; but Billie, the prey of tears and doubts, was just as unreasonable as any other weeping, unhappy girl.

While she had her cry out on Miss Helen’s shoulder with her devoted Nancy hanging over her, Mary and Elinor began to look about them.

“The robber must have been a chauffeur, Elinor,” said Mary, “and a very good one, too, because he not only knew how to run the Comet but to repair it.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Elinor irrelevantly.

The two girls stood thinking. The robber had not taken their suitcases which they had been obliged to unstrap and open the night before; nor had he touched their camping outfit. Only the motor had been filched from them while they slept.

“I think the first thing to do is to make ourselves comfortable,” Mary remarked as her eyes fell on the alcohol stove. “Then we’ll get breakfast and Billie will be more cheerful. Perhaps someone will come along by then.”

As soon as Billie noticed her friends arranging their tumbled hair and washing their faces from the bottle of drinking water they always carried with them, she stopped crying at once.

“I’m awfully ashamed,” she exclaimed, as embarrassed as a boy caught in the act of shedding tears. “I’m afraid I’ve been a fearful cry-baby, as if weeping could do any good. Here, let’s wash them off and get busy,” she added, trying to smile while she poured some of the water over her pocket handkerchief and bathed her red eyes.

“Don’t you care, Billie,” cried Nancy. “I was glad to see you a little human like the rest of us. And it was a dreadful blow.”

Mary, with her unfailing desire to make everybody comfortable under the most trying circumstances, began presently to prepare coffee over the alcohol stove, and the fragrance of the bean did seem to comfort them somewhat in their trying position. When the most optimistic person in a party becomes the prey of wretchedness, the others usually pretend a cheerfulness they by no means feel. But now that Billie had regained her composure, Miss Campbell’s spirits began to sink.

She made a pitiful little toilet with a teacupful of drinking water and her eau de cologne. She arranged her snow white hair in its usual three-finger puffs, pinned on her lace jabot with great care and then surveyed the far-stretching country with an uneasy glance.

“If one robber is around another is sure to be,” she began. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! if we had only never started on this madman’s journey. Your father was a foolish fellow ever to have consented, Billie. What are we but five weak helpless women lost in the wilderness?”

“No, we are not,” protested Billie. “Indeed we are not any of those things, Cousin Helen. I was for a moment when I found we had lost the Comet, but I know we shall get the Comet back and everything will be all right, I don’t yet know how, but I certainly don’t intend to give up hope at this stage of the game.”

“First breakfast,” said Mary, spreading out the lunch cloth and supplying each person with an orange, a soft boiled egg and a cup of coffee. “First a little nourishment and then see how much more hopeful you’ll all feel.”

It was hardly what might be called a cheerful meal and it was quickly dispatched especially by Billie in whose mind a plan was already formulating.

“Nancy,” she said to her friend who had followed her to the edge of the grove and was standing silently beside her, “where are your field glasses?”

The glasses were promptly produced from Nancy’s suitcase.

“Do you think,” Billie continued, “that I could climb one of those pine trees? I believe if I could get to one of the upper branches, I could see for miles around the country. I might even see the Comet.”

“You know Miss Campbell would never consent, Billie,” Nancy objected, “even if you could shin up that slippery pine tree.”

“Just you engage Cousin Helen in conversation for five minutes and I’ll engage to do the rest. It’s really a matter of costume, anyhow.”

So saying, Billie calmly slipped off her corduroy skirt and coat, revealing herself in pongee bloomers and a pongee blouse. Then she kicked off her russet leather pumps and hung the long strap of the field glasses over her shoulder.

The tree she had chosen to climb was the tallest one in the group, and, as is the case with pine trees, it had not put forth any substantial limbs until more than half-way up. But the trunk was scarred and corrugated with the marks of former limbs that had died, and Billie used these as footholds as she shinned up the tree.

Nancy had not attempted to engage Miss Campbell in conversation. She stood rooted to the spot, fascinated while Billie worked her way up and finally swung herself into a fork where the big stone pine divided and became as two trees. Then, choosing the next largest branch, she climbed on as nimbly as a sailor in the rigging of a ship. Nancy admired her friend’s graceful and agile figure, and occasionally through the foliage, she caught glimpses of Billie’s earnest face. Her gray eyes were filled with the fire of her resolution, and her mouth, in which sweetness and determination were blended, was closed tightly. Not a lock of her fine light brown hair had been disturbed by the climb and the two side rolls were as smooth and glossy as silk.

All this while Miss Campbell and the others had been busy storing away the breakfast dishes which could not under any circumstances be washed. It was various degrees between seven and half-past by the several watches in the party and the sun had mounted the Eastern heavens and was shedding its glory over the great plain.

“Someone must surely be coming this way soon——” Miss Campbell was saying when a jolly voice singing an Irish song broke in on the silence.

    “I  had  a  sister  Helen,  she  was  younger  than  I  am,
    She  had  so  many  sweethearts,  she  had  to  deny  ’em;
    But  as  for  meself,  I  haven’t  so  many,
    And  the  Lord  only  knows,  I’d  be  thankful  for  any.”

A man on horseback immediately hove into sight around a bend in the road. He was long and lean and brown with eyes as mildly blue as the summer sky above them. The thin lips of his large mouth had a nervously humorous twitch at the corners, and his yellow hair, much longer than men wear their hair in the East, could be seen underneath his sombrero. He wore a blue flannel shirt with a bright scarlet tie, velveteen trousers and long cowhide boots which extended beyond the knees. He was, in fact, a cowboy. The girls were certain of it although he did not wear the fantastic sheepskin trousers they had seen in pictures. But he had every other mark of the cowboy, the lean Texas horse, the high-built saddle, much decorated, and the jingling spurs on his high-heeled boots.

Giving the belated motorists one grand, sweeping, comprehensive glance, he was about to amble on politely, since it was none of his business to show interest in things that did not concern him, when Miss Campbell rushed dramatically into the road and stretched out her arms with gestures of distress.

“Oh, I beg of you, sir, don’t leave us,” she cried. Billie in the garb of Peter Pan watching from the tree tops could not restrain her smiles; and Nancy from behind the same tree giggled audibly.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I didn’t know you were in any trouble,” said the cowboy reining in his horse and lifting off his sombrero. “I’m Barney McGee, at your service, ma’am. What can I do for you?”

“Our motor car broke down here last night and it was too dark to repair it. We were obliged to stay here all night. And while we slept, a robber stole it. We are simply stranded on the road. What can we do?”

Barney McGee gave a long, melodious whistle.

“Lifted your motor, ma’am! That was a d——, excuse me, a devilish low scoundrelly trick. If I could get to a telephone, we would round him up before he gets to Wyoming.”

“Oh, Mr. McGee, if you would only help us, we would owe you a debt of gratitude all our lives.”

“You say the motor was out of fix, ma’am?” he asked. “Then it may have broken down, again. I’ll just climb up and take a look at the countryside. What color was the car?”

“Red.”

To Nancy’s consternation, Barney McGee stood up on his saddle and grasping a limb, drew himself up into the very tree in which Billie was now making herself as scarce as possible.

It was an absurd situation and the two young girls hardly knew whether to keep silent or to speak. Billie kept saying to herself:

“I’m sure I look just as I do when I wear my gymnasium suit, but, oh, dear, I wish he hadn’t chosen this tree.”

As the cowboy swung up the next limb, Billie leaned around and looked straight down into his face. She was about to say:

“You needn’t come any further. I can see the country perfectly,” when words failed her and she burst out laughing.

Barney McGee smiled gravely back.

“Excuse me, I am afraid I’ve intruded,” he said, observing the silk bloomers with an expression of guarded amusement.

“I suppose he thought I was a Suffragette,” Billie laughingly told her friends afterwards.

“Billie, my dear child, what are you doing?” cried Miss Campbell, who now for the first time saw the strange bird roosting in the tree above them, and the good lady groaned aloud as her eye took in her young relative’s costume.

“Wilhelmina,” she exclaimed in a shocked voice, “what will Mr. McGee think of you—in—in those things?”

“Don’t scold her, ma’am,” called down the cowboy, “it’s an illigent climbing costume.”

“I have some glasses, Mr. McGee,” said Billie calmly. “I haven’t been able to manage them yet and keep my balance. Perhaps you can do better than I can.”

Barney McGee, as nimble as a mountain goat, as he pulled himself above Billie, his spurs jingling musically, now took the glasses and scanned the surrounding country.

While he looked, Billie scrambled down as fast as she could and in two seconds had slipped back on her skirt and buckled her patent leather belt.

The Motor Maids and Miss Helen felt not unlike a shipwrecked party with a sailor aloft in the lookout searching for a sail in that vast ocean of prairie.

“Hip, hip, hurray!” cried Barney McGee, so suddenly, that he gave Miss Helen a start of surprise. “I’ve found it, ma’am. I’ve found the red motor and it’s coming this way. Sure as me name is Barney, it is. It’s driven by one person and it’s goin’ fast.”

“Coming this way?” they cried in unison.

“It’s about three miles to the southwest and at the rate it’s goin’ it ought to be here in no time.”

“Is it on this road?” cried Billie.

“It is, Miss, and it’ll pass by here unless it shoots out over the prairie, which it won’t.”

“It is very strange,” said Miss Campbell. “I should think the thief would take another direction.”

“Perhaps he’s doubling on his tracks,” suggested Mary.

Barney had a long pistol in his belt and this he now took from its case, and examined critically while the girls looked on fearfully.

“You’re not going to shoot him, I hope?” asked Billie.

“It may not be necessary, Miss.”

“No, no. Don’t do that under any circumstances,” put in Miss Campbell.

Barney gave a humorous, good-natured grin.

“I’ll defend the ladies,” he said.

The suspense of waiting was almost more than they could endure. Miss Campbell proposed that they pile all the suitcases one on top of the other and take their stand behind them, like an improvised fort.

Billie suggested that they lay them across the road so that the car would be obliged to stop. As for Barney, he leapt on his Texas horse and took his stand like a sentinel in the middle of the road, pistol cocked.

But the Comet appeared before the girls could do anything. They saw it a long way off like a red speck on the road and as it came nearer, their wonder grew in proportion. On the chauffeur’s seat sat Peter Van Vechten.

CHAPTER VIII.—CUTTING THE BONDS.

But it was too late. There was the report of a pistol and the sound of the motor ceased almost instantly.

Rushing down the road, Billie in the lead, they found the car at a standstill, Peter Van Vechten lying out on the ground with Barney leaning over him.

“You’ve killed him,” cried Miss Campbell.

“No, no, ma’am. It was the tire I punctured, and not the thief. He fainted of his own accord.”

“But there is something the matter. He is injured,” exclaimed Mary. “Look at the bruise on his forehead.”

“Poor boy! Poor Peter,” said Miss Campbell, and immediately they all set to work to restore the aviator.

“Better take him back to the camp, ma’am,” suggested Barney, “and if you’ve got a bit of rope handy, we can bind him before he comes to.”

“Bind him?” they repeated.

“Why certainly, ladies, didn’t he rob you of your car? Automobile thieves in this country ain’t tolerated any more than horse thieves.”

It was difficult to keep reminding themselves that this nice young man was a thief. But visions of Miss Helen’s fifty dollars persisted in floating before them, and it occurred to them furthermore that he might be one of the most daring criminals in the country, since he had made good his escape from Chicago in an aeroplane.

“Lift him in the car, then,” ordered Miss Campbell in a resigned tone of voice. “But it’s hard to believe.”

“Caught with the goods, ma’am,” the cowboy assured her. “Caught red-handed with the goods on him.”

They took him back to the encampment in the maimed Comet, Barney following on his horse, and presently they had him securely bound, feet and hands, with stout pieces of cord.

“It seems a shame to bring the poor fellow back to life as a prisoner,” observed Miss Campbell, as she applied her bottle of smelling salts to Peter’s nose.

All this time Billie had remained silent. She was not so forgiving of Peter’s sins as the others. In fact, she marveled at their moderation.

“I’m sure I don’t see why he should go scot free any more than any other thief,” she said. “This is the second time he has robbed us, first of fifty dollars and then of the Comet——”

Barney McGee looked up at this and Peter himself opened his eyes and regarded them all steadily with what Mary described to herself as “a long brown look.”

“You’re caught, you see, young feller,” said Barney, smiling amiably. “You shouldn’t have doubled on your tracks. Sometimes that trick works, but not in this country of wise men.”

Peter looked into the lean brown face of the cowboy and smiled so delightfully, that immediately his captors felt the magnetism of his glance and stirred uncomfortably.

“What do you take me for, a thief?” he asked.

“What else are you, young man?” asked Barney. “Didn’t you steal upon five helpless and unprotected ladies in the night and take their automobile. And this ain’t the first time you’ve robbed them, either.”

Peter made a sudden effort to rise and fell back helplessly, finding himself bound hand and foot.

Then a look of recognition came into his eyes.

“It’s Miss Campbell and the young ladies,” he exclaimed. “So it was your automobile. I had no time to examine it, but I remembered the color was red.”

“If you are feeling quite yourself, now, young feller,” interrupted Barney, “I think we’ll be taking you along to the next village where we can leave you to be dealt with according to the law in these parts.”

“I suppose you won’t believe me, Miss Campbell,” began Peter in a rather weak voice, “but I give you my word of honor I’m not a thief. The real thief has my own car.”

“But who is the real thief?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him. I was sound asleep when some one gave me a stunning blow on the forehead. I don’t know whether I was unconscious hours or minutes. It seemed only minutes, only an instant, really when I was able to crawl out of my blankets and start up this red motor car. My one idea was to catch the thief, but the car was in bad shape, that was why he took mine, I suppose, and my head was so dizzy I hardly knew what I was doing.”

“That’s a queer tale, young man,” said the cowboy. “The only thing you’ve got to prove it’s true is the lump on your forehead.”

But Peter felt too ill to argue the subject. Miss Campbell was moved with pity by his condition.

“You are almost a boy,” she said. “I want to be charitable, but I do think you should be punished for having caused so much uneasiness of mind. Will you give me your word to reform——?”

“No,” interrupted Peter fiercely; “no, I’ll not give my word to you or anyone else. It’s absurd.”

“Do you think we don’t know who you are?” here put in Billie, whose anger had flamed up at the sight of his defiance and the memory of her beloved Comet snatched away in the night. “Do you think we haven’t heard how you escaped from Chicago with the police at your very heels? We might have thought there was some mistake even then, if Cousin Helen’s pocket book hadn’t disappeared along with you after we had taken you into the automobile. Fifty dollars it had in it. And now you come in the night and steal the Comet, and when you are caught you lay the blame on another man’s shoulders.”

Peter Van Vechten looked calmly into the faces of his accusers. Then suddenly he began to laugh.

“I have had bad luck this trip,” he said. He appeared to be talking to himself. “Nothing but disasters all the way.” He lay back and closed his eyes.

“There’s a cold blooded criminal for you,” said Barney McGee. “He’s the kind the East produces and sends out West to be finished off. A pretty finishing school you’ll find here, too, me boy.”

Peter laughed again.

Just then a drove of cattle passed, and at intervals vehicles and motor cars followed; also men on horseback and some walking.

“This is County Court Day,” observed Barney. “They’re all goin’ to the next town. Shall we turn the thief over to some of them or take him ourselves? One of you ladies will have to appear against him later.”

Miss Campbell looked uncomfortable.

“Dear, dear,” she exclaimed. “That means we shall have to go to court and give testimony and all that sort of thing. It may delay us ever so long.”

“No it won’t,” called the implacable Billie, who was now hard at work repairing the Comet. “We can just turn him over as an escaped convict.”

Peter looked at her with an expression of weary amusement, but said nothing. She did not trust herself to return his glance just then, but after that, every time she caught the cool brown look of his eye, like two clear pools in a forest, she felt a strange disturbance.

Miss Helen Campbell was of two minds and both minds were aggrieved. Nancy was all on Billie’s side. Elinor was still undecided. She was trying to be perfectly just, but it did seem to her that Peter Van Vechten, as he called himself, was in a very unfortunate predicament.

As for little Mary, her eyes had become two wells of pity and she was afraid to speak lest she betray her sympathy for the young man.

All morning Billie and Mary worked over the Comet. The thief, whether Peter or another, had repaired the machine enough for it to run with a good deal of rattling and rumbling, but the girls were not satisfied and they worked as hard over it as two young mechanics. The company lunched early from the contents of the hamper, and the prisoner’s hands were unbound in order that he might feed himself. Then he was bound again.

At noon the sun’s rays were exceedingly warm. Miss Campbell, with Nancy and Elinor, withdrew under a distant tree, with steamer rugs, and soon were sleeping soundly.

“How long before you’ve finished, Miss?” asked Barney of Billie. He had been their faithful guard all morning.

“In half an hour at the very least,” she had replied, and leaping on his small, swift horse, he cantered away, calling out:

“I’ll be back against the time you’ve finished.”

Billie was out under the car, absorbed in her work. The whole world seemed to be asleep in the stillness of noon. Mary looked about her fearfully. Then, with sudden resolution, she took a little silver penknife from her pocket and tiptoeing over to where the prisoner lay, bound and shackled, she quickly cut the twine.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispered to the astonished youth. “I don’t believe a word about your being a thief, and some day they will find out that they were mistaken, too. Once I was accused like that, and I know how you must feel. Hurry up, now, and go to the East, because Barney is riding the other way. Perhaps a wagon will pick you up.”

Peter Van Vechten seized her hand warmly in his.

“You’re a little brick,” he whispered.

“Take the cords with you,” she answered. “Then they won’t know.”

Another moment and he had made off down the road, and Mary went quietly back to her work.

CHAPTER IX.—THE GIRL FROM THE GOLDEN WEST.

The room they were in was low-ceiled with wooden walls and bare board floors. At one side was a large yellow oak sideboard where stood rows of glass tumblers in which folded fringed napkins with red borders had been stuck, like so many bouquets. The table was filled with guests and two shabby looking young waitresses handed the dishes with a kind of careless abandon which seemed to be in keeping with the place.

Many of the people were to take the stage next morning to a ranch which was conducted as a sanitarium. There were several trained nurses who had brought their patients along, and Billie turned her eyes away from one young man whose pale face and sunken chest made her ashamed of her own glowing health and sunburned cheeks.

Not even in Europe had Billie seen such an interesting and varied collection of people in one dining room as she now saw in this remote and obscure little western inn. There was a group of young Englishmen who had bought a great cattle ranch and were on their way to inspect it. There was a party of men traveling West by motor car. Two of them were famous millionaires, she heard it whispered. But most interesting of all, and the one on whom the Motor Maids cast many covert and curious glances, was a beautiful young woman who seemed to be traveling alone.

It so happened that she was placed next to Miss Campbell, who had gathered her charges under her wing at one end of the table, as an anxious little hen gathers her chicks, but by leaning over, they were able to see the strange girl’s lovely face; her hazel eyes and red gold hair half hidden under a broad brimmed riding hat. She wore a khaki riding suit with divided skirts, and knotted about her neck was a beautiful burnt orange silk scarf that seemed to tone in with the yellow of her eyes and hair.

They wondered where her party was. Evidently she did not belong to any one at the table for she spoke to no person and scarcely lifted her eyes from her plate.

“Perhaps her mother is ill and she has had to come down alone,” thought Elinor, who had conventional ideas rooted so deeply in her soul that nothing could stir them.

“May I ask you for the butter?” Miss Campbell had said in her most polite and perfect manner, and that had started the conversational ball a-rolling.

“With pleasure,” answered the strange girl promptly, “although I am afraid you’ll be disappointed with the bread. It’s quite soggy.”

“Perhaps you will allow me to offer you some of our zwieback,” put in Miss Campbell, stretching forth her hand for the box. “We have it sent to us from time to time, because we simply cannot eat the bread out here.”

“You are traveling West?” asked the girl.

Then Miss Campbell, always ready and willing to make friends, explained and introduced the Motor Maids.

There was something extremely appealing about the beautiful face of the stranger, and when presently she saw that she was attracting the notice of other people at the table, she blushed and pulled her hat well down over her face, and drew nearer to Miss Campbell’s side. The girls liked her from the first. Then there was the mystery about her which added to her charm—the mystery of whom she was and where she was going. She had asked questions, but had volunteered nothing about herself.

After dinner they strolled into the hall of the hotel, which served as a sort of lobby, where they hoped to find letters awaiting them from the evening mail. The girl followed them timidly.

“I hope I’m not in the way or presuming too much,” she said to Miss Campbell, as they proceeded into the hotel parlor to wait for the mail stage.

“Not at all, my dear,” answered the kind soul. “If it is any pleasure to you, I’m sure it is a great pleasure to us. Are you alone?”

“Yes,” hesitated the girl.

“You are taking a riding trip?” Miss Campbell looked at the riding suit.

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think it just a little bit of a risk, my dear?”

“It’s not a pleasure trip. I—I’m looking for a place to live.”

“Oh, then you have no people?”

The girl hung her head. The Motor Maids were quite breathless with interest.

“My dear child,” continued Miss Campbell, kindly, taking the young girl’s hand, “it’s none of my business, but I am an old woman, and I feel I must give advice to a beautiful young girl. Let me beg of you to think a long time before you do anything rash. Girls leave home thinking life will be easy and it so often turns out to be very, very hard.”

“But I’ve been very unhappy,” whispered the girl choking. “You can’t understand—you can’t know——”

Two tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, the sight of which was beyond the endurance of the Motor Maids. They gathered around her in a solicitous little group. They took her hands and pressed against her and patted her on the shoulder. And Miss Campbell kept saying:

“There, there, my dear, you mustn’t cry. I am afraid I hurt you.”

While the girl was choking back her tears and at the same time endeavoring to tell them in a broken voice that things at home had been unbearable, Billie and Elinor, who were facing the entrance, saw a very tall, black figure darken the doorway. Only for a moment he stood there, a great square shouldered, ungainly man who gave the impression of having been carved out of a block of wood, from the straight folds of his black Prince Albert coat to his square cut iron gray beard, which had once been black. The only live thing about him appeared to be his fiery dark eyes, which now took them all in with one sweeping, comprehensive glance.

The two girls almost shuddered and felt a certain relief when he promptly withdrew from the door.

“Won’t you come to our rooms and tell us all about it, dear?” Miss Campbell was saying. “Perhaps we can help you and at least I can take you under my protection while we are here.”

“You are under arrest, Miss. Don’t make no noise and I won’t make none,” said a sharp shrill whispering voice behind them, and a long skinny hand was thrust into their midst, grasping the runaway by her arm.

“Let me go! How dare you?” she exclaimed, a flood of color rushing into her cheeks.

“Now, don’t make no scene,” said a shabby, unkempt looking individual. “You know who wants you as well as I do. He’s there in the hall, and you know mighty well he’s not goin’ to let you go this time.”

“Oh, save me! save me!” whispered the girl, hiding her face on Miss Campbell’s shoulder.

The little lady drew herself up to her full height of five feet two inches and glared at the man.

“This young lady has placed herself under my protection, sir, and I refuse to have her annoyed. Will you please leave the room?”

The man was so overcome by Miss Campbell’s grand air that he fell back a step in astonishment.

“Lady,” he said, after a pause, “you won’t make nothin’ by interferin’ in this here case. This young lady stole a horse out of her father’s stable and run away from home, an’ if you don’t believe it, you can ask him——”

“It was my own horse,” said the girl stamping her foot.

“Evelyn!” the voice which spoke was so deep and resonant it might have come up from some subterranean cavern. It made them all start, and when the name was repeated again, Miss Campbell fairly shivered at the sound.

“Evelyn!”

“Yes, father,” answered the girl faintly.

“Come at once.”

White as a sheet, with her hands clasped together as if to give herself courage, Evelyn turned to the great wooden tower of a man.

“I don’t want to, father. I prefer to stay here with—with my friends.”

The man took out a gold watch as big as a turnip and looked at it.

“I will give you three minutes to obey,” he said.

The girls had a feeling Evelyn was going to her doom, and this was her last farewell. She threw her arms around Miss Campbell’s neck and kissed her; then she kissed each of the Motor Maids. She might have been a devoted daughter and loving sister saying good-by for a long time.