The two girls kissed warmly.

Mr. Stone accompanied Billie around the corridor to her room.

“Good-night,” she said, and held out her hand.

He took it in his enormous hand, and, looking down at her with a quizzical expression, he said:

“You are a friend of Daniel Moore?”

Billie’s heart almost stopped beating, but she returned his look steadily.

“Yes,” she replied, quickly withdrawing her hand. Then she hurried in and locked the door behind her.

CHAPTER XIX.—A DAY OF SURPRISES.

“I think a bath in the lake will do us all good,” said Billie. “You can’t sink, you know, Cousin Helen. All you have to do is to lift your feet and you float about like a little chip.”

“First to the Temple; then to see Brigham Young’s houses, and then to the lake,” said Mary, studying the guide-book.

“And then back to the hotel for a good night’s rest on a perfectly delightful bed,” added Miss Campbell, who had enjoyed her night’s sleep exceedingly.

After breakfast, they inquired at the desk for a message from Daniel Moore, but he had left none and was not in his room.

As the five ladies left the hotel, half an hour later, a messenger boy passed them on the run.

“A rush message for Miss Helen Campbell,” he said breathlessly to the clerk.

“She’s gone out,” said the young man, looking up the number of her room and examining her letter box with official deliberation. “Her key’s on the hook.”

And at that moment, Miss Campbell, with a swish of her silk skirts and a flutter of blue chiffon veils, had turned the corner and was out of sight. If she had lingered three minutes longer over the breakfast table; or if the messenger boy had hurried his steps still more, or the clerk had watched more carefully the comings and goings of the guests of the hotel, the tide of this story would certainly have been changed.

As it happened, the Motor Maids and Miss Helen Campbell did not return to the hotel until late that evening, and all that time this important letter was waiting for them.

“On to the Temple!” cried Billie, engaging a little boy to guide them to that enormous structure.

“I don’t like it at all,” announced Nancy, as they approached the Mormon church. “It’s stern and hard and ugly, and I am sure that Mr. John James Stone is just a chip of granite out of one of the sides.”

“He does bear rather a strong family resemblance,” said Miss Campbell, gazing rather fearfully at the great structure.

But opinions differed about the Temple.

“I think it’s very fine,” said Billie, “if only for its bigness.”

“I like it as long as I don’t think of it as a church,” observed Elinor. “I’m sure I couldn’t say my prayers in it, without feeling that God was a cruel king who would punish me severely for my sins.”

“Well, that is what they believe, isn’t it?” asked Mary.

“The only thing I know about their belief,” observed Miss Campbell, with a top-lofty air, “is that they frown on old maids.”

“They would never frown on you, dearest cousin, if they saw you first,” laughed Billie.

The doors to the Temple were closed to visitors that morning, but their little guide led them behind the structure, where stood the Tabernacle, a peculiar building, resembling a monster egg. Here was the great organ, which Elinor desired particularly to hear, and, by a lucky chance, when they entered the auditorium, the place was filled with music. Miss Campbell, with Elinor and Mary, seated herself in one of the pews to listen, while Billie and Nancy wandered up a side aisle, looking very much like two pigmies under the vast dome of the roof. Presently they also sat down and composed themselves to listen to the strains of the wedding march, the first notes of which had been sounded on the organ.

Some one touched Billie on the shoulder.

It was Evelyn Stone.

“Just for a moment, so that I can talk to you. No one will see us; there.”

Unnoticed by the others, the three girls tip-toed down the aisle to the entrance, where they hid themselves in a recess in the wall.

“I’ve been over to the annex with father and the florist,” she said. “I am to be married there to-morrow, you know—at least, I suppose I am.” The annex was another chapel connected with the Temple.

“Poor Daniel Moore,” ejaculated Billie. “We are awfully sorry for him. We think he’s one of the nicest men we ever knew.”

“Do you?” exclaimed Evelyn, clasping Billie’s arm and smiling into her face, as if she herself had been paid a high compliment.

“Indeed we do,” cried Nancy.

“Oh, dear; oh, dear,” exclaimed the girl, beating her hands together. “It would be a great scandal if I ran away on my wedding day. But I am so unhappy. Oh, so unhappy, and I do want to see Daniel so much. Why, if he wasn’t married, didn’t he ever come near me?” she added, stamping her foot angrily.

“He tried and tried, and wrote letters, and everything—but he couldn’t get near you. Your father——”

“Oh, yes, father, of course,” said Evelyn, pressing her lips together and frowning. “It’s not only that Ebenezer is a Mormon. It’s other things—money, I think. Father is involved, I’m certain of it, and Ebenezer is rich—very rich.”

“You needn’t run away with Daniel to-morrow,” put in Billie irrelevantly. “You can run away with—with the Comet, our motor car——”

“Hush,” interrupted Evelyn. “I’ll send you a note to-night. There they come now. Good-by, you dear, kind friends. I feel as if I had known you always.”

The two girls hurried back into the Tabernacle and a little later emerged from another door and were conducted by their small guide to the homes of Brigham Young. And very fine houses they were, “The Beehive” especially, with its quaint dormer windows and sloping roof. But somehow, our five spinsters were not deeply interested in these historic homes, and after wandering around the city for another hour, they boarded a small train headed for Salt Lake.

“When people are traveling, they will do anything,” complained Miss Campbell, as she tucked a small black bathing suit under one arm and disappeared in the bath house. “They will wear hired bathing suits, a thing I never expected to stoop to——” her voice continued from the interior of her compartment.

“And sleep on the ground,” called Elinor from across the passage.

“And eat with robbers,” began Nancy, when Mary stopped her.

“Hush, Nancy,” she said. “How do you know there are not people listening to you?”

A few moments later they strolled out to the pier in their hired bathing suits. A woman attendant looked at them closely and then disappeared into a telephone booth.

Some morbid people with bad digestions have premonitions of approaching trouble, but our four happy young girls and Miss Campbell, youngest and happiest of them all in her heart, had no inkling, on that glorious day, of disasters to come. They sat silently in a row on the beach and gazed enchanted at the wonderful scene. There was not a ripple in the inland sea which stretched before them like a sheet of green glass. In its bosom were reflected the encircling mountains, mysterious and mystical. They, too, were like mountains of glass, in many pale colors, pinks, blues, delicate greens and lavenders.

“It’s like a dream picture,” said Mary softly. “I can hardly believe it’s true. No wonder it’s called ‘the dead sea.’ It’s so silent and still.”

“Nothing lives in it, you know,” said Billie. “No fish of any kind. It’s salty beyond words to tell.”

Hundreds of people were scattered about on the beach, but their voices and laughter sounded muffled and far away. It was all very strange to the travelers who seemed to have fallen under the spell of the enchanted lake on whose waters they presently floated in a dreamy state, as if a magician’s wand had changed them into so many human boats.

They sat on the sands for a long time after their bath, chatting in low voices. Then, after another dip, they dressed and lunched in the restaurant of the splendid bathing pavilion, one of the finest structures of its kind in the world. Again they sat on the beach watching the opalescent mountains. They felt intensely drowsy in the warm, dry air, and by and by sleep descended on them, and they lay like so many enchanted victims by the still waters of that mysterious lake.

At last the sun set in a blaze of red and gold, wonderful to behold, and the five sleepers sat up and rubbed their eyes.

“Dear children, it’s been a remarkable experience,” announced Miss Campbell; but whether she referred to the nap or the bath or the entire splendid day she did not explain.

It was seven o’clock when they reached the hotel in a blissful state of irresponsibility, like human beings who had wandered unexpectedly into fairy land.

There would be lots to tell Daniel Moore that night at dinner, they were thinking. And perhaps he would have news for them.

All this time Billie and Nancy had carefully kept secret the meeting with Evelyn Stone.

Letters awaited them at the hotel, and last of all, Miss Campbell opened a note from Daniel Moore, so certain was she that they would see him in ten minutes in the dining room. Suddenly, without warning, she burst into the next room where the four girls were engaged in a quartette of buttoning up.

“Oh, my dears, my dears, something dreadful has happened,” she cried. “Mr. Moore has been arrested and put in jail for receiving stolen goods from the train robbers. He expects to get bail, he says, very soon, but he advises us to leave this town at once. It’s that dreadful Stone man who has done it. Poor Mr. Moore says—‘I look for trouble for you and dread your being involved in anything disagreeable. Don’t lose a moment in leaving Salt Lake City. They have no case against me, of course, but I am afraid the old villain will keep me here until after Evelyn’s marriage. He’s a very powerful man in this town. I beg of you not to make any efforts to see Evelyn. He is capable of most anything, I think, and it is too late to stop the wedding now.’ Now, wasn’t I right not to let you deliver that note, Billie, dear?” she added triumphantly. “I tell you it is most dangerous interfering with other people’s affairs.”

Billie smiled faintly and exchanged a frightened look with Nancy.

“We had better leave town to-morrow morning,” she said. “We can’t leave to-night. The Comet isn’t quite ready.”

“Leave town, indeed!” exclaimed Miss Campbell. “We have nothing on our consciences. We shall stay as long as we choose. This is a free country, and I am not in the least afraid of that dreadful Mormon. Let us go down to dinner and forget all about him.”

And down she went presently, sweeping into the dining room like a haughty little queen, the Motor Maids following behind her. Elinor held her head high. She was a princess and feared no man, neither Mormon nor Gentile. Mary walked innocently at her side. Her conscience was clear, and she was not afraid to look the whole world in the face. Then came the guilty ones, pale and silent. Oh, heavens! What it is to have a black secret on one’s soul. The food had no taste. The music clashed inharmoniously, and the murmur of the conversation of other diners grated on their nerves.

“Nancy, dear, you have no appetite,” Miss Campbell was saying, when a waiter approached bearing a long, official-looking envelope on a tray.

“Another communication from our poor friend, I suppose,” she observed, breaking the seal and drawing out the letter without noticing the inscription on the envelope which announced that it came straight from the Department of Police, Salt Lake City.

As Miss Campbell read the communication contained within this formidable cover, a deep scarlet flush spread over her face, which gradually faded into a deadly white pallor. She tried to speak, but her lips refused to frame the words.

The girls were very much frightened and several of the waiters drew near with evident curiosity. It was Elinor who had the presence of mind to say:

“Dear Miss Campbell, won’t you take my arm? I am quite through dinner.” And the two walked slowly from the room, taking the mysterious letter with them.

“We had better wait a moment,” whispered Billie to the other girls. “It would be less conspicuous than if we all rushed out at once. People are already looking at us.”

She tried to butter a piece of bread, but her hands trembled and she felt that the color had left her cheeks. Nancy was the picture of misery.

“What is it, girls?” whispered Mary in a frightened voice.

“I don’t know,” answered Billie; “but something dreadful has happened, I feel sure. The letter was from the Chief of Police, I think. I did deliver the note to Evelyn Stone, Mary. I know it was wrong to have disobeyed, but I couldn’t see the harm of giving one person a letter from another person.”

“Oh, Billie!” exclaimed Mary, “there is no telling what that dreadful man will do to us. He may put us in jail, too.”

The notion was too much for their endurance, and with one accord they rose and fled from the room.

They found Elinor sitting on the floor beside Miss Campbell holding her hand. The document was spread out before them, and Miss Campbell was reading it aloud.

“‘You are regarded as suspicious characters,’” she read in a voice that had a tone of shrillness in it the girls had never heard before. “‘As suspicious characters,’” she repeated, hardly able to take in the meaning of the words, “‘and, therefore, as persons undesirable in this city, you are requested to leave the town within twelve hours. If not, you will be compelled to give an account of certain actions not regarded as lawful in the State of Utah. Signed, Chief of Police.’”

The girls were breathless with amazement and horror. Driven out of town like criminals, and all for having shielded a poor, repentant thief who had returned what he had stolen.

Without a word Billie went to the telephone and called up the garage wherein the Comet was temporarily stabled.

“What time does the sun rise?” she asked while she waited for the number.

“At about five o’clock, I think,” answered Mary.

“Have Miss Campbell’s motor car at the hotel to-morrow morning at five o’clock,” she ordered.

Miss Campbell rose. The girls looked at her timidly. They had never seen her angry before.

“I won’t try to talk with you to-night,” she said in a voice that was almost a whisper. “I shall not attempt to speak again until we leave this hateful city far behind us.”

She had hardly left the room when there was a light tap on the other door.

Billie opened it and a chambermaid gave her a note, and quickly departed down the corridor.

This is what the note said:

“I accept your invitation, and will meet you to-morrow at the railroad station in Ogden. Send a line by the chambermaid, who will wait around the corner of the hall, letting me know what time you intend to start. With a heart full of gratitude from one who is most unhappy,

“E. S.”

CHAPTER XX.—THE ELOPEMENT.

The other Motor Maids were likewise troubled in their minds, and sat in uneasy silence. Miss Helen herself finally broke the quiet. First she removed a black veil, a thing she rarely wore, and replaced it with her usual blue one. Her face had resumed its normal happy expression, and the dimple had returned to her left cheek. Salt Lake City lay behind them.

“If I were not afraid of turning to a pillar of salt,” she said, smiling her old, natural smile, “I should like to look back just once on this strange town that turns its visitors from its doors, for I shall never come here again unless I’m brought in irons.”

The girls smiled, somewhat relieved that their beloved chaperone had emerged from the one fit of rage in which they had ever seen her.

“But my heart bleeds for that poor girl,” she continued. “I wish I had the power to help her. Has the child no spirit that she permits herself to be forced into this unhappy marriage?”

“Would you really like to help Evelyn Stone if you had a chance, Cousin Helen?” asked Billie suddenly.

“I only wish I had the chance, dear,” exclaimed the other charitably.

Billie gave the merest blink of a wink to Nancy and increased the Comet’s speed to forty miles an hour.

It was long before seven o’clock, therefore, when they drew up at the Ogden railroad station. Only a few people were about at that early hour, but framed in the doorway of the waiting room stood a slender, girlish figure, dressed in gray, a gray veil wrapped closely around her hat and face.

Billie drew a deep breath.

“Cousin Helen, you’ve got the chance to help Evelyn Stone,” she said, getting over the confusion as quickly as possible. “I asked her the other night to run away with us in the Comet, and she has accepted. Here she is.”

There was not time for the astonished lady to reply; for the girl in gray, seeing the red car, rushed out, carrying her suitcase with her.

In another instant, she and her luggage were installed on the front seat with Nancy and a new Motor Maid was added to the Comet.

“Dear Miss Campbell,” she said leaning back and taking the older woman’s hand, “I can’t tell you how happy I am. You are the kindest, the nicest, the best—” she continued incoherently, her voice choking with emotion. “If I had had anyone else to go to—but I have no one except my father’s sister, and she is not in sympathy with me. I thought of going somewhere by train, but where? The other time when I ran away I had decided to teach school, but it was very difficult to get a position, and when I found you knew Daniel and Billie asked me, I couldn’t resist it. You will forgive me, won’t you?”

Miss Campbell was not proof against the charms of the beautiful girl, and melted at once into her old delightful and agreeable self.

“My dear,” she said, pressing the girl’s hand, “it is a pleasure to add you to our party. I confess I’m afraid of your father, but I trust he has no idea you have run away with us.”

“No, no, he hasn’t. You see I left last night before he came up to his room. He thought I was asleep. I am certain he thinks I’ve gone East, because I bought a ticket to Chicago and took the midnight train. He has no way to know that I left the train at Ogden and he has no legal grounds for stopping me anyway, unless he trumps up something as he did before when I went off with the horse.”

“He’d be quite capable of trumping up anything he could think of,” thought Miss Campbell, but she said nothing and they did not allude to the subject again that day.

Evelyn Stone, free from the thraldom of her father and her unhappy engagement, was like a bird out of a cage. She was so happy that it was impossible to be sad in her presence. Although indirectly she had been the cause of their disgraceful departure from Salt Lake City, they were obliged to admit that she was a great addition to the party in their present strained state of nerves. When she finally unwound the long gray veil and disclosed her lovely face glowing with color, the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell felt that they would be willing to take almost any risk to do her a service.

The whole thing was like a strange dream at any rate. She was a beautiful princess flying from her old ogre of a father through country of surpassing loveliness; for nothing can exceed the beauty of the scenery around Ogden. However, they did not pause until they had left the country of the ogre well behind them and had passed into the state of Nevada. The Comet covered one hundred and five miles that day and they slept that night at a small country hotel well on the other side of the border.

The next morning on the way to breakfast, Evelyn bought a newspaper at the desk.

“I knew I would find something,” she said. “Listen to this: ‘The wedding of Miss Evelyn Stone, only daughter of John James Stone of Salt Lake City, to Ebenezer Stone, bank president and owner of gold mines, has been postponed on account of the serious illness of the young woman. The ceremony was to have taken place to-day at twelve o’clock in the Annex of the Tabernacle. John James Stone has been called East on important business. His daughter is with her aunt at their country place, Granite Hills.’”

“Thank heavens, he’s going East,” observed Miss Campbell, “since we are going West.”

Evelyn continued to search the paper anxiously.

“Poor Danny, I’m afraid there’s no news about him,” she said at last with a sigh.

“At least he’ll be glad to know that the marriage didn’t take place,” suggested Elinor.

Once more Evelyn gave her radiant smile.

“To think that if it hadn’t been for all of you—”

“Chiefly Billie—” put in Nancy.

“Yes, Billie, especially, I should have been this morning the most wretched about-to-be-bride that ever—”

She broke off suddenly and screened her face with the newspaper.

“Father and Ebenezer passed by the door just then,” she whispered. “Oh, what shall I do? I’m so afraid of bringing trouble on you, Miss Campbell. Perhaps I’d better give up. There’s no use trying—” the poor girl began to sob miserably.

Now, there was a decidedly martial strain in the Campbell family which had produced soldiers and fighting men in war and politics for three generations in America and a dozen in Scotland, and two members of that illustrious race at that moment began to hear the pibroch of the clan summoning them to battle. Two of the Campbell children exchanged glances of stern Campbell determination. Two descendants of Sir Roderick Campbell, illustrious scion of a fighting race, bore suddenly a strong resemblance to his unflinching countenance as depicted in an old portrait in Miss Campbell’s dining room.

Miss Campbell rose from the table. There was a dangerous light in her usually gentle eyes and she held her head well up.

“Boom, boom!” sounded the call to battle in her ears. The bagpipes of her ancestors were playing a wild strain. Down through the ages and across thousands of miles of land and water she could hear that martial air:

    “The  Campbells  are  coming,  O-ho!  O-ho!
    The  Campbells  are  coming,  O-ho!  O-ho!”

Then up rose the younger Campbell all booted and kilted for the fray.

“Evelyn,” said the elder Campbell quietly, “are you a girl of any spirit and courage at all?”

“I hope so,” exclaimed the poor girl, shrinking into her chair miserably.

But we must not blame her for her lack of courage. Remember, that she had been brought up by a man who was granite straight through to the heart.

“Well, now is the time to show it then, my child. We shall fight for you, the girls and I, and we will stand by you, but you must make some effort yourself. You cannot be made to marry if you don’t want to, and there is no law that I know of that would require you to return against your will to your father. You are not a child.”

Fortunately that morning the dining room was quite empty, and only a poor waitress saw the two armies lined up for battle. The opposing forces now entered. John James Stone and his relative, Ebenezer, marched quietly into the field, looking very formidable, it must be owned, with their white, expressionless faces and black clothes. General Helen Eustace Campbell and Captain Billie lead the other army, which marched gallantly out to meet them. The battle was a brief one.

“Evelyn, disobedient and wicked girl, how dare you mortify me as you have done?” began John James in a voice of thunder.

Evelyn shook with fear.

“And how dare you,” exclaimed the intrepid Helen, “interrupt me and my guests at breakfast? This young woman, twenty years of age, has placed herself in my care. She declines to marry your relative and there is no law in this country by which you can force her to do so. She also declines your support and protection and there is no law which will force her to accept it if she does not wish. She is not a child.”

“Madam, do you know who I am that you dare to interfere with me and my affairs?” cried the infuriated Mormon.

“I do,” exclaimed Miss Campbell in a high, clear voice, folding her arms. “I know that you are a scoundrel and that you are willing to cheat and lie in order to obtain your ends. I am not afraid of you and I do not consider you of the least importance. Your daughter is at this moment my guest, and I refuse to have her annoyed.”

The tall man and the little woman faced each other while the poor, craven bridegroom that was to have been, shrank back in amazement.

Then the most remarkable transformation took place on the face of Goliath, John James. He dropped his stone mask with a suddenness so abrupt that they almost imagined they heard it break as it fell to the floor. His brow cleared and he flashed a smile that had a faint glimmering of Evelyn’s in the curve of the lips.

“Madam,” he said, holding out his hand, “let us be friends. I admit that I am beaten and that I may say that I am not ashamed to be conquered by a woman of such spirit and courage. I only wish my daughter had as much.”

Miss Helen put her small hand into his. She was too amazed for the moment to realize what she was doing.

“Come, Ebenezer.”

The great man made a low, ceremonious bow and departed from the room.

Then, what did General Helen Eustace Campbell do but have a genuine case of hysterics and require to be supported to her apartment by five highly excited young women!

CHAPTER XXI.—A MEETING IN THE DESERT.

“I don’t think there is any here,” replied Elinor, endeavoring to wash the dust from her face with her handkerchief and some eau de cologne. “This is just as much nowhere as where we came from.”

“Do you know, Elinor,” said Nancy after a pause, in which the two girls looked about them hopelessly, “I believe we are lost. I have been thinking so for the last hour. Billie is afraid to tell us, and so is Mary, but I have suspected it ever since we lost sight of the railroad.”

“And this could hardly be called a road. It’s nothing but a trail through sage brush.”

“It would be a pity to leave our bones to whiten on the desert,” observed Nancy cheerfully.

“I shall make tea,” exclaimed Elinor with sudden inspiration. “If you are lost in the desert on the seventh of July, drink a cup of tea. It will keep your veins from swelling and bring wisdom and comfort.”

By the time Billie and Mary had put on a new tire the tea was ready, and seated on the sand in a circle, the thirsty travelers sipped the delicious beverage. Billie was very quiet and black care sat upon her brow. Mary also was silent. The truth is there was no trail at all. They had lost it a mile back.

Now a trail is a very subtle and illusive thing, once it’s lost, and one’s imagination plays many strange tricks in a desert of sage brush. A dozen times Mary had whispered to Billie: “There’s the trail,” and Billie had replied, “That looks a good deal more like it to the right.” No matter which way they looked they saw the lines which marked the trail. And when they looked again, the lines had shifted into a new direction.

At last Billie rose up and faced the company.

“I have to report to you that we are lost,” she said. “We are completely and utterly lost and have been for two hours. It’s a quarter to five o’clock and we can’t decide whether to turn back Eastward or go on toward the West. I leave it to the company.”

“Go on, go on,” they cried in one voice.

Why go back when there was no more trail behind than there was in front? Back into the Comet they climbed and on they went but progress was slow and the way was heavy. Sage brush impeded them greatly and at six o’clock they appeared to be just as deep in it as ever. They were very low in their minds and very tired. In all the long journey things had never seemed at such a low ebb.

At last Nancy leaned out of the car, for what reason she could not have told, but suddenly there came to her that inexplicable feeling that comes to us all occasionally. She felt she was about to enact a scene which somewhere, somehow she had before. Her eyes swept the deep blueness of the skies unseeingly and then fixed themselves on—what was it—an enormous crane or was it—?

“Billie, Billie,” she cried. “It’s the race. It’s the flying machines—look, there are two, one just behind the other!”

The Comet stopped mechanically in response to the excitement of his mistress, and out they all jumped for a better view. The aeroplanes were coming toward them swift as birds on the wing. The larger one, like a great eagle was well in advance of a smaller one, following as a little bird chases a big one. They were so high up they might really have been taken for birds by one who had never seen a flying machine. Then that thing which had once happened was now re-enacted before their astonished eyes. The small bird advanced no farther, but swiftly and surely began to drop. And as the machine neared the earth back they jumped into the car and hastened to the spot where they had seen it fall. But this time there was no crumpled broken mass of débris. The aeroplane had swooped down neatly and quietly and a young man stood over it working at the machinery with feverish haste.

“It’s Peter Van Vechten,” cried Mary, the first to recognize him.

He looked up astonished to find human beings about in that desert spot, and still more amazed to find his former rescuers.

“We started from San Francisco on July 4,” he explained, “and I was making good progress until this beastly engine broke down. I’ve been keeping right behind all the time, much to his disgust. A train goes with us. You’ll hear it go by presently. What I wanted to do was to fly all night to-night and get over the Rockies ahead of him. My engine broke half an hour ago and I had to come down and fix it and now I see it’s beyond fixing.”

He smiled ruefully as they gathered around him.

“If we could only do something,” exclaimed Billie. “We can never forgive ourselves for having taken you for a thief. I hope you will accept our apologies.”

“Don’t ever let it trouble you any more,” he replied. “I had almost forgotten it really. When one flies very high in the air, one forgets lots of things that happen on the earth beneath.”

He turned again to his machine.

“It’s a beastly break,” he exclaimed, exasperated.

All this time, Nancy’s mind was very busy, trying to recall something. “If only you could remember, you could help him,” an inner voice kept saying to her.

“I know,” she cried suddenly. “I have it,” and she rushed from the circle of sympathizing ladies and began rummaging in an interior compartment of the Comet.

“What is the child doing?” exclaimed Miss Campbell, the only one to notice her remarkable behavior.

And then the strangest thing happened.

“Mr. Van Vechten, will this help you any?” she asked, returning with that small piece of machinery she had kept as a souvenir all those weeks ago, which seemed a century past.

The young man very nearly embraced Nancy in his joy, and, Nancy would not have minded it very much, perhaps, at that agitating moment.

“Oh, wonder of wonders,” he cried. “It’s the very piece I was breaking my heart for a moment ago, and here it is like a gift from heaven.”

“I’ve been saving it for you all this time,” laughed Nancy, and her friends joined in her merriment, for Nancy had really quite forgotten the souvenir until this moment.

They learned from Peter Van Vechten that the road was some two hundred yards away. They had been running parallel to it all this time and furthermore, a few miles on, he had caught glimpses of a village where they might spend the night.

“And where will you get your supper, Mr. Van Vechten?” demanded Miss Campbell.

“I don’t think I’ll get any from present prospects,” he answered. “I keep chocolates in my pocket all the time and a flask of beef tea. One needs lots of food up there,” he added pointing to the skies. “It’s bitter cold.”

“Why can’t we have supper out here?” suggested Billie. “We can get it ready while Mr. Van Vechten mends his machine and it will be so much jollier for everyone than going supperless or eating canned things at the hotel.”

This was a most welcome suggestion and the invitation was eagerly accepted by the young aeroplanist. They brought out all their best stores and prepared a real feast in his honor, with hot coffee and their breakfast fruit as a finishing touch.

The Motor Maids learned many interesting things from the young man. The real thief, who, it was believed, had flown away in one of the flying machines at Chicago, had been caught the very next day on the exhibition grounds and had, as it turned out, no more knowledge of flying than a wingless insect.

Hawkeseye, the Indian halfbreed, had been caught, and was at present doing a term in the penitentiary.

“How do you fly in the right direction at night?” they asked him, and he showed them a little compass lighted with electricity.

“I go due East by this,” he said. “Slightly to the North until after the Rockies, and then straight as an arrow to Chicago. It will be a rough sail over the Rocky Mountains. All those canyons and crevices and valleys are so many suction holes to the aeroplanist. But the air over the prairie country is as smooth as a lake in the summer time.”

There was no lingering over the supper, good as it tasted, and before twilight deepened into misty gray, Peter Van Vechten had said good-by to the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell.

He seated himself in his aeroplane. The motor began whirring busily, and presently the machine rolled on the ground for a brief instant and began rising slowly and easily. He waved his hand and smiled to them as he mounted the air. Then away he flew and in three minutes was a speck in the distance.

Miss Campbell’s eyes filled with tears.

“I do hope and pray he’ll get there safely,” she said.

“He is one of those people who always make one feel lonesome after he goes away,” observed Mary still watching the horizon.

The young aeroplanist was indeed one of those rare persons the charm of whose presence still lingers after he has departed, like the vibrations after a chord of music.

But the adventure was over. He was flying East and their path was due West, and they must be getting on their way before night set in.

CHAPTER XXII.—A BIT OF OLD ITALY.

“The owners of the vineyard are Italians, all of them,” said Evelyn, “and you will certainly feel that you are in Italy when you get there. They are so simple and adorable. And there is a kind of an inn where we can stay. They call it the ‘Hosteria.’ Oh, you will love it, I know.”

The picnic was to begin in the morning. Miss Helen, prepared for an all day trip, was properly surprised when Billie turned the Comet into a little mountain road running between grapevines now heavy with fruit.

Men and women were gathering the grapes in baskets, singing while they worked.

At the top of the mountain was the tiniest little village imaginable, all stucco houses on a dusty street with a church at one end. Next to the church was the inn and standing at the door of the inn was the landlord and owner of the vineyard, Pasquale.

“Buon giorno, Signorina,” he cried. “I giva you the gooda welcome. I have receive the letter of the Signorina. All isa prepared.”

Across the entrance of the hosteria ran a legend printed in red letters on a white background: