The Motor Maids Across the Continent

THE MOTOR MAIDS

ACROSS THE

CONTINENT

KATHERINE STOKES

AUTHOR OF “THE MOTOR MAIDS’ SCHOOL DAYS,” “THE MOTOR MAIDS

BY PALM AND PINE,” ETC.

NEW YORK

HURST & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

The Motor Maids Across The Continent

5CHAPTER I.—WESTWARD HO!

“At my age, too,” began Miss Helen Campbell, leaning back in her seat and folding her hands with an expression of resignation.

“At your age, what, dear cousin?” demanded Wilhelmina Campbell, superintending the strapping on at the back of the car of five extra large suit cases and other paraphernalia for a long trip. “Why should not things happen at your age as well as at ours? But at your age, what?”

“At my age to turn emigrant,” exclaimed the little lady. “At my age to become a gypsy vagabond. Oh, dear, oh, dear! What would grandpapa have said?” 6

“He would have been delighted, I am certain, Cousin Helen,” answered her young relative, “since he was a soldier and a jolly old gentleman, too, papa has always said.”

“But such an up to date gypsy-vagabond-emigrant, Miss Campbell,” pursued Elinor Butler, “one who rides in a motor car and wears a silk traveling coat and a sky-blue chiffon veil.”

“And hotels all along the route to sleep in instead of tents,” finished Mary Price.

“Very true, my dears. I admit all you say; but now at the last moment, when we are about to start on this amazing journey, I cannot help thinking it is a wild adventure. But I shall be over it in a moment, I daresay. Have the machine cranked-up, Billie. Do I use the correct word? and let us be off before my courage fails me altogether.”

With a happy laugh, Billie jumped into her seat behind the wheel. The other girls were already 7 in their accustomed places. One of the attendants from the hotel gave the crank a dexterous twist; there was a throbbing sound of machinery in action, and off shot the Comet like a spirited horse, eager to be on the road.

Miss Campbell’s spirits rose with the sun, for it was still very early when the Motor Maids started on their famous journey across the continent from Chicago to San Francisco. And all the world seemed to be in league to make the start a happy one. It was a glorious morning toward the last of May, the air just frosty enough to make the blood tingle and bring color to the cheeks. Up to the very day before, an icy gale had blown across the windy city of the plains, but through the night it had gradually tempered into a springtime breeze. The red car sped through the sunshine with all the vigor of machinery in perfect order, and the polished plate glass of the wind guard reflected the four happy faces of the Motor Maids off on a lark, which, when all is said and done, and the last page of 8 this volume filled, will have carried them through many an adventure along the way.

Through Chicago they whirled, past fine homes where sleepy maids and butlers were just opening windows and blinds to let in the morning light; through business streets already humming with life, and at last out through the suburbs on a broad level road, due west, they took their course.

Billie knew it all like a book because she had been stopping in Chicago for a week and every day they had taken a spin in the Comet along some fifty miles of the route. Moreover, for a month past, she had been studying maps and guide-books until her mind reflected now only a great bird’s-eye view of the United States through the center of which was drawn a red line; the road the Comet was to take when it bore them to the Pacific Ocean.

There was nothing now, however, in these flat, monotonous wheat fields to promote any particular interest. But there was much to talk about. 9

“Was it only last week that we were four school girls at West Haven High School slaving over examinations?” cried Elinor Butler.

“Only a little week ago,” exclaimed Mary joyfully, “and now, behold us, free as birds on the wing.”

There was a flush of happiness on her usually pale face. It had been a long, hard spring for her, and she was glad after examinations were over, to hurry away with her friends without waiting for the final exercises.

“School! School!” said Nancy Brown, her face dimpling with happiness. “Don’t mention the hateful word. I am as full of mathematics and history and physics and Latin as a black cake is of plums.”

“Plums!” echoed Billie. “I’m stuffed with another variety of fruit. It’s dates.”

They laughed at the word dates; for, remembering dates, aside from mathematics, was the bête noir of Billie’s school days and the teacher 10 of history was very unpopular because she made the pupils of her classes learn six dates a day.

“But the class is even with Miss Hawkes now,” put in Nancy. “She isn’t to come back next year, and we gave her a present besides.”

“Why did you give her a present?” asked Miss Campbell, suddenly becoming curious.

“Well, you see, at the end of school we reckoned we had learned about 800 dates, not that we could remember 100 or even 50. It was Elinor who thought of it and because she has more nerve than any one else in the class——”

“Because she was never afraid even of the terrifying Miss Hawkes, she was chosen to make the speech and give Miss Hawkes a present from the class.”

Miss Campbell smiled. She was never tired of listening to their school-girl talk.

“I said,” replied Elinor, “that, representing the 11 class, I wanted to thank her for the splendid mental training she had given us last winter, and we wished to show our appreciation by giving her a little remembrance.”

“If she hadn’t been so pleased and made that speech of thanks, it wouldn’t have mattered so much,” put in Mary. “But I was ashamed when she untied the ribbons on the box——”

“Dates,” cried Billie, “dozens of dates packed in as tightly as dates can be packed, just as she had been packing them into our brains for nine months.”

“Oh! oh!” exclaimed Miss Campbell, trying to be shocked and laughing in spite of herself. “The poor soul! How embarrassed she must have felt. Was she very angry?”

“We couldn’t tell whether she was angry or hurt,” answered Elinor. “She drew herself up 12 stiffer and straighter than usual if possible, and marched out of the room without a word.”

“And left us feeling very foolish indeed, cousin,” went on Billie. “But that isn’t all. Because I was the one who never could remember a date from one day to the next, I suppose she suspected me of having been the ring-leader and this morning when we stopped at the desk of the hotel for mail, the clerk handed me this letter. It was forwarded from West Haven.”

Billie drew an envelope from the pocket of her motor coat and gave it to the others.

“Read it,” she said. “I didn’t mention it before because I was so much interested in getting away and I had really forgotten it until the subject came up. I suppose Miss Hawkes is just a little queer in her upper story.”

“I understand you are going West in your automobile. If, on your journey, you should by chance hear the name of ‘Hawkes,’ do not treat 13 it as lightly as you did in West Haven. Somewhere in the West that name is powerful.

“Anyhow,” pursued Billie, “I am ashamed of what we did now. I suppose it must have hurt her awfully.”

“Not more than she hurt us when she scolded us for forgetting those awful dates,” said Nancy relentlessly.

“Oh, well,” put in Miss Campbell, “she is just an angry old spinster who got obsessed with dates and then had a rude awakening. I don’t think it was exactly respectful to have given the lady a box of dried dates. But she brought it on herself, as you say. Tear up the letter and forget all about it. I have no doubt she is a perfectly harmless old person.”

“Perhaps she has reference to the powerful family of chicken hawks,” observed Nancy.

“Or the illustrious fish-hawk family, only they are mostly centered around New Haven,” added Mary.

How, indeed? But there was no answer to this strangely pertinent question because of a timely incident which now occurred.

With the picture still in their minds of a great fish hawk skimming through the air, as they had often seen him do at home, there now came a sound of whirring far above them.

“Oh! oh!” she exclaimed in great excitement “Oh, stop—look! What is it?” 15

Billie stopped the car and they jumped out into the road, craning their necks as they scanned the heavens.

Flying westward, but still some distance away, came what resembled at first a gigantic bird with wings outspread, soaring even as the fish hawk soars, as he skims through the air.

They seemed to be alone in the great flat world of green fields. To the right and left of them stretched level fields now cultivated and yielding great crops of corn and wheat. Less than a hundred years ago what would those travelers in lumbering wagons across the prairies have thought if they had seen such a bird flying overhead?

On sailed the flying machine, like a huge dragon fly above them. In the clear atmosphere which is peculiar to this prairie region they could plainly see a human being riding it. Then, the birdman, as if he were not already high enough 16 to see the whole world stretched out beneath him, began slowly to rise in the blue ether like a skylark at dawn. Up, up he went, until he was merely a black speck in the heavens.

“What goes up must come down,” observed Mary in a low voice much too excited to speak naturally.

Immediately fulfilling her prophetic remark, the flying machine sailed back into view. It was some distance beyond them now, but even so far they could hear the clicking noise which was all the more accentuated because no other sound followed. The motor had ceased to whir. They saw the aeroplanist fumble frantically with the machinery, then suddenly, with a twist of its body that was almost swifter than the eye, the flying machine turned its nose earthward and shot straight down. 17

“No, no,” answered Billie excitedly as she hastened to crank the machine. “Get in quickly—everybody! Something must be broken. He may be hurt.”

Another moment they were tearing down the road toward the field where they had seen the flying machine drop.

“There he is,” cried Nancy, already on the step of the Comet as Billie drew up at the side of the road.

Now, unfortunately, a wire fence separated the field from the road to prevent idle wandering people from trampling down the young wheat. It was no easy matter to crawl through the interstices of barbed wire, and Billie, in her haste, tore a great gaping hole in her automobile coat.

But she pulled off the wrap with the recklessness of a young person who has something far more interesting on hand than pongee coats, and 18 flung it in the road where it was rescued by Miss Campbell.

In the middle of the field lay the flying machine, looking very much like an enormous kite at close range. But where was the human being who so lately had been mounting high into the air?

A man’s foot sticking out from the midst of the debris revealed him at last lying huddled up under the machine.

It was no simple matter to untangle him from the ruins, and it took all their strength and courage, too, with that face so white and still turned upward, but, by the grace of Providence, which watches over the lives of some rash beings, the young man was not even hurt. He was only stunned, and presently Miss Campbell, who had managed somehow to crawl through the fence, brought him back to life with her smelling salts.

“If I can only keep from sneezing,” he began, opening his eyes and blinking them in amazement when he beheld the faces of five ladies leaning over 19 him in states of more or less extreme excitement.

The aeroplanist was really almost a boy and rather small. He had reddish brown hair and reddish brown eyes to match. His features were regular. His mouth firm and well modeled, and he had a square, determined-looking jaw.

“Are you better now?” asked Miss Campbell, applying her smelling salts to his nose.

“I’m all right,” he answered, bewildered, and began slowly to pull himself together and get up. He staggered a little as he rose and stood looking ruefully down at the demolished aeroplane. They noticed that he was not dressed like a messenger from Mars, as they had seen aeroplanists attired in pictures. He wore brown clothes and a brown 20 tie the same shade as his hair, and a brown cap with a vizor which had fallen on the ground.

“It is very kind of you ladies to come to my rescue,” he said as his senses returned. “I was getting on famously with the thing when I sneezed. I felt it coming on, but it couldn’t be stopped, and I lost control and shot down like a piece of lead. Aeroplanists will have to stop sneezing until something more reliable in the way of a flying machine is invented.”

“What are you going to do with this?” asked Billie, pointing to the demolished machine.

“Help yourself,” he said, smiling faintly and pressing his hand to his head, which was still buzzing with the shock of the fall.

“You poor boy,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, “come right along and let us take you somewhere. 21 You are suffering of course, and these foolish girls are thinking of souvenirs.”

While the others assisted him across the field, Nancy lingered beside the flying machine and presently selected a piece of the machinery; you would probably be no wiser if I told you what piece it was, and certainly Nancy herself was as ignorant of its purpose as a cat of a sewing machine. She chose it because it was detached from the rest and after she had climbed gingerly through the wire fence she stored it away in an inner chamber of the automobile and promptly forgot all about it.

But long afterward she was to congratulate herself on obeying first impulses, which are usually the safest.

22CHAPTER II.—PETER.

They put the young man on the back seat between Miss Campbell and Elinor, while Mary climbed in front and shared Nancy’s seat beside Chauffeur Billie.

“Where do you want to go?” asked that responsible young woman, waiting to start the car and addressing the aeroplanist over her shoulder.

“If you put me down at any convenient place along the way, I’ll be very much obliged. I’m going all the way to San Francisco.”

“But so are we,” cried the girls in one voice. “We’re going across the continent.”

The young man smiled for the second time, a charming smile which radiated his entire face 23 and seemed to kindle two warm fires in his steady brown eyes.

“Why not?” Elinor was saying, somewhat on her mettle, when a motor cycle shot past them, stopped abruptly and a man jumped off and waited beside the road, signalling to them to stop the car.

“Pardon me, but may I ask if you saw an aeroplane fly past a little while ago?”

Before Billie, generally the spokesman, could reply, the young stranger broke in:

“Ah? Then it didn’t fall. I thought I saw it drop. It looked very much as if he had lost control, but I was too far away to tell.”

The man waited, but the four girls and Miss Campbell remained discreetly silent, and the wrecked aeroplanist leaned out and looked up skyward, as if he were searching the heavens for the lost airship.

“Although aeroplanes are not very apt to fly 24 about in great numbers,” went on the man sarcastically, “I see you are not very observant when they are about. I bid you good-day,” and touching his cap with his hand like a salute, he leaped on his motor cycle and sped down the road in a cloud of dust.

“Dear me,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, “what a crusty individual! But why not have told him?”

“Because he happens to be my rival,” answered the young man. “You see, a prize has been offered for the one who flies across the continent from San Francisco to Chicago in the shortest time. Most of the aeroplanists think the prize is too small for the risk, and so far only a few have entered. This fellow, Duval, doesn’t want any rivals, and he has done everything he could to disqualify me for the race. He didn’t recognize me, because he’s only seen me in leather clothes with goggles and a cap on. You see, I decided at the last moment this morning to fly westward as far as I could. I suppose I am a 25 good deal like the Irishman who was challenged to drink a pail of beer, and went into another room and drank one first to see if he could.”

“I have two. The other one was shipped to San Francisco. Duval has a great many reasons for keeping an eye on me. He wants to find out what kind of machine I’m going to use. I have kept that a profound secret, and he wants to know how good I am at flying. You see, no one has ever heard of me. I have never been to any public meets. I have only practised—at—at our place.”

“But,” interrupted Miss Campbell, “do you think you will be able to do this tremendous thing? Remember what you must cross? Not only the Rocky Mountains but the desert.”

“It’s just as easy to fly over a desert as over a prairie,” answered the young man. “Not long ago a man flew from Italy over the Alps. If I hadn’t sneezed this morning, I might have been 26 sailing across the Illinois boundary this afternoon and been well on my way into Iowa.”

Miss Campbell and the girls regarded him curiously. He appeared exceedingly self-confident and very sensible, but that sneezing business seemed a little thin.

“Do you mean to say,” cried Billie incredulously, “that you expect to fly across the country without sneezing.”

“I hope so,” he replied. “It’s a dangerous thing to sneeze in any flying machine, although the one I intend to use is of much finer make than that thing which just broke down.”

It was now getting on toward noon. The crisp morning air had sharpened their appetites and it was agreed to stop at the next village for lunch. 27 In half an hour they had whirled into the main street of a prosperous-looking middle-west town.

The motor guide book directed them to Snyder’s and they presently pulled up in front of a large frame building painted white with green shutters. On the front piazza sat a number of men in armchairs, their feet on the railing, smoking and reading the morning papers.

“I am deeply obliged to you for your kindness. My name is Peter Van Vechten. May I have the honor of asking your names?”

There was quite an old-world courtesy about this Peter Van Vechten that appealed to the little lady, and she promptly introduced her girls and herself.

Just at this moment a small racing car could be seen coming toward them at a terrific speed. People and vehicles scattered at its approach, but just before it reached the Comet it 28 stopped short and a man jumped out and ran to them.

“All right, Jackson,” said Peter Van Vechten. “I suppose you got wind that the aeroplane was wrecked and had a fright.”

“I did, sir, indeed. But a farmer had watched through his glasses and he saw you get into a motor. Thank heavens, you’re safe, sir.”

“Through the kindness of these ladies,” said Peter. “Is the luggage all here?”

“Then, with your permission, Miss Campbell, I will say good-by. Thank you again. Perhaps we may meet on the plains.”

“Good-by and good luck to you,” they cried, as the departing aeroplanist leaped into the motor car beside the chauffeur, and in another moment they were out of sight.

For awhile things seemed rather dull to Miss Campbell and the Motor Maids, such a romantic 29 halo encircles the head of him who flies through the air, and this ingratiating Peter Van Vechten, with his reddish hair and his keen brown eyes, also his polished manners, left a very deep impression on them all.

The luncheon was poor. It was early dinner, really, with cabbage and boiled mutton and very stiff-looking mashed potatoes, watery canned peas and leathery pie for dessert. They were glad to get back to the Comet again and glad to be on the road.

Already they seemed to have been traveling an endless time. But the first day of a long journey always affects people in this way. For some inexplicable reason they were a little homesick. The monotony of this level country oppressed them, endless green fields, which had once been vast prairie lands, covered with waving grass and a multitude of wild flowers.

Late that afternoon, when they stopped for gasoline at a garage in a thriving little village, a group of men stood about the door talking. 30

“Yes, sir; I seen the paper myself at the hotel. He was a first-class crook, and he left Chicago this morning early in one of the flying machines at the park, where they have been giving exhibitions. They telegraphed it all over the country when it was found out. I reckon he’s the smartest crook in the world. The paper says ‘he eluded his captors just as they were about to apprehend him; dashed through the hotel door and jumped in a taxi. At the park he showed a forged letter signed Peter Van Vechten, one of the aeroplanists, permitting him the use of one of the aeroplanes for practice before the exhibition, and in five minutes he was gone like a bird on the wing. It was only a little while later that the guardians at the parks found out their mistake. Whether he is still flying over the country or has lighted in some safe place, no one knows. So far there is no trace of him whatever.’” 31

Strange were the sensations of the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell as they listened to this remarkable tale.

The tank was filled, and Billie, after asking for the right road, started the machine. It was a silent and rather sad company.

They had traveled more than a hundred miles that day because it had been their object to leave the Middle West behind them as soon as possible, for the more romantic regions beyond.

This somewhat relieved their feelings, and when they reached the town where they had planned to spend the night they were talking cheerfully.

While they were freshening up for supper half an hour later, Miss Campbell felt in her black silk reticule for her purse, Billie having paid all bills 32 that day with the ready change with which she had provided herself.

“What, Cousin Helen,” cried Billie, frightened at the expressions of doubt and agitation which chased themselves across her relative’s face.

“My purse, child! My silver-mounted Morocco purse. I thought I had it in my reticule, but where is it?”

They emptied the reticule. They looked in their own handbags and even went to the garage and searched the Comet. But Miss Campbell’s purse containing fifty dollars was gone.

“At any rate, Billie,” whispered Nancy that night when they had stretched themselves wearily on the hardish bed in the hotel, “at any rate, he had the nicest, kindest brown eyes I ever saw.”

33CHAPTER III.—IN SEARCH OF A DINNER.

“This is assuredly a land of peace and plenty,” observed Miss Campbell, somewhat sleepily, as she leaned back in the seat and half closed her eyes.

“Meaning ‘too much of a muchness,’ Cousin Helen,” teased Billie. “Are you beginning to yearn already for something to happen?”

“My dear, how can you suggest such things?” cried her relative opening her blue eyes wide in an innocent protest of such an accusation. “An aged spinster like me craving excitement! What an idea!”

“But Iowa is not thrilling,” admitted Elinor. “These endless cornfields are like a sea without ship and what could be duller than a sail-less ocean?”

The truth is our five tourists still felt the inevitable homesickness which rarely fails to come during the first few days of a long journey before one is settled into the groove of traveling. The hard beds and uninteresting food of the small hotels of the Middle West had not helped to dispel their vision of West Haven seated on its bluff looking out across the bay. Its hilly streets and comfortable old houses mellowing each year into a softer, deeper gray came back to them now with a pang. Nancy yearned infinitely to be sitting at that moment before the driftwood fire in their sitting room while her father smoked an old black pipe and blinked at the crackling flames and her mother hummed softly to herself over her mending basket. Even Americus, her teasing brother, would have gladdened her eyes just then.

Mary was thinking of her pretty mother standing at the door of the Tea Cup Inn in a trim gray 35 chambray dress with its white muslin fichu. Elinor was too proud to admit even in the secret chambers of her mind the voice from home which kept calling to her across the spaces. As for Miss Helen Campbell she could not efface from her mind a dainty little vignette of herself seated at her own breakfast table; on her head was her favorite lace breakfast cap trimmed with knots of blue ribbon and separating her from her beloved Billie across the table was the steaming silver coffee urn. This enticing picture persisted in passing before her mental vision, perhaps because breakfast that morning had been unspeakable.

Billie also was silent. She was trying to explain to herself why this wave of homesickness had come over them. Was it the flatness and monotony of highly cultivated farm lands which they ought to admire and be proud of seeing since this vast territory had once been the home of the buffalo and the prairie dog?

“I know what’s the matter with us,” she cried 36 suddenly, breaking the long silence which had fallen on the company.

“There’s nothing in the world the matter with me, child,” interrupted Miss Campbell guiltily.

“I’m sure there is, dearest cousin. You know you can’t hide anything from your most intimate relative. We are all of us in the dumps and have been for more than a day. We are desperately homesick! Aren’t we now, as man to man?”

“On this the third day of our voyage, while we are still in shallow water, as papa would say, there is not one of us who would not be glad to turn back again to the next railroad station, ship the Comet home by freight and take the first train to West Haven. Isn’t it the truth?”

“Think of what we’ve got before us. Think 37 of the splendid great West—think of the broad plains——”

“Yes, plains,” went on Billie, summoning all the eloquence she could command, “not like this, but marvelous great stretches of country filled with beautiful color; think of the ranches we wanted so much to see——”

“Yes, and the Indians, and the forests and—and the Rocky Mountains, and last of all, California!”

“Don’t you think it will be thrilling, exciting, 38 wonderful to have the Comet take us across all of this interesting country?”

“It would, dearest Billie, I am sure it would appear to me in all its true glory if I wasn’t so—so very hungry.”

Hungry! Here was a solution of this great depression. They were all of them famished with hunger. Not a decent meal had they eaten for two days. It was hunger gnawing at their vitals that had plunged them into the very depths of homesickness.

In the automobile was a complete outfit for cooking, a little alcohol stove and various dainty little utensils made of aluminum, all a rather costly present from their old friend, Mr. Ignatius Donahue, which he had sent, on being informed of the great journey of the Motor Maids across the continent.

“Have a piece of chocolate and a graham 39 cracker, Miss Campbell?” Mary was asking in a tone of sympathy.

“Heavens, no, child,” replied the little lady as near to being cross as she had ever been in her life. “Don’t offer me such rubbish, as a substitute for good beefsteak and coffee that’s really coffee?”

“Let’s set up housekeeping,” cried Billie, “and start in ten minutes by stopping at the next farm house for supplies!”

“Why not?” echoed her disciple, Nancy. “We’ve got the alcohol stove with two burners and Elinor’s tea basket and some china besides.”

“That’s a very sensible idea,” said Miss Campbell, her spirits rising at the suggestion. “I feel, if I could get something tasteful to eat, I might be able to support existence across the plains and the mountains and through the forests, but just at present, I—well, I assure you, I am quite empty.”

“We have some things, remember,” put in 40 Mary. “Mr. Donahue’s box had bacon in it and lots of jam and potted cheese——”

Billie turned the Comet in at a patent gate which could be operated from the vehicle. Giving a rope which dangled from the horizontal pole a jerk the gate swung back on its groove. They rolled onto a macadamized driveway leading up to the farm buildings.

“One farm’s as good as another,” announced Billie, as she gave the rope on the other side of the gate a vigorous pull. But something had got twisted and it refused to return to its natural position. Billie and Nancy jumped out and tried to push the gate, but their united efforts were unavailing. They swung on the rope together, when suddenly, snap, it broke and they both tumbled backward in a laughing heap. They were still giggling and brushing the dust from their clothes when a strange looking vehicle came into the avenue and stopped beside them. It seemed 41 to be composed chiefly of a seat, two rubber tired wheels and a shaft with no place particularly to rest the feet. Hitched to this peculiar conveyance was a beautiful high-stepping thoroughbred horse, and on the rather precarious seat very near to the horse’s tail sat a sunburned young farmer dressed in a brown corduroy suit and leather leggings. He had a ruddy face, humorous blue eyes and close-cropped hair.

“Anything I can do for you, ladies?” he asked, holding the prancing horse with a tight rein.

“I—I’m afraid we have broken your gate,” answered Billie. “We are sorry, but you see we aren’t used to gates like this, and I think it went back too suddenly.”

“It’s only slipped its trolley,” he said. “If one of you could hold Pocohontas for me, I’ll fix it in a second.”

Billie stood at Pocohontas’ head, rather proud of the office, such a beautiful mare was this thoroughbred with her quivering nostrils and arched 42 neck, while the farmer lifted the gate into its groove.

“Yes,” replied Miss Campbell. “We wondered if we could make a few purchases there?”

“Oh, dear me, no,” she answered, her pink cheeks deepening to a rosier hue. “Only food. Fresh eggs and cream and fresh butter, and perhaps a young chicken, if you have any tender ones, and fresh bread, too.”

“We have all those things, I believe,” he replied, “for use at the house. Do you live near here?”

“No, no. We live some thousand and more miles away from here. We are taking a motor trip across the continent, but since we left Chicago, 43 we—we have suffered a little from hunger——”

There was a pause, and then the four girls burst out laughing. The young farmer joined in heartily.

“In fact, sir,” went on Miss Campbell, smiling sweetly on the young man, “we are very hungry.”

“That is really too bad,” he exclaimed, making an effort to compose his face. “These country hotels are dreadful, I know from experience. If you had only visited private houses, I am sure you would have been well fed. But, if you will just go up to the house, I will follow and we’ll see what can be done in the way of provisions.”

It was evident that Pocohontas did not care for the Comet. She curvetted and circled around and stood on her hind legs in a most alarming manner. Suddenly, with a wild neigh, she made for the open field at one side of the road. Her driver, taken by surprise, was thrown backward. 44 It was an easy fall on soft turf, and no harm would have been done if his foot had not got caught in a loop on the reins and, to their horror, they saw him dragged after the sulky, in danger of being killed at any moment.

Giving the motor car a sharp turn, Billie put on all speed and followed the runaway. In another instant they had covered the width of the field, some distance above Pocohontas’ mad course. With a bound, Billie leaped to the ground, and as the mare came tearing up, the young girl jumped at her bridle, caught it with one hand, was dragged a few feet, then seized it with the other, and held on with all her might. Pocohontas was a small horse, and not difficult to curb, once her reins were in a good grip. She stopped, reared back, and then stood perfectly still, quivering all over in a state of palsied excitement.

Miss Campbell had shrieked and covered her face with her hands to shut out the dreadful sight of Billie being trampled to death. But Billie had 45 a cool head and a brave heart, and such excellent qualities make a wonderful combination. The other girls jumped out of the car and hastened to the farmer, while across the fields farm hands came running from every direction.

The young man had only lost consciousness for a moment, and when his foot was disentangled from that diabolical loop, he was able to stagger to his feet.

“Are you much hurt, Mr. Moore,” demanded two of the men supporting him on either side, while two others relieved Billie of the excitable Pocohontas.

“Only a sprain,” he answered. “This brave young lady has saved my life.”

“I’m afraid our motor car caused all the trouble,” exclaimed Billie. She never said “my motor car.” Her friends often noticed this. But she had been brought up by a very genuine and fine man, and was as modest and simple as her father himself.

“You had better get into the car and let us 46 take you home,” said Miss Campbell who had recovered from her fright.

For the second time since they left Chicago, they now found themselves giving a lift to a strange young man. In another five minutes the Comet drew up at the front door of a big frame farmhouse painted white, with green shutters. Everything about it was exceedingly neat, although there was a certain emptiness in the prospect, perhaps because there were no flower beds in the yard and also no curtains at any of the windows which stared down at them like so many eyeless sockets. However, they were rather surprised when the front door was opened by a Japanese butler in a white linen suit. A second Japanese servant followed and they assisted their master out of the motor car.

“Ladies,” said Mr. Moore, his face twitching with the pain of his sprained leg, “may I ask you into my home. It will be a great pleasure and honor, I am sure. My name is Daniel Moore. I am a lonely bachelor farmer, and I shall take it 47 as a particular compliment if you will join me at lunch.”

“But I am afraid you are in great pain, Mr. Moore,” protested Miss Campbell.

“Not in the least, I assure you, madam. My leg is only a little twisted. I shall be walking on it in an hour. You just now confessed that you were hungry. So am I. Takamini, luncheon for six.”

Miss Campbell, at the mention of lunch, stepped nimbly down from the car and followed him into the house with the girls.

Would it not have been exceedingly foolish to have declined an invitation for a good square meal? And they hoped it would be good and square.

48CHAPTER IV.—THE THREE WISHES.

“It’s a queer thing,” declared Nancy, when Takamini had shown them into two neat bare-looking bedrooms upstairs, “it’s really a very strange thing indeed.”

“That our wish has come true, just as if we had rubbed Aladdin’s lamp. We wished for a dinner and we got it.”

But Nancy was a very superstitious young person, who put infinite faith in the Rule of Three.

“We shall have it in an hour. That’s what Takamini told us just now. And if two wishes come true, three will, so I’m going to make another.” 49

“Well, anyway, we thought so. And thinking is the same as speaking. That wish has come true because the homesickness has all gone, hasn’t it?”

They were obliged to admit that it had. The adventure had dispelled their doleful vapors.

“We should all unite on the third wish, then,” said Mary, “seeing that the other wishes were common to everybody.”

“What shall it be, then?” demanded Nancy. “Quick, before the luck gets by.”

“Foolish child,” said Miss Campbell, “I believe that little head of yours is cramful of nonsense.”

“You are a doubter, Miss Campbell,” objected Nancy. “We shall have to banish you from the magic circle if you feel that way. You cast a dark shadow over the spell.” 50

“Oh, no, dear, don’t make me an outsider, I beg of you. I promise not to scoff.”

It is difficult to make one wish common to five separate and distinct individualities.

“I might wish to get my fifty dollars back,” observed Miss Campbell, “only I don’t look for miracles.”

“We might wish for a safe journey to San Francisco,” laughed Billie; “but that would cover too much ground for one wish.”

Not one of the five ladies who would not have been pleased, secretly of course, to meet once more that strange adventurer of the skies, in spite of the grave suspicion which rested upon him. 51

“Anyhow, let’s take the chances and wish for another meeting,” said Elinor, “then Miss Campbell can say, ‘Mr. Van Vechten, kindly restore my property.’ Only she won’t, because she hates to hurt other people’s feelings.”

“Very well, then, all at once,” cried Nancy, forcing them into a close circle. “Now join hands and close your eyes and make the silent wish. Concentrate two minutes.”

“Nancy, dear, I think you have been studying dream books,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, amused at this ridiculous mummery.

Nevertheless, at precisely two minutes to one o’clock by the timepiece on the mantel, five pairs of hands joined together and five identical and simultaneous wishes went forth into space. Five little thought messengers linked together by a single wish, went out together into the vast universe. 52 Then they separated and each took a different direction in search of that mysterious birdman, whose eyes at least were clear and brown and honest. And the first little winged thought who found Peter Van Vechten was to summon his aerial brothers from the ether. Promptly they would join hands and dancing in a circle about his head, as each passed an ear would whisper the message.

When the clock struck one the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell unlocked hands, and smiling quite gravely, considering it was all a joke, proceeded with their toilet for the luncheon of glorious anticipation.

That Mr. Daniel Moore’s establishment was guiltless of any woman’s touch was plainly evident. There was not a sign of femininity about it. It was as bare as a barracks and as plain as an old shoe. But the beds were soft and comfortable, as Miss Campbell could testify, for she took a nap on one of them in the interval which must be spent before lunch was announced. 53

After the girls had fluffed up their front hair or smoothed it out according to custom, and had brushed every fleck of dust from their neat traveling skirts, and washed the stains of the journey from their fresh young faces, they began to look about the rooms, to peer from the windows and peep into the hall, while they talked in whispers.

On a shelf in one of the rooms were some books, the one human touch they noticed. Mary, always a bookworm, began dipping her inquisitive little nose into these immediately. She had opened a volume of Kipling’s poems and was reading aloud in a sing-song voice:

when something fell from between the pages into her lap. It was a souvenir postcard, which had, apparently, been serving as a book-mark. Without meaning to pry, Mary picked it up and turned it over to look at the picture on the other side, 54 which proved to be a photograph of a lovely girl holding a Boston bull terrier on a leash. She was tall and slender, and seemed to sway toward them from the picture like a young tree in the wind. It had evidently been quite breezy when the picture was taken, for one hand grasped her broad-brimmed felt hat, while the other held the dog leash. She was smiling, too, and there was a gay light in her eyes which seemed to challenge the whole world to make her sad.

Mary had not meant to read the message written across the picture, but is it ever possible to examine a picture on a postcard without taking in the words at the bottom? Besides, it was a harmless message:

Now, Salt Lake City was a place of intense interest to the Motor Maids. They regarded it as a traveler in the Orient might look upon one 55 of those mysterious Eastern cities where women went veiled and faces peeped at one from behind obscure gratings.

“Do you suppose this pretty girl is a Mormon?” exclaimed Mary, exhibiting the photograph.

“Can’t Mormons be handsome?” asked Billie, looking at the postcard over Nancy’s shoulder.

“They are just like other people, goosie,” put in Elinor, nevertheless looking at the picture with extreme interest.

“I always imagined the men were tall and thin with lantern jaws and long white beards, and the women were small and plain with straight hair twisted into scraggy little knots behind.”

They were still laughing over Nancy’s vague idea of the citizens of Salt Lake City when the Japanese servant gave them a start by appearing at the door as noiselessly as one who walked on air. 56

It was almost impossible to conceal from him their eagerness to be at table. Nancy secretly hoped there would be fried chicken, but she didn’t care really if only there were no canned vegetables in bird-seed dishes. They all wondered if their host would be able to appear despite his maimed leg.

But he was there to meet them, waiting in the living room of the farmhouse, which was fitted up quite comfortably with big easy chairs, an immense writing table, and many books on shelves lining the walls. Mr. Moore’s wholesome, manly face showed not a trace of the pain he had endured an hour ago, and when he led the way to the dining room, it was with only a slight limp.

“But I thought you had a bad sprain, Mr. Moore,” said Miss Campbell, “and here I find you walking as well as any of us.”

“It’s all gone,” he answered. “I—” he hesitated a moment. “I——” 57

But the fragrance of the viands about to be set before them drove all other thoughts from their minds.

It was all a curious adventure, indeed. Here was an entire stranger dispensing hospitality to them most graciously, and here were they, even that fastidious and dainty little lady, eating with appetites of starving people.

There was no fried chicken, but there were beefsteak and mushrooms and new potatoes and asparagus, a very fine expensive salad made of grapefruit, and as a last perfect touch, strawberries and cream.

The motor party had planned to leave Mr. Moore’s place half an hour after lunch and start on their travels again, but while they feasted black clouds had been piling themselves into a formidable storm and now came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder. The house grew so dark that Takamini lit some candles and placed them on the table.

“I am afraid, Mr. Moore, you have undertaken more than you expected,” she said.

But Mr. Moore was quite equal to this call upon his hospitality. “I hope it will be one of our three-day storms,” he said smiling cordially. “The roads would be far too muddy for motoring then, and I should have the pleasure of entertaining you longer.”

“Oh, we couldn’t let you do that, Mr. Moore. You are too kind. We must go to the next town and stop at the hotel.”

“I assure you, Miss Campbell, you are like messengers from heaven. You came in the nick of time to keep me from being plunged into such a state of gloom I might never have come out of it.”

“I know,” he replied. “People of my complexion never get the credit for being melancholy. But occasionally, you know, we are subject to spasms due chiefly to loneliness, I think.” 59

They had drifted back into the sitting room now and the rain was beating on the windows in torrents. It was chilly, and they were glad to see Takamini light a wood fire in the open brick fire-place. Miss Campbell, seated in a big leather chair in the chimney corner, dozed off in the warmth of the firelight, her head drooping to one side like a tired little bird’s.

The four girls gathered around the table, while Mr. Moore taking a large atlas from a shelf, opened at the map of the United States and spread it on the table.

“Now,” he said, “tell me about the trip. Are you the captain of the expedition, Miss Billie?”

“Cousin Helen is the general,” said Billie, “and we are just her staff. I am chief guide because I know how to run the motor, but everybody has a place. We could never give these parties if one of us dropped out.”

“Well, it’s a jolly party,” said their host. “You 60 are five very brave ladies, I think. I only know one other as brave.”

The other girls looked annoyed and Nancy herself was sorry after she had made this impulsive speech. But Daniel Moore was not at all annoyed. He was only a little surprised.

“Why, yes,” he answered, “you guessed right the very first time. How did it happen?”

“Well,” began Nancy and paused, greatly embarrassed, “I just guessed,” which was a perfectly true statement.

“You are a very good guesser, then, Miss Nancy. Perhaps you would like to see a picture of the young lady who is as brave as you are.”

Mr. Moore opened a table drawer and produced a large photograph of the same beautiful girl whose face they had seen hardly an hour before smiling at them from the postcard. 61

“She isn’t; but her father is,” he answered, a frown wrinkling his brow. “Her father is the most confounded old Mormon that ever grew up in the faith. He thinks that all non-Mormons are just kittle-kattle.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

“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 63 around the corner of the house muffled their voices into far-away sounds.

“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.”

“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 64 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.”

“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.”

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

“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 65 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 66 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.

67CHAPTER V.—AN INCIDENT OF THE ROAD.

“Sevenoaks” was the name of Mr. Moore’s great farm, which covered acres and acres of fertile plain; called so because of seven great oak trees which shaded the circular drive girdling the front lawn. They were fine old trees, and much care had been taken to preserve them in order to preserve the significance of the name.

“If I were Evelyn,” Nancy was thinking, as she stood next morning on the piazza scanning the storm-washed landscape now fast drying under the heat of the sun, “I should think it would be rather nice to be mistress of this beautiful place.”

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 68 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. 69

“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 70 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.”

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

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

“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.” 72

“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.”

“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.”

The girls exchanged sly glances while Billie related the plan. Many a time had they won Miss 73 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.”

“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, 74 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?”

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’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 76 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.

“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.’”

“Then you will not buy one of these stones!” exclaimed the halfbreed darkly. 77

“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 78 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 79 and at the same moment had reached an exciting conclusion.

“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 80 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.”

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

“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.

81CHAPTER VI.—UNDER THE STARS.

All day long the Comet had been plodding faithfully, and although he did not know it, and his five mistresses did not know it, it was really uphill work. Very gradual uphill work, only at the rate of ten feet a mile as they went westward, but the Comet was tired.

For the last fifteen miles Billie had noticed a complaining, whining little sound in his interior mechanism, but she urged him on with the mercilessness of one who drives machines, for they must reach a certain small village that night, which the map purported to be still ten miles distant.

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 82 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 84 persisted in the stand he had taken of suddenly becoming an invalid.

“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 85 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, 86 “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.”

This was an agreeable suggestion and settled 87 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 88 filled them with pleasurable but subdued anticipation.

“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.”

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. 90

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. 91 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.

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

92CHAPTER VII.—BARNEY M’GEE.

It was almost as much of a shock to Miss Campbell and the others to see Billie so unstrung as to find the Comet stolen.

The young girl’s feeling for her car was of a very real character, and if the Comet had been a favorite animal or a human being even, she could not have been more distressed.

“Billie, my darling, you must not give way so,” cried her cousin, putting her arms gently around Billie’s neck. “We shall find the Comet, I’m sure.”

“I never dreamed anyone would take him,” sobbed Billie. “I thought he would be quite safe in this lonely place. It was stupid of me to have left him unprotected like that all night long.”

Her friends, who had been subdued and silent in the presence of her grief could hardly refrain 93 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.”

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 94 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 95 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 96 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?”

“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 97 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 98 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 99 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 100 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?”

“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?”

To Nancy’s consternation, Barney McGee stood up on his saddle and grasping a limb, drew 102 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.

“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 103 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 104 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.”

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

“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.”

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. 105

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.

106CHAPTER VIII.—CUTTING THE BONDS.

Peter Van Vechten was driving the car but he made no attempt to stop it. In fact, he seemed not to recognize their faces as he came toward them, and it was evident that Barney McGee unless he wanted to be run over would have to make haste to get out of the road, for the motor car was taking a very uncertain and rickety course on the highway.

Another half minute and they found themselves standing helplessly in the road, the automobile fifty yards away.

Barney, flourishing his pistol and digging his spurs into his horse was after it like a flash.

But it was too late. There was the report of a pistol and the sound of the motor ceased almost instantly. 107

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.

“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.”

“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 108 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. 109

“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 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.” 110

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

“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.”

“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 111 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 112 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.”

Just then a drove of cattle passed, and at intervals 113 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.”

“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 114 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?” 115 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:

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.”

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

117CHAPTER IX.—THE GIRL FROM THE GOLDEN WEST.

“It’s like being in a play, Elinor,” whispered Mary, who was sitting next to her at the long dinner table in the dining room of the little hotel. “They are all here, cowboys and curious looking people. And there were two Indians at the door a moment ago. The cowboys are like Barney McGee. They have good, rough manners.”

The Motor Maids felt as if they had known that ingratiating young man a long time now. Twice he had bobbed up unexpectedly on their journey, and finally made them promise to visit the ranch where he lived in Southern Wyoming, if only for a half a day.

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 118 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 119 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 120 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.”

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 121 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?”

“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:

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 124 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. 125 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——”

“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.

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.

The girls had a feeling Evelyn was going to 126 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.

The next moment there was the sound of an automobile outside and Evelyn was whisked off in the darkness.

“Dear, dear, dear,” ejaculated Miss Campbell “I am so upset! That exquisite young girl and that terrible giant creature of a father!”

In an instant they were all talking at once. It was Evelyn Stone. They recognized her now from the picture, although there was only really 127 a faint resemblance. What picture could do justice to such coloring? The auburn hair, the golden brown eyes and the blush that crept in and out of her face with her changing emotions. But it was she, they were sure of it. She had the same smile—the “snapshot smile.”

“If we had only recognized her sooner,” cried Billie. “We might have delivered the letter. We might have saved her from that great dragon of a father. We might have done dozens of things.”

They were deep in their thought when the stage drove up to the door with a great flourish and a man hastily dragged in several bags of mail.

Everybody gathered around the desk to wait for letters, and when the motor party had each received a package of mail, the first for many days, they hurried to their rooms to read the last news from home. Miss Campbell had half a dozen letters to engross her attention, and it was not until she had read the last word of every one that she opened a package covered with postmarks, showing 128 it had been forwarded from place to place and had followed them over most of their route.

“My goodness gracious me,” she cried out in a loud astonished voice as she drew out the contents of the packet.

Miss Campbell could say no more. She was quite overcome and on the verge of tears. She handed a note to Billie to read aloud.

I picked this pocketbook up in my field, though how it happened to be near a broken box kite I cannot tell you. I am sending it to the address on the visiting card and would be glad if you would notify me that you have received it.

“He is a very honest man,” exclaimed Miss Helen at last, when Billie had finished reading the note.

“How glad I am he escaped,” cried Miss Campbell. “Never, never will I accuse anyone on circumstantial evidence again.”

“I was the one who cut the cords,” at last Mary volunteered in a small voice.

130CHAPTER X.—STEPTOE LODGE.

    “King  Borria  Bungalee  Boo,
    Was  a  man-eating  African  swell,
    His  sigh  was  a  hullaballoo,
    His  whisper  a  horrible  yell—A
    horrible,  horrible  yell!

    “Four  subjects  and  all  of  them  male
    To  Borria  doubled  the  knee,
    They  were  once  on  a  far  larger  scale,
    But  he’d  eaten  the  balance,  you  see—Scale
    and  balance  is  punning,  you  see!

They had drawn up in front of a long low rancho. It was quite dark, but from an inside 131 court they could hear the tinkle of a banjo accompanying a deep baritone voice, with many other deep voices joining in the chorus. The singing went on:

    “There  was  haughty  Pish-Tush-Pooh-Bah,
    There  was  lumbering  Doodle-Dum-Dey,
    Despairing  Alack-a-Dey-Ah
    And  good  little  Tootle-Tum-Teh!
    Exemplary  Tootle-Tum-Teh,”

“My dear, I don’t think we’d better try it,” said Miss Campbell. “It sounds very rough. I feel quite uneasy—it’s very much of an adventure at any rate.”

The truth is the five ladies had done an exceedingly reckless thing. Barney McGee had invited them to come and see a real ranch, and they had accepted his invitation. At first Miss Campbell had declined. It was rather too much to expect him to entertain five guests. Besides, how could he when he was not owner of the 132 ranch. He was part owner, he said. But if they preferred they could stop at Steptoe Lodge just as they could at an inn—engage rooms, that is. His cousin, Brek Steptoe and his wife often had boarders—people who came for their health.

Nebraska was filled with Easterners who were trying to gain health in the West, and the good State not only often gave them health but wealth too—fine strong bodies and work that paid.

Therefore the motorists had taken down detailed directions from Barney McGee, but they had not arrived at Steptoe Lodge as soon as they had expected. An exploded tire had caused a long delay. No doubt Mrs. Steptoe had given them up for the day now, for it was long after dark when they finally found themselves at the rancho.

A light streamed out from a door suddenly opened, and the voices in the court yard grew louder as the song progressed.

“Does Mr. McGee live here?” asked Billie timidly of a tall athletic looking young man who had opened the door. He was dressed in buckskin with high boots, a blue flannel shirt and a silk handkerchief knotted around his neck. The girls thought him quite the most picturesque person they had seen since they left home. Even in the darkness they could see the deep flush of embarrassment mount to his face.

“There is a Mr. McGee who lives here—yes,” he answered, choking with bashfulness.

“Will you ask him to come out at once, please,” said Miss Campbell, with a growing uneasiness that there might be some mistake.

But her fears were immediately allayed, for Barney himself came running around the side of the rancho.

“Ladies, I hope you’ll excuse me for not bein’ on the spot as soon as you arrived. I waited for you some hours on the door step. Tell the fellers to shut up, Jim, and stop starin’ there like a wooden injun. Call Rosina. Tell her the ladies have arrived.” 134

The place suddenly became as still as the grave, and by the time the Motor Maids and Miss Helen had alighted and been conducted into a cemented courtyard around which the house was built, after the Spanish style, there was not a person to be seen except Jim, who followed obediently with some of the luggage.

Rosina Steptoe, who had married Barney’s cousin, Brek Steptoe, now hurried into the room. She was a wiry little woman with a dark swarthy face, beady black eyes, black hair and a rather sweet expression which saved her from being really very ugly. The girls thought at first she might have some Spanish blood. Her manners were gracious and she shook hands with them cordially when Barney made the introductions.

“Will you come right in to supper?” she said, without asking them to go to their rooms. “We want to get through early because Barney is giving a dance for you to-night, and the people will be coming before we finish if we don’t hurry.” 135

They had not counted on being entertained by the cowboy, and began to wonder what they had been drawn into.

Feeling very dusty and a little tired from their trip across the plains, they followed Mrs. Steptoe into one of the rooms opening on the court. It was a very large apartment with little furniture in it except a long table and the inevitable oak sideboard which always gave Billie the horrors. They afterwards learned that it was the pride of Mrs. Steptoe’s heart, and had been bought in the East at a great sacrifice.

Four men were waiting at the table: Barney McGee, Brek Steptoe, who was a handsome, middle aged man with a weather-beaten face; Tony Blackstone, whom the girls discovered presently was English. It was he who had done the singing they found; also he had good manners and was not at all bashful, but very quiet. Jim made the fourth man.

As they sat down at table, a Chinaman thrust 136 his head in the door and then disappeared. Mrs. Steptoe herself waited on them and the food was really much better than they had expected.

Nancy was seated next to Jim, who, when she was not looking, devoured her with his eyes, and when she turned to him, dropped his lids and flushed crimson as if he had been caught in a felony.

“We didn’t know there was to be a party,” she said to him innocently. “You see we aren’t traveling with much baggage. I’m afraid we can’t dress up properly.”

“Miss Nancy,” he repeated, and then said it over to himself as if the name pleased him mightily.

“People don’t come to see the clothes. It’s the dancing they want to see and—and——”

“And the gir—the ladies. You see we don’t 137 have many of them out here and they are all married.”

“Every girl is a belle in this part of the country, I suppose,” observed Nancy. “Even the ugly ones.”

Jim assented, regarding Nancy’s charming face as if he had never seen a girl before in all his life.

“There weren’t until you came,” replied Jim almost in a whisper, and then dropped his knife on the floor. He stooped for so long to find it that Nancy thought he must have had a sudden attack of vertigo. She was sure of it when he finally lifted his crimson face.

“I think I have one pretty dress,” she said irrelevantly, looking into Jim’s eyes with just a ghost of a smile. “I think it would be nice to dress up a little. Don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” muttered Jim. Then, 138 once more, plucking up courage, he asked: “Can I have the first dance?”

In the meantime, Mr. Steptoe was explaining many things to Miss Campbell regarding the rounding up of cattle and life on the plains.

“There are no more real cowboys,” he said, “except in the Buffalo Bill Show. They are passing out. Barney here is about as good a representative of the class as there is.”

“Tony is a good imitation but he’s not the real thing because he wasn’t born to it. Was you Tony?”

“Birth has nothing to do with it,” he answered, and quickly changed the subject.

“He’s the younger son of an English lord,” whispered Steptoe, “but he don’t like to have it mentioned.”

It was rather surprising on the whole to see how polite these rough men were. Following Tony’s example, they stood up when the ladies filed out of the room, led by Rosina Steptoe. 139

Bedrooms in the Steptoe rancho were not luxurious apartments by any means. There were no bathrooms and only small ewers of water supplied the wants of the guests.

“I feel as if I had the yellow jaundice,” exclaimed Nancy, as she critically examined her features in a small wooden framed mirror back of the washstand. There was no dressing table.

“To the naked eye you appear to be perfectly healthy and normal,” replied Billie, “but I suppose Miss Nancy-Bell, you are taking notice with a view to dressing up, and for my part, I think we should go down just as we are. It’s a cowboy dance.”

There was a continuous argument about clothes between Nancy and Billie which Miss Campbell invariably had to settle. On this occasion Miss Campbell was for appearing as spectators at the dance and not as active guests. She had not counted on being entertained at the Lodge, and she was unable to conceal her misgivings.

“I think it would be very rude not to dress up,” 140 cried Nancy hotly. “Mrs. Steptoe is going to wear a pink cotton crêpe. She told me she was, and they are all looking forward to seeing us in—well—something different than this.”

“Anything to show off that new frock of yours, Nancy,” cried Billie. “Cowboys and Indians will do if you can’t find a better audience.”

Nancy was offended. She flushed hotly and her eyes filled with tears. She had very sensitive feelings somewhere hidden under her gay careless manner.

“Bless its heart! Are its feelings hurt?” exclaimed Billie, putting her arms around her friend’s neck and kissing her warmly. “I wouldn’t have gone fer to hurt its feelings for anything in the world. It shall wear its little folderols if it chooses, shan’t it, Cousin, and put on all its ribbons and laces.”

“Silly old tease,” said Nancy, laughing through her tears. “You’re just as anxious as anybody to dress up only you’re too proud to admit it because 141 you’re afraid people will think you are vain.”

“Go along with you, you foolish children, and get into your clothes,” here interrupted Miss Campbell. “If Nancy wants to appear in a party frock, I think it won’t do any harm to these poor isolated ranchmen.”

It so happened, therefore, that the girls, in another twenty minutes, for the first time since they had left Sevenoaks, the home of their friend, Daniel Moore, attired themselves in their prettiest gowns. Only simple muslin frocks, but with plenty of hand embroidery and lace insertions to make them fine, and ribbon bows to set them off.

Nancy, beguiling creature that she was, tied a pink satin ribbon around her curly hair, and the picture she made when she entered the dining room in her white dress with her floating ribbons and dainty little black patent leather pumps, was a sight Jim was not to forget in a hurry.

Elinor might have been a young princess who 142 had condescended to step out of the back door of her palace and mingle with her low subjects for a brief space. She held her head with its coronet braids slightly higher than usual in the strange company which now began to congregate.

She wore a straight white dress all fine tucks and embroidery without a sign of lace or ribbon to mar the effect of very elegant simplicity. Billie had tied around the smooth rolls of her light brown hair a blue velvet band to match the embroidery on her marquisette dress. She was a glowing picturesque figure, her face flushed with interest and enthusiasm. Mary, who always falls to the last in our descriptions, perhaps because she is so small and unassuming, wore a soft white mulle frock with a pale blue Roman sash knotted around her waist, a relic of her mother’s own girlhood.

You may imagine, I am sure, what a sensation our dainty young girls and Miss Campbell, in a beautiful gray silk, made on the rough company now assembled. There were subdued murmurs of surprise 143 and admiration. The few plain weather-beaten looking women who had driven miles across the plains for a glimpse of the Motor Maids, looked down hastily at their own pitiful attempts at finery, and ranchmen and cowboys craned their necks for a glimpse of the fair vision which had been vouchsafed them.

On a table at the far end of the room sat the two musicians, Mexicans. Each with a guitar and a fiddle. The kerosene lamps, hung against reflectors on the wall, cast a yellow glow on the scene so new to the travelers. Five chairs had been arranged in a row at the other end of the room as places of honor for the Eastern guests, who might have been five new prima donnas at the opera for the intense interest they excited.

The music now set up a whining jig tune. There was an embarrassed shuffling of feet for a moment, and clearing of throats. Presently two cowboys started to dancing the old fashioned polka together, and in a jiffy the whole company was whirling about the room madly. The five Easterners looked on for a while quite gravely. 144 In the joy of the dance they had been quite forgotten.

Not quite forgotten, for Jim now appeared, handsome as a picture, with a new red silk handkerchief knotted around his neck, his black hair as smooth and slick as brush and water could make it.

“Are you willing to try it?” he asked, bowing before Nancy, who little knew what struggles between bashfulness and courage now rent his soul.

“I was wondering where you were,” she said smiling sweetly as she floated away with him like a soap bubble on a summer breeze.

Tony Blackstone then asked Elinor to dance, and she had condescended, comforting herself with the secret knowledge that he was the son of an English lord. Barney McGee had led forth Mary. And Mrs. Steptoe, having introduced her brother, whose name Billie had failed to catch, that young woman had permitted herself to be circled around once. But her partner did not 145 please her for some reason and she preferred to sit with Miss Helen and watch the dancers.

“No,” she answered, always truthful under the most trying circumstances, “but I don’t care to dance.”

The man flashed an angry glance at her and for the first time she looked in his face. Where had she seen those dark scowling eyes before?

“I didn’t catch your name,” she said. “I would like to introduce you to my cousin.”

“Why, you are—” but she never finished the sentence for the man named Hawkes had abruptly turned away.

“Strange,” said Billie to herself, reflecting inwardly on the passing likenesses one sees everywhere. “But, no, it is impossible, for this man is very well dressed, better than any man in the room, I think, and besides he’s Rosina Steptoe’s brother.”

146CHAPTER XI.—THE HAWKES FAMILY.

Breathless and flushed with exercise the other girls now dropped into their seats. The hot, crowded room, the dust raised by the shuffling of many feet on the floor and the strange company rather bewildered them. Only Nancy had really enjoyed the experience, because Jim was an excellent dancer; and he had guided her carefully through the mazes of the jigging two-step.

But there was to be further entertainment before they might be allowed to stroll out under the stars and breathe in the fresh air. A Mexican cowboy with a broad crimson sash around his waist, a border of bright-colored fringe edging the side of his trousers and jingling spurs on his high-heeled boots, danced a wild fandango to a Spanish tune with a throbbing accompaniment on the guitar, which seemed to grow faster and faster as he struck his heels on the floor. 147

Then the music stopped and two Indians appeared. One of them squatted on the floor and began beating monotonously on a small kind of a drum or tom-tom. The other Indian in full regalia began dancing slowly in a circle, stooping low as if he were hiding from his prey which he would presently pounce upon and destroy utterly. He was a barbaric and war-like figure and the girls unconsciously shrunk back as he danced by them. Gradually the dance grew wilder and the steps quicker. The Indian gave a strange bird-like cry, and for the fraction of a moment paused in front of Billie. With another cry that had a familiar sound he flashed a black glance of hatred into her face and was gone.

Again Billie thought she recognized a likeness. She turned her bewildered eyes downward, her face flushing with embarrassment. There in her lap was a long, grayish feather.

“I reckon it’s a complimentary souvenir for you, Miss Billie,” replied the ranchman. “It’s 148 one of Hawkeseye’s jokes, a quill from a hawk’s wing.”

“Oh, yes, we call him that for fun. His name is Buckthorne Hawkes. He ain’t all Injun, you know. He’s really the Missus’ brother, but he can certainly fix himself up to look as much like a full-blooded Indian buck as if he had just come from the reservation.”

“He’s a graduate of Carlyle University,” he answered. “He’s come out West to teach school.”

In the meantime, Elinor had been led by Tony Blackstone into the courtyard, where they sat down on a bench. Overhead the stars gleamed with incredible brilliancy, partly because the stars from a Western plain seem infinitely larger and grander than they do anywhere else, and partly because they gazed at them from the depths of a small dark courtyard.

“Perhaps Miss Campbell would not like to have me leave the—the ballroom,” said Elinor, 149 not knowing how to designate the dining room in its present use.

“It’s only a step away,” said Tony Blackstone, “and we can’t talk in there very well. You remind me of—of an English girl I once knew, and it would be just common charity to talk to me a little.”

“Then you are not happy here?” the young girl demanded quickly, as if this were a confirmation of her suspicions.

“There are times when I am happy,” he said. “When I am riding at night across the plains on a horse that goes like the wind. It is wonderful then, especially when the moon is full. I can almost forget that I have an identity at such times.”

There was a long pause. Elinor hardly knew what to say, and she watched the young man gravely. That he was deeply moved by the memories her own face had conjured up she could 150 plainly see. His lips twitched convulsively and he clenched his hands as if he were trying to choke the thoughts that would rise in his mind. Why had he come away from home and lost himself in this distant place?

They sat thus for some time watching the stars silently. A sympathy had sprung up between them and they seemed to have known each other for a long time.

“Elinor,” he burst out. “Elinor, the same as yours,” and he turned his face away.

Perhaps he was crying. Elinor never knew, although it seemed strange for a big splendid cowboy to shed tears.

“I’m so sorry for you,” she said kindly, and laid her hand on his arm, a great piece of condescension for her. “Touch-me-not” was a nick-name given her long ago by her friends.

“Oh, Elinor, Elinor,” he exclaimed, taking her hand in his, “if you could only understand what the sight of your face and the sound of your 151 voice mean to me! If you could only know what I have lost by my folly, my wretched, miserable folly!”

“Aren’t you ever going back?” she asked, and she did not withdraw her hand.

“Elinor, dear, I think you had better come back, now,” called Miss Campbell, who never let her girls out of her sight for long.

“Is Blackstone your real name?” Elinor asked as they paused before the door of the dancing room.

“My real name,” he replied, “is Algernon Blackstone de Willoughby Winston.”

A Virginia reel was forming and Mrs. Steptoe has asked as an especial favor if the young ladies would not dance. Nancy had given her hand to Jim for the dance. It was the third time she 152 had bestowed this honor upon him, and with unconcealed joy he stood at the top of the line ready to lead off. Billie was dancing with Barney McGee. Mary had accepted Brek Steptoe as a partner and Elinor, with Algernon Blackstone de Willoughby Winston now joined the line.

There were only three or four other women including Mrs. Steptoe, and for the rest, cowboys and ranchmen danced together with perfect good nature.

How strange it seemed to Miss Campbell, her four girls dancing among these queer people. No wonder the other dancers forgot the figures of the reel while they drank in the picture of their fresh young faces. It was to them as if a garden of roses had suddenly sprung up in the desert.

“Down the center,” called the musician. “Now, right and left all around.”

The fiddle whined. The guitar thrummed passionately. Miss Campbell’s head was in a whirl.

“Ought we to have taken the risk of this 153 visit?” she kept saying. “When one is traveling one must have experiences,” her thoughts continued. “Besides, what harm can come of it? They are rough, kindly people, and have taken so much trouble to give us this entertainment. But I really don’t care for all this noise and dust. I hope I shall never go to another one.”

The little lady leaned her head wearily against the wall and closed her eyes. An arm slipped around her waist. It was Elinor, who having danced her turn had quietly joined her. Her partner had disappeared in the courtyard.

The two women exchanged meaning glances. The noisy dance, the jingling spurs of the cowboys as the dancers came down the middle, and an occasional loud laugh did not appeal to Elinor either.

“We must excuse ourselves, dear,” Miss Campbell was saying, when suddenly the courtyard resounded with a loud cry.

“You insufferable, black-livered hound,” came the voice of Algernon Blackstone de Willoughby Winston, “if I catch you sneaking around here 154 again with your knives, I’ll throw you out to the coyotes.”

The dance continued, and only one dancer dropped out. Either they had not heard the disturbance, or else such disturbances were too common to notice. It was, consequently, Rosina Steptoe alone, with face aflame and eyes snapping like two little wells of fire, who signed to her partner and approached the doorway. She was too angry to notice how near Miss Campbell and Elinor were sitting to the open door.

“Tony, how dare you speak to my brother like that,” she hissed into the court. “I told you before I wouldn’t have it.”

“Nonsense, Rosina, your brother deserves a good thrashing for his tricks. I just caught his arm as he was about to throw this dagger into the room.”

“Joke be hanged,” broke in the Englishman, “how dare you attempt to frighten these ladies 155 by such a joke. Try it again and I’ll keep my word.”

“Don’t you be so interferin’ with the Hawkes family,” cried Rosina shrilly.

Miss Campbell rose. The dance was just reaching a climax with its final right and left all round. She beckoned to the girls.

“If you don’t mind, Mrs. Steptoe, I think we’ll say good-night. We’ve had a long day. The entertainment has been most delightful.”

They bade the company a general good night, and it was not long before they had locked themselves into their bedrooms, and following Miss Campbell’s instructions, had pushed the heaviest piece of furniture in the room against each door.

156CHAPTER XII.—INTO THE WILDERNESS.

Steptoe Lodge in the morning was very different from Steptoe Lodge at night. The dark courtyard, full of shifting shadows, was now a clean and open space bright with new light.

Miss Campbell alone of the motor party had not slept well because she had been afraid to open her windows. She had cautioned the girls against opening their’s, but Billie had flatly rebelled.

“I cannot sleep in a vacuum, Cousin Helen, and if anyone were tall enough to crawl in the window, we could among us make enough noise to raise the roof off the house.”

But the night had been peaceful and the cheerfulness of the June morning with the sweet scents of the innumerable wild flowers which starred the plains, dispelled Miss Campbell’s fears. 157

    “Hark,  hark,  the  lark  from  Heaven’s  gate  sings,
    And  Phoebus  ’gins  arise,
    His  steeds  to  water  at  those  springs
    On  chaliced  flowers  that  lies;
    And  winking  Mary-buds  begin  to  ope  their  golden  eyes:
    With  everything  that  pretty  is,  my  lady  sweet,  arise,
    Arise,  arise.”

“Isn’t it strange that he should be here among these rough uneducated people,” observed Mary, thoughtfully. “Did he tell you anything about himself last night, Elinor?”

But Elinor kept her own counsel. She was not one to tell the secrets of others even to her own particular, intimate friends and she knew that what Algernon Blackstone de Willoughby Winston had 158 confided to her the night before, he had meant for her ears alone.

It was Barney McGee. Would any of the young ladies like a gallop on the plains before breakfast?

“I would, I would,” cried Billie, instantly in a state of joyous anticipation.

“Now, Billie, dear,” interrupted her cousin, “I am desperately afraid to have you ride one of those wild untamed horses. Remember those animals we saw in Buffalo Bill’s Show. They were Western horses, all of them, and they jumped around like so many contortionists.”

“We’ll give her the tamest beast in the stable, ma’am,” Barney assured her.

“No, no, ma’am, a gentle little Texas horse that goes like the wind and never balks or kicks——”

“He’s a first rate little horse, ma’am and any lady could ride him—who knows how to stick on,” he added in a lower voice.

But Barney knew he could trust Billie on a Texas pony, having seen her take a canter on his own lean animal.

“Rosina keeps this one for the ladies who stop here,” said Barney, disclosing a khaki divided skirt which had been in a bundle under his arm.

Ten minutes later, Billie was waiting at the long low shed which answered for a stable, while Barney led forth a small gray horse called Jocko. Two little impish devils peeped from the depths of Jocko’s eyes, but he flicked his tail lazily and lowered his head in a deceivingly humble manner.

Rosina was to ride with them. Miss Campbell would on no account permit Billie to ride unchaperoned on the plains, even with the trustworthy Barney as a companion.

The mistress of the rancho presently emerged 160 from the stable, leading a small sorrel horse. She also wore divided skirts, and with one bound leapt into the saddle, a feat Billie had not expected from her awkward, rather dumpy appearance. But it was very evident Rosina enjoyed the sport. With a curious cry, not unlike that given by her brother, Blackthorn Hawkes, the night before, when he danced the Indian war dance, she flew over the plains, followed by Barney and Billie.

Never had Billie enjoyed anything so much as that wild morning ride. The air was cool and crisp. The sky intensely blue, and everywhere, as far as the eye could see, were the rolling purple prairies, dotted with wild flowers.

She forgot Miss Campbell, forgot her three friends, indeed her mind was filled only with the joy of the moment.

Perhaps an Arabian horse on the desert might outstrip him, but indeed Jocko’s feet seemed hardly to touch the earth as he skimmed along.

Soon he was ahead of the others. Billie looked back over her shoulder and saw Barney 161 making wild gesticulations as the distance between them widened. But Jocko’s mouth was as hard as steel, and when the young girl began presently to draw him in, she made no more impression on him than the wind along the waste.

On went Jocko, swifter than the wind, swifter than anything Billie had ever imagined. Leaning far over, like a jockey, she pressed her knees into his sides and held to his mane for dear life.

“Perhaps he will tire out,” she thought. “In the meantime, the best I can do is to stick on.”

Only once, did she give an upside-down, backward glance through the crook in her elbow, but her companions were nowhere in sight. Just how long Billie gripped the pony’s neck in this manner and kept her seat, she hardly knew. It might have been five minutes and it might have been thirty. She felt as a shooting star must feel as it flashes through the universe; a secret, blind exhilaration and an immense vacancy of 162 space which seemed to surround her, and withal an overpowering fear.

Then there came a sudden and utterly unexpected halt. At the same moment she unconsciously loosened her grip on the horse’s mane. Head over heels she went, straight over the pony’s head, and lay huddled on the ground, limp and inert.

Jocko sniffed at her an instant and then turned and trotted away. The two little imps in his eyes had retired, and he was once more a mild-mannered demure gray pony.

Imagine yourself the one small human speck in a great vast wilderness of prairie and you can form a vague idea of Billie’s sensations when she opened her eyes.

Trying to collect her scattered senses, she pulled herself together and stood up. Her head swam and she had a shaky sensation in her knees.

“Let me see,” she said out loud in a puzzled voice. “Cousin Helen and the girls are—well where are they? And——Oh,” she cried, pressing her hands to her head as memory came back 163 to her and she perceived herself to be alone on the plains. Then she looked about for the treacherous Jocko, but he had disappeared over the horizon.

When Billie’s blood had resumed its normal tempo and her head had ceased to throb, she began to walk in what she judged from the sun to be a Southerly direction. She walked for a long time but nowhere could she see signs of her friends.

“I might as well be a canoe in the middle of the ocean,” she said at length, sitting down on the ground in despair. “I don’t seem to get anywhere, and—Oh, dear, how hot and tired and thirsty and hungry I am!”

Once she tried calling, but her voice seemed to her only a small piping sound in the great emptiness.

“I declare, I feel about as large as a microscopic insect,” she exclaimed with a little sobbing laugh.

“I won’t be lost,” she cried. “I won’t! I won’t! Haloo-oo-o, Barney—Rosina—where are you?”

Perhaps you have heard of the madness of people lost in a great forest or in the desert. It is a terrible growing fear which often turns into insanity unless it is held in check. Billie had heard of this madness. Her father had once told her of the sad case of a man lost in the Adirondacks who ran round and round in a circle, and when at last he was found, he was still running in a circle, completely out of his senses.

Checking her impulse to give way to this delirium, the young girl sat down and began to think.

“Now, Billie,” she said out loud, as if she were addressing some one else, “don’t go and make an idiot of yourself. Be silent and go quietly, or you’ll be a raving lunatic in five minutes. Of course the whole ranch will set out to find you as soon as they know you are actually lost. And of course they will find you. There can be no doubt of that. You are not going to die yet. You are far too young and strong and fond of 165 life and—and hungry,” she added with a little quaver in her voice.

But not again did Billie give way to the delirium of the lost. With her back to the sun she hurried on, not even a village of prairie dogs attracting her absorbed attention. As the sun began his afternoon course, she became conscious of an intense, unconquerable thirst. At first she fought against it, but at last she sat down and indulged in memories of spring water. All the cool bubbling wells she had ever seen came back to her mind. Memories of a little trickling brook on Seven League Island beside which she had once knelt and taken deep long draughts; then there was Cold Spring, where she had been on a picnic. What a spring that was! A perfect fountain of delicious clear water. She recalled a swim she had had in a mountain lake where the water was as clear as crystal and very cold. She had swallowed quite a mouthful when she dived off a rock, and she could still feel the coolness on her lips.

“But best of all,” she murmured, “best of all 166 was the water in that sunken barrel spring on Percy’s place. Oh, for a drop of it now,” she cried.

She lay down on the ground and pillowed her head on her arms. Through the tall grasses she could see someone still a great way off coming toward her so rapidly that the figure loomed larger and larger on the landscape. She sat up and waited.

“Here I am,” she heard herself calling. Then she laughed wildly. What she had taken for a dumpy squat lady in a bonnet trimmed with two pointed velvet bows, turned out to be a great stupid jackrabbit with ears as big as a mule’s, who leaped on his hind legs with incredible rapidity.

“Silly old thing,” exclaimed Billie irritably. “I thought you were a nice, kind, fat old person bringing me a glass of water.”

The truth is the rabbit did bear a striking resemblance to the janitress at West Haven High School.

Billie fell asleep and dreamed she was in a 167 fiery furnace calling to her father, when suddenly a delicious wetness touched her lips and a few drops of water trickled down her parched throat. She opened her eyes. Buckthorne Hawkes, Rosina’s brother, was leaning over her with a flask of water in his hand.

She opened her eyes again and looked into the face of the peddler who, ages back, had cursed them and their ancestors.

But old Mrs. Jack Rabbit had come back. There she was, dark and black and squat.

“Good day, Mrs. Jack Rabbit,” Billie called, “did you bring the water?” and then she went to sleep with a feeling of security and peace.

168CHAPTER XIII.—HOT AIR SUE.

“Go on, Hot Air Sue and mind your own business. You are too full of curiosity. I tell you I found this girl here. She had run away from home.”

“Woman, will you be quiet. Do you want to make big money. Father rich man, see? He pay big money to get girl back. Hot Air Sue make much gold. Hot Air Sue have necklace and fine new dress.”

Billie’s wandering mind had returned to its dwelling place but she still kept her eyes closed even when she felt two strong arms lift her up 169 and place her on a seat which seemed almost familiar. She half opened her eyes and looked through the lashes. She was in an automobile, but it was not the Comet.

Evidently there were only two seats to the motor car. Billie was squeezed into a seat beside the woman and while the peddler, Indian, or whatever he was, was cranking up the machine she opened her eyes and looked straight into the little pig eyes of a fat Indian squaw.

“Shut eyes,” whispered Hot Air Sue and Billie promptly closed them again, feeling suddenly very wide awake and alert.

Presently they were moving smoothly and silently over the prairie. The automobile was a very fast one and the wind raised by the swift motion had a reviving, refreshing effect on the exhausted girl.

“Umph!” grunted the squaw. “Girl ver’ sick,” 170 she said to Hawkes. “Must have water and bread.”

The man stopped the car and from under the seat drew forth a box of crackers and a bottle of water. Billie ate some of the crackers and drank deeply from a tin cup of the water. She never stopped to think of how clean the cup was or where the sandwich had come from.

Then she laid her head on the Indian woman’s breast and pretended to go back to sleep.

“Across the border,” he said. “Into Colorado. We’ll get there by evening.”

The air was beginning to have a cool feeling. They had left the plains abruptly behind them and were nearing the mountains.

“I must get back tonight,” said Billie to herself. “Cousin Helen will die of heart failure if I don’t.”

Although her body was exhausted, her mind was clear and with her eyes closed, she was able to think connectedly and deeply. “I am being kidnapped,” her thoughts continued. “Hot Air 171 Sue is my friend and will save me if she possibly can. The trouble is we haven’t any money between us, I suppose.”

Once after a long time they stopped and Hawkes jumped out and examined one of the tires.

“Sue save young lady,” whispered the old Indian woman. “Sue not afraid. Don’t wake up.”

“Hot Air Sue good old girl,” he said. “Hot Air Sue won’t be sorry she helped Hawkeseye. Give me water bottle. Hawkeseye get water. Hot Air Sue look after girl. She mustn’t run away. No money, no girl.”

“Umph! umph!” grunted the woman. “Sue would get water for young chief, but Sue must hold girl.”

Hawkeseye took the bottle and started down to a spring which bubbled out of the rocks at the foot of a small precipice at one side of the road.

Billie watched him as he leaped nimbly from one rock to another. Then with one flying leap 172 she was out of the machine and had cranked it up. At the sound of the motor the man looked up quickly, dropped the bottle with a crash of broken glass and began to run up the cliff. It was a difficult place in which to turn, and Billie was obliged to go backward down a narrow road, but the young girl kept her head and moved the machine slowly and deliberately.

Another moment and they were headed in the other direction, but Hawkeseye had reached them. With a bound he seized the back of the machine and was lifting himself on his elbows.

Instantly Hot Air Sue whipped out a knife which she had hidden somewhere in the depths of her shawl, and slashed him across the wrist. With a yell of fury the man fell backward and lay on the ground. Billie gave one glance over her shoulder. Never had she felt so deliberately and cruelly cold-blooded as at that moment. If Buckthorne Hawkes’ back had been broken she would have gone on just the same. But it was 173 not broken, for a second glance showed him crawling to the side of the road.

“I’m at Steptoe Lodge. Do you know where that is?” she asked Hot Air Sue, who was regarding her efforts at running the motor car with stolid admiration.

“Thirty miles? That’s nothing,” replied Billie cheerfully. “Is this the right road?”

“Hot Air Sue tell everything. Hot Air Sue talk much. That’s why cowboys call her ‘Hot Air.’”

Billie laughed. Was it possible she had been dying of thirst in the desert only a few hours before, and here she was exhilarated and almost shouting with joy over her escape; riding with Hot Air Sue in a perfectly strange automobile. 174 But was it perfectly strange? She leaned over and looked at the color as they sped along. It was gray. It was a racing car and it was built for two.

“Hawkeseye bad man. Hawkeseye call himself school-teacher. He bad Indian,” went on Sue. “He no teacher. He thief. He no Indian, either. He only half Indian. That’s why Hawkeseye bad man. All white or all red better.”

“Umph! Umph! His sisters, they spoil Hawkeseye. They work to send him to school and give him fine clothes.”

“The illustrious Hawkes family,” said Billie to herself. “Well-known in the West. I think the most dangerous member of that family had better be locked up.”

The first stars were just coming into view when Billie drew up in front of Steptoe Lodge, but in all that big ranch house only two human 175 beings were there to greet her—Miss Helen Campbell and the Chinese cook.

Seizing a trumpet made of a cow’s horn the Chinaman rushed to the top of the house and blew half a dozen blasts that resounded over the prairie like the call of the wild huntsman, and in fifteen minutes from every direction horses and ponies bearing cowboy riders were dashing across the plains toward the Lodge. But far more amazing to Billie was the sight of her own red Comet hastening eagerly toward her, and at the wheel sat Mary, clever little pupil that she was, and in the back seat were Elinor and Nancy crying and calling and waving their handkerchiefs all at once.

Miss Campbell had been completely prostrated. She was in bed with a wet towel around her head and her eyes were red with weeping. Billie also was put to bed and fed by her devoted friends with hot soup and dry toast. She was more exhausted than she cared to admit, and it was Hot Air Sue, with her talent for inexhaustible conversation, 176 who made explanations to the household of Steptoe Lodge.

The next morning two men arrived at the Lodge. They bore a warrant for the arrest of one, Buckthorne Hawkes, automobile thief. But Buckthorne Hawkes was not to be found. However, they confiscated the gray racing car, and the girls knew that Peter Van Vechten was once more in possession of his property.

177CHAPTER XIV.—ON THE ROAD AGAIN.

The Comet had now a guide. No more excursions into the wilderness of the unknown for him. Timidly and cautiously he crept along as close to the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad as the highway permitted, for they were about to go through the wild rugged country where rise the snow-capped ranges of the Rocky Mountains.

“It was interesting, but uncomfortable,” Miss Campbell had said. For a whole day Billie’s experience had quite shaken Miss Campbell’s enthusiasm in the journey. It was not a permanent distaste, however. Having remained quietly in West Haven for a quarter of a century, the little woman was now possessed with a thirst for travel. She had developed into a high-toned Gypsy with a disposition to perpetual wandering. 178

The partings at Steptoe Lodge had some of them been quite moving; but not Rosina’s, who had bade them a chilly farewell. Her nature was a stormy one, a strange mixture of hot and cold, anger and humility, courage and fear.

“I don’t know whom she’s angriest with,” Billie had observed, “our ex-teacher, Maria, for putting her brother up to such lawless tricks or us because we were the victims.”

“I hope they catch him,” said Miss Campbell firmly. “I do, indeed, and shut him up in prison for a long, long time. Such dangerous characters ought not to be allowed to run at large.”

“They’ll catch him if Brek Steptoe has any influence,” put in Nancy. “Barney told me his cousin was never going to put up with Hawkeseye again. He had stood all he intended. Rosina was now to choose between them.”

“What is that you’re looking at, Nancy?” demanded Elinor, changing the subject.

Poor Jim had ridden for some miles beside the Comet and they had gone slowly in order to enjoy his company. Then, with a last hand-shake all around and a heart-breaking sigh, he stopped in the middle of the road, his sombrero in one hand and his horse’s reins in the other. And there he stood as still as a statue until the motor car was reduced to a small scarlet dot on the horizon. When he had shaken hands with Nancy, he thrust a small package into her lap. There were tears in Nancy’s eyes when she looked at the contents of the package, although her laugh rang out as merrily as her friends’ as she drew forth the hind foot of a jack rabbit mounted on a plaited loop of horsehair.

“Does he expect me to wear this thing around my neck,” she cried dangling the clumsy paw between her small thumb and forefinger.

Nancy smiled again as she read the note, first to herself and then out loud: 180

“I killed the rabbit in an Indian burying ground in the dark of the moon. The hair came from my horse’s tail. He’s a fine little animal, my horse. I love him best in the world next to—something else I like better. I wish it were a gold rabbit’s foot set in diamonds, but it’s a long ways here from a jewelry store, and this is the best I can do. I’ve had it a long time, and it’s brought me good luck at last, because I’ve met you. I hope it will bring you luck. Good-by. It’s the hardest good-by I ever had to say. If I ever strike a gold mine I’m coming East. Good-by again.

“Poor, lonely soul!” exclaimed Miss Campbell, wiping the moisture from her eyes. “Where are his people, I wonder?”

“He hasn’t any,” answered Nancy. “His father was a miner and he died when Jim was a little boy. He’s worked in lumber camps and lived around like this all his life. I think he’s 181 very gentlemanly, considering. He says Tony has taught him a lot. Jim is only eighteen, you know, although he looks much older.”

Deep down in her heart Miss Campbell made a resolution that she would like to do something very nice for Jim.

They slept that night at Cheyenne, which had once been a rude little frontier town, and was now a handsome city, and the next day pushed on toward Laramie. After riding hundreds of miles over level prairie grounds, the eyes become accustomed to wide stretches of landscape and the mind, too, takes a broader and more generous outlook on life. What is called “the peace of the plains” seems to brood over the traveler.

Our five motorists were filled with this quietude as they went Westward. All the difficulties of the trip and past dangers were forgotten. They were as peaceful as holy pilgrims journeying toward Mecca. At last, late in the afternoon, Billie suddenly stopped the car and pointed silently toward the setting sun. She had caught her first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. 182

Far in the distance they lay, the first vague misty opalescent peaks of the great chain which divides the West into countries. They were only the earliest indications of the wild and beautiful scenery of Wyoming through which they were about to pass.

The girls thrilled at the thought of Evelyn. What might not have happened to her since she had been compelled to return to Utah.

“Perhaps her father has made her marry a Mormon,” suggested Mary in an awed tone of voice.

“Or shut her in a dungeon,” pursued Nancy, who had a vague idea such things might take place in this strange city.

“It’s like the story of the wicked king and the princess,” here put in Elinor, her thoughts running on royal blood as usual.

The girls smiled, but the notion was a disquieting one at any rate and Billie began silently to 183 calculate how long it would take before they could reach Salt Lake City, weather and Comet permitting.

“I wish—I wish——” she began, but the whistle of a locomotive interrupted her.

“A man is flagging it, don’t you see. It’s the track walker, I suppose. Perhaps something is the matter ahead.”

A very tall man with a lean figure, broad shoulders and a flopping sombrero hat was, in fact, waving a red flag in front of the Western express, which slowed up and presently, almost opposite the motor car, came to a full stop. The Comet also paused and waited to see what was the trouble.

The engine was too far in front to hear the conversation between the engineer, who now thrust his head out of the window, and the individual with the flag. But what happened next was exceedingly strange. The flagman, casting 184 aside his signal, followed the engineer down the track to the first coach, which was the baggage car, and presently emerged on the platform leading to the next coach.

And now the engineer was not alone. Several baggage men and train officials had joined him, and they walked with their arms held up in the air. So absorbed was the motor party with the strange actions of the train people that they failed at the moment to notice what the lean individual was carrying in his hand. Neither could they tell what was taking place in the first passenger coach, but as the train officials were herded across the platform, still with arms uplifted, they suddenly became aware that the pockets in their coats, trousers and waistcoats were turned wrong side out, and that the man who was driving them in front of him like a herd of cattle held a pistol in his right hand, on the barrel of which the sun shone brilliantly.

“Billie, Billie, go on as fast as you can go, they are train robbers,” whispered Miss Campbell hoarsely, almost bereft of her voice from fright. 185

Billie jumped out of the machine, wishing with all her heart that somebody would invent a motor car that wouldn’t need to be cranked up.

“Beggin’ your pardon, Miss, will you kindly stay where you are?” said a soft, drawling voice behind them.

They turned quickly and faced another broad-shouldered individual with a sombrero half covering his lean, sunburned face. His gray eyes twinkled with amusement when he saw their consternation.

“We won’t do no harm to you, ladies, except to ask you for a lift after this little business is over. Jes’ keep perfectly quiet and ask no questions, and we’ll tell you no lies.”

“Suppose we don’t care to give you a lift,” she said, her hand on the cranking lever.

“That would be a pity, Miss,” answered the man coaxingly, “because,” he went on slowly, “you see——” his hand slipped in his hip pocket and drew out a small, dangerous-looking revolver. 186

“Billie, darling, don’t oppose the creature!” cried Miss Campbell in a strangled voice.

“Steady! steady!” said the man. “Don’t git nervous, lady. You’ll come through the ordeal as well as you ever was in your life. Jes’ draw in a bit.”

Never had the moments dragged so slowly as they did now. Through the car windows they could see men and women with arms uplifted. Was it possible that one man could rob fifty? No; not one. They perceived two confederates, who had sprung up from somewhere, followed behind with a pistol in each hand. An intense quiet seemed to hang over the place as the robbers went silently through the train, and at last emerged from the back. The herd of officials were now made to get out and walk toward the engine. The engineer was permitted to climb into his engine, the others climbed in anywhere after him. As the train began to get up steam a man called out:

“Good heavens! there’s an automobile full of 187 girls. We can’t leave them at the mercy of these blackguards.”

“Confederates? Nonsense! Don’t you see that fellow has a pistol aimed at them?”

As the train started, the passenger ran back to the platform and jumped off. The next moment three train robbers and a young man without any hat surrounded the Comet:

“Now, don’t try any monkey business, young feller,” said the first robber, pointing his pistol at the passenger. “Jes’ stay right where you are. I don’t want to commit murder.”

“Put that pistol up, Jim Bowles. I’m not afraid of you or of any of your disreputable acquaintances. These ladies are friends of mine, and I intend to stay with them.”

The girls, who had huddled down in the car white and silent, took courage and looked up.

“I mean what I say,” pursued Jim Bowles. “If you wanter be still breathing fresh air in another two minutes, stay where you are.”

“I cut you down,” said Daniel Moore. “You would have been strung up there yet if I hadn’t come back in time. The scar is still there, I see.”

With one stride Jim Bowles reached the other side of the automobile and seized Mr. Moore’s hand.

“Wuz you the gennelman? Stranger, git in and take it easy. We won’t do no harm to these ladies. But we’d like to git a lift. I knowed you 189 wuz a brave man as soon as I seen you, and no one kin ever say Jim Bowles forgits a favor.”

Daniel Moore climbed in behind with Miss Helen and the girls who huddled down somehow, while the robbers pressed themselves into the front and Billie started the machine.

190CHAPTER XV.—IN THE ROBBERS’ NEST.

For an hour the Comet had been toiling upward by a circuitous and intricate way. But he had not lost in speed. Billie had made up her mind not to linger. If they must see these men into a safe hiding place it was well to get it over with as soon as possible.

They had not been permitted to light the Comet’s one illuminating eye, but had gone silently and swiftly along. It was now eight o’clock by the motor timepiece, but it was still light enough to see the road winding in front of them like a white ribbon in the blue gray atmosphere.

“We are most there now, young Miss,” Jim Bowles observed respectfully. He admired intensely this intrepid young woman who drove a car better than most men.

“Most where?” she asked calmly, but with inward quaking. “It’s better,” she thought, “to let 191 him think I’m not frightened, but I am just the same.”

“It’s very inconvenient for us,” she replied, gathering courage as she noted his respectful manner. “We had expected to reach Salt Lake City the day after to-morrow.”

“Salt Lake City,” he exclaimed. “Young lady, it’s lucky you spoke. I know a short cut through the mountains and I’ve got a friend as’ll show you the way.”

“Many a prairie schooner has passed that way, Miss, an’ wasn’t none the worse for it, neither. The road ain’t known to everybody, but it’ll save you half a day’s travel, an’ I’ll be glad to make you acquainted with it and protect you on the journey, too.”

“Only a few hours ago we were wishing to find a short cut to Salt Lake City,” she thought. 192 “Wishes do come true in such an unpleasant manner sometimes.”

The Comet slowed down. The road became very steep and rugged, and straight above them loomed a precipice, like an immeasurable black wall. As they turned a curve a blast of cold air blew straight into their faces, and they began to feel strangely light, as if they had no bodies and were floating in space. Presently in the dim light they perceived three silent figures standing across the road, each with a shotgun.

“Draw in, men, it’s friends,” called Jim Bowles. “Take this road, Miss,” he added, pointing to a broad trail that appeared to have been cut through the rocks.

The motorists gave a start of surprise when the Comet presently slipped into what proved to be later a sort of cup in the side of the mountain, well hidden by the rocky walls surrounding it.

In the dim light they saw a group of log huts huddled close together, as if for companionship. There were lights in the windows, and framed in the doorway of the nearest hut was the figure 193 of a woman whose face was turned anxiously in their direction.

Jim Bowles crawled slowly out of the motor car and began a whispered conference with his confederates.

“Mr. Moore,” said Miss Campbell, as she clutched his arm, “we are in a nest of robbers. Do you think we shall ever get out alive? Tell me the worst before they come back.”

“Don’t let them know you are frightened. These men admire courage more than anything else in the world. I will keep with you every moment. The man named Bowles owes his life to me, and even with all their lawlessness, these poor souls are not ungrateful. Don’t protest about anything, and don’t make any demands. Try to be perfectly calm and, above all, pretend to be pleased. I believe they’ll do the best they can for you tonight. They may even show us out of the gulch, although I doubt it.”

Miss Campbell lapsed into silence. She considered that Daniel Moore had a very optimistic turn of mind, considering the circumstances. 194

“You can’t git out of the gulch to-night, Miss,” said Jim Bowles, returning to the side of the car. “It’s too dark, and the roads ain’t good enough for night travel in that there machine. You’ll have to stay here tonight, but before we admit you into our happy homes you’ve got to take an oath, an’ if you break it it’ll be the worse for you. We don’t take no half measures.”

“You’ve got to promise before we let you leave this place that you never will tell to nobody what you know about it, and that the one that shows you the trail to-morrow morning won’t git pinched through you.”

Jim Bowles was not satisfied until he made each occupant of the motor car say solemnly: “I promise,” from Mary, with her high, sweet voice, to Daniel Moore in his deeper tones.

And now there came that crucial moment when the Motor Maids and Miss Helen Campbell were obliged to leave the protecting interior of the 195 Comet and mingle with a band of mountain brigands.

“I can’t do it, Mr. Moore. I tell you, I shall simply die of fright,” Miss Campbell whimpered into the ear of Daniel Moore, who seemed like an old and intimate friend in this dangerous situation.

“You must,” he said, giving her his arm. “Keep up and don’t show you are frightened. If you trust them, they’ll do their best for you, as they have promised.”

Then followed Jim Bowles into the first cabin, where the woman had been waiting. She was not in sight now.

“Minnie!” called Jim, but there was no answer, and he left the house with an exclamation of annoyance.

The girls looked about them timidly. The strangeness and danger of their dilemma had made them silent. Mary clung to Elinor and Elinor pressed closely to Miss Campbell’s side, while Billie and Nancy kept their hands clasped together with that intimate grasp of two friends 196 who need no words in which to express their feelings.

There were two rooms in the cabin. The first, a bedroom, and the back room a kitchen; and they were astonishingly clean and neat, considering the wildness of their occupants. No doubt this was due to Minnie, who now appeared, dark-eyed, handsome and defiant. She stood in the doorway, looking at them, half boldly and half timidly.

Then Miss Helen Campbell made what she considered afterward the effort of her life.

“How do you do, my dear?” she said. “It’s very kind of you to take us into your nice little home. Shall we not be friends? I must introduce you to my four girls.”

She raised her heavenly blue eyes and gazed blandly into the girl’s fierce dark ones, taking Minnie’s limp hand into hers. Perhaps it had been many a day since a lady had spoken kindly 197 to Minnie and treated her as an equal. At any rate, she melted completely.

“I’m glad you come,” she said, smiling broadly and showing two rows of even white teeth. “It’s awful lonely here sometimes when Jim’s away.” She looked across at Jim tenderly, and they all of them understood at once what it was that kept Minnie on this lonely mountain side.

It was not long before they were comfortably installed in Jim’s cabin. On the little stove in the back room bacon was sending out a pleasing aroma. Nancy was engaged in making an omelette. Elinor had charge of the tea, while Mary and Billie brought from the store of provisions in the Comet the best that it afforded in the way of jam, cheese and mixed pickles.

Minnie helped them when she could, but she was very shy and afraid of being in the way. Daniel Moore and Miss Campbell sat near the stove talking in low voices. Miss Campbell had related to him the story of their chance meeting with Evelyn Stone. Occasionally Jim Bowles came and stood in the doorway. There was an 198 expression in his eyes half wistful and half amused as he regarded these unusual activities in his home.

“Invite Jim and Minnie to supper,” whispered Daniel Moore, “if you want to bind them to you with hoops of steel.”

It was never very difficult for the little lady to be charming, and having won over Minnie she had somewhat overcome her fears.

“Mr. Bowles,” she said with a graciousness that fairly captivated the brigand, “we cannot take possession of your house unless you promise to join us at supper. Will you sit here by me, and Minnie, you would rather sit with the girls, that is quite plain? Come, Mr. Moore.”

There was not room for all the party at the table, however, and Minnie ate her supper with Billie and Nancy on a bench by the stove.

With a sheepish smile on his face Jim Bowles sat down obediently at the table and for the first time in his life engaged in an agreeable conversation on terms of equality with a real lady.

“If everybody was as nice as you, ma’am,” he 199 said, “I think I would be willing to—to—well, give all this up. It’s excitin’ but it’s dangerous, and it ain’t respectable.”

“Mr. Bowles,” said Miss Helen, “I believe you are an honest man at heart. No man could have such a devoted wife and not have some good in him. The moment you decide to give up this—this wild life and are looking for honest employment, I shall be glad to help you. There is my card. I have only one thing to ask in return: that you see us safely through the mountains to-morrow.”

Minnie, who had left the bench and was standing near Miss Campbell’s chair, with a rapt expression on her face, cried out fiercely:

In the distance came the sound of horses’ hoofs ringing out on the hard mountain road. 200

“Ladies, remember your promise!” cried Jim, and with one bound he was out of the house and gone.

And then, as if this were not enough to shatter their nervous system into little bits, Minnie flung herself on the floor in front of Miss Campbell in a perfect passion of tears.

“You won’t give him up!” she cried, beating her hands together in misery. “You ain’t goin’ fer to give him up?”

Miss Campbell looked at Daniel Moore, but he refused to advise even by a glance.

Billie kneeled down beside Minnie and put her arm around the poor girl’s neck, while she looked appealingly at her cousin.

“My poor child,” said Miss Campbell, after a very perceptible pause, “we won’t tell on your husband. He is certainly a very lawless character, but maybe he’ll reform if he has a chance.” 201

“Thank you! Thank you!” cried Minnie, kissing Miss Campbell’s small hand with all the fervor of her warm nature.

“Now, Minnie, go about your work as if nothing had happened. The girls will help you, and leave the rest to me. Well,” she observed in a low voice to Daniel Moore, who was standing by the window, looking anxiously out, “if any one had told me this morning that this evening I should be protecting a train robber from the law, I should never have believed them in the world. But things seem to happen out in the West that never could happen in the East.”

“Go and sit down,” whispered Daniel Moore. “I think we might protect this poor girl if we can, wrong as it would seem to the law.”

“Come out, Jim Bowles. Don’t try to escape. The house is surrounded. You’ll git shot for your pains if you do.”

“And who might these be?” demanded the sheriff, pointing to Miss Helen and the girls.

“Let the women answer for themselves. Who are you?” demanded the sheriff roughly.

“Would you mind taking off your hat?” she said. “It is easier for me to reply to a man when he is not wearing a hat.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “We don’t often see ladies in this wild country.”

“We are a party of motorists.” said Miss 203 Campbell. “We took the wrong road, and this very kind woman gave us shelter. To-morrow we hope to resume our journey.”

“Do you know you are probably in the cabin of one of the worst outlaws in the State?”

“Are you sure, sir? It is very difficult to believe, and where one is treated with so much hospitality one does not look for such things.”

“I believe there’s a mistake, Sheriff,” said one of the men. “The chief’s nest is farther up the mountain. These people could never have found it in a motor car.”

Presently the men left the house. There was a long, long interval when they sat listening with strained ears for sounds in the darkness. Once there were shots in the distance. At last, as their 204 heads were drooping with fatigue and they yearned to lie down anywhere and sleep, the door opened and Jim Bowles crept cautiously in.

“Minnie will guide you to the Gap,” he said. “I will meet you there, and show you the short cut through the mountains. Good night. And, Miss Campbell, I’ll accept your proposition. I’ve been bad, I suppose, because I thought there wasn’t nobody good, even the people that claimed to be—an’ there wasn’t no use of me bein’, neither. But I was mistaken, by a long shot. You kin have back the money, too. I reckon I’ve got enough on hand to give the boys their share and still make it out. I was savin’ up to buy a ranch in Idyho. But there’s more ways than this of gittin’ on. Minnie, I reckon you’ll be glad. Ain’t you, gal?”

“Glad?” whispered Minnie, moving to his side and resting her cheek against his shoulder.

“I don’t want to git caught—understand?” he said. “But I’ve done with this old life forever, so help me.” 205

But Miss Helen Campbell considered Jim and Minnie her private discovery and particular property, and that night, reposing on a steamer rug spread over their bed, she dreamed golden dreams of their future.

206CHAPTER XVI.—IN THE ROCKIES.

Billie slept later than her friends next morning. Even their movements about the room as they dressed did not disturb her, and when at last she opened her eyes the sun was pouring his rays through the small window of the cabin and outside was the glory of a mid-summer day; for it was June 21st, and was to be a memorable day in the annals of their trip.

“Dear me,” she exclaimed, “why doesn’t somebody repeat, ‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.’ I seem to scent coffee in the air. Chief cook and bottle washer, what have you got for breakfast?”

“Corn bread from Minnie’s corn meal,” replied Nancy, who answered to this title, “and shirred eggs, the last in our storehouse, and chopped beef——”

“You lavish and wasteful young persons,” she cried. “How do you know we won’t need some of these things before we get back to civilization?”

“There are still baked beans,” said Nancy reproachfully. Nancy was a born cook, and, like other born cooks, she was only amiable when she was not interfered with.

“Go out and look at the scenery,” she continued, “and leave us in peace. We won’t starve. There’s a box of wheaten biscuit left.”

“I’d just as soon eat a bale of hay,” cried Billie contemptuously. “And there’s the Comet. He has to be fed this morning. How do I know that our provisions will last? If the food fails and the gasoline likewise, ‘et puis bon jour,’ as the song says.”

But Billie wasn’t really apprehensive. The day was too fine and her spirits too high.

“The truth is, we are all like the angels in heaven rejoicing over one sinner repented,” said Mary in a low voice, for Minnie could be seen approaching with a pail of water from the spring. 208

Toilets are meagre affairs in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains, and in a quarter of an hour Billie was fully clothed, washed and combed. Mary had closed the door of the cabin while she dressed.

“Don’t look out until you see it all at once,” she said. “It’s too wonderful to take it by piece-meal.”

Billie, therefore, had not an inkling of what was in store for her until she stepped out of the cabin.

Nothing on all her journeys with her father could equal the grand panorama which was revealed beyond the cabin door. They appeared to be in a world of peaks—“Mr. and Mrs. Peak, and all the young Peaks,” she wrote to her father later. In the far distance were snow-capped peaks and nearer were lesser peaks. The cabin was built alarmingly near the edge of a great cañon, at the foot of which, hundreds of feet below, lay a little green valley amazingly peaceful in all this rugged scenery, in which cattle no 209 bigger than pinheads at that distance, were quietly grazing.

Billie trembled to think what they might have climbed the night before without suspecting it. This was certainly a good place for a robbers’ nest. The cabin was perched on a shelf in the side of the mountain, and brave were the men, Billie thought, who dared to climb the path that led to it.

It was a gay breakfast party that gathered around the small table that morning and Minnie’s eyes glistened with appreciation at sight of the white cloth and the bunch of wild flowers in the center, which had been Elinor’s contribution to the breakfast.

Even Daniel Moore reflected the good spirits of Miss Campbell and the Motor Maids, although his hat and coat and all his luggage had been carried away on the train. He had talked a little of Evelyn with Miss Helen before breakfast.

“I certainly do; but she is very young and impetuous, 210 and we must be extremely careful what we do, especially if you think she has been influenced against you in some way. Her father seems dreadfully stern and cruel. It made me shiver even to look at him.”

“He’s really quite fanatic about his religion,” answered Mr. Moore. “And you know what such people are—almost madmen; but he is crafty and shrewd and very cruel, and I would hate to involve you and the girls in any trouble. That is the reason I was hurrying on to Salt Lake City. From the itinerary you gave me, I judged that would be your next address, and I wanted to stop you before you got into difficulties.”

“The girls have set their hearts on seeing Evelyn again,” said Miss Campbell, carefully refraining from mentioning that her own heart had some leanings in that direction also.

Another hour and the front of the little cabin appeared like an inscrutable face on the side of the mountain, with closed eyes and sealed lips. 211 No need to bar the door now from the sheriff and his men, for the birds had flown. But because she was never to see the little house again, and because, in spite of everything, she had known some happiness there, Minnie dropped the calico curtain at the window and fastened the wooden latch on the door. It was the last rites before she buried her old life forever in the mountains and began a new one with Jim in the East.

With an expression of grave determination on her face she took her seat beside Nancy in the front and never once looked back until they had rounded the curve of the mountain.

Nobody talked much on that morning ride. Billie was engaged in guiding the Comet carefully along the dangerous road which cut through a cleft in the mountain, and in many places was just wide enough for the car to pass. Sometimes they were on the edge of such dizzy heights that Miss Campbell held her breath and clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.

“I dare not even whisper,” she said to herself, “for fear of startling that child at the wheel.” 212

She contented herself with clutching Daniel Moore’s arm, but in her heart she doubted if even Jim’s salvation was worth the risk of so many lives. As for the girls, they had hardly realized the dangers of the ride, so absorbed were they in the marvelous scenery. The snow caps of the distant ranges gleamed pink in the sunshine, and deep purple shadows lay on the ravines below.

As the Comet mounted up and up the steep grade, Miss Campbell’s head became lighter and lighter, and her fears seemed to slip away. The high altitude had a strangely intoxicating effect on Nancy, too. She began to laugh just from the sheer joy of living.

“I feel like an inhabitant of Mars,” she said. “Just a brains and a stomach, and no body. I haven’t but two sensations—hunger and happiness.”

“Minnie, it’s ten minutes of twelve o’clock,” said Billie presently. “Are we anywhere near the Gap?”

“It’s just down there,” answered Minnie, “but I don’t see Jim,” she added, looking about uneasily.

The notion that Jim might not be there to guide them out of this wild country had never come to any of them.

“He’s had a long ways to go to get here,” said Minnie. “He’s had to travel all night on horseback, but if nothin’ happens to him, Jim’ll keep his word. He ain’t never broke it in his life.”

This was reassuring in one way, but discouraging in another—if nothing happened! Why had it not occurred to them that many, many things could happen?

“Don’t be uneasy,” he said. “I daresay we can get a guide if Jim doesn’t show up.”

The road now took a downward turn so precipitate that they wondered how the emigrant vans of the Mormons which had once traveled this way 214 had been prevented from rolling over the horses and pitching headlong down the incline.

But the Comet made the down grade slowly and deliberately. Back of them they could see the road winding around the side of the mountain. Suddenly a group of horsemen came into sight around the curve. They were mere specks of black against the white roadway at this distance, but Minnie recognized them.

“Jim!” she called, her voice rising to a high treble, “Jim, man, it’s the sheriff!”

And then, looking like some wild creature which had been summoned out of the dark places of the earth, Jim himself appeared, running down the side of the mountain, stooping low like a hunted animal. The sweat poured from his face; his clothes were torn in ribbons and his hands were cut and bleeding.

“You see, I didn’t break my word,” he said; “but it ain’t likely I’ll escape now. I’m too tired. I’ve been runnin’ for half the night.”

“We couldn’t hide him in the car. Besides, if they caught him, it would get you into no end of trouble,” answered Daniel.

“He could have saved himself if it hadn’t been for us,” said Nancy reproachfully.

“We could disguise him in Billie’s polo coat with a veil and goggles,” suggested Mary suddenly.

Don’t blame these good people for what they now proceeded to do. Certainly it was the wildest, most reckless and dangerous adventure ever engaged in by six sensible, well-brought-up people, and two of them at least old enough to know better. Remember only that their sympathies were very much engaged, and that every cent stolen from the limited express was to be returned. While the horsemen were hidden behind a wall of rock, Jim’s identity was changed. He became a female of uncertain age in a polo coat, an automobile bonnet, goggles and a chiffon veil, which concealed his countenance. And sitting 216 between Miss Campbell and Daniel Moore on the back seat he resembled any other motorist on a long trip.

They moved slowly down into the valley, and the horsemen as they passed lifted their black felt hats with quite a gallant air to Miss Campbell and her party.

And so Jim was snatched from the clutches of the law. As he will not appear again in this story it will probably interest you to know what became of this highly romantic, daring individual. After turning over to the railroad by a secret agent—none other than Daniel Moore himself—a most remarkable letter, printed below (which you no doubt have seen, since it was published broadcast in every paper in the country) and returning every penny of the money taken that day from the passengers, Jim disappeared from the world as a public character. Taking his real name, Jim Dolan, he became a private citizen, and at this very moment Jim and Minnie Dolan are tenants of one of Miss Campbell’s beautiful 217 farms in the vicinity of West Haven. They have two children and are useful members of society.

And all because a lady asked a common thief to eat supper with her and treated him as a guest.

Here is Jim’s letter to the railroad company, written in a large, sprawling handwriting:

“To Whom It May Concern—and chiefly the Union Pacific Railroad Company: The undersigned was once Jim Bowles, train robber. I am a reformed man from this day. I ain’t got religion exactly, but the world is a better place than I thought it was. I made a mistake. There are some mighty nice people in it, after all. I herewith return moneys took; henceforth from now on forever more, amen, I lead a new life, so help me God! There are two kinds of repentant sinners. The ones that pray all day for forgiveness and forgets to work, and them that works so hard they haven’t got no time to pray. I’m the last kind. I’m going to work. Amen!

218CHAPTER XVII.—SALT LAKE CITY.

Imagine a lovely valley, green and fertile, encircled by a great chain of mountains. Glistening to the westward, like a gem on its bosom, is a beautiful lake, and from the very heart of the valley rises the city itself. It nestles at the foot of a vast granite temple, which towers above the homes of the citizens like a great, gray mountain.

“Perhaps the Land of Canaan looked like this to the Israelites,” exclaimed Mary Price, as the Comet paused on the steep road in order to give our pilgrims their first glimpse of the old Mormon city. For the last thirty-six hours they had been surfeited with magnificent scenery.

“Snow-capped mountains and cañons and waterfalls are getting to be just everyday affairs,” wrote Billie to her father, still in distant Russia.

It was a rest to their eyes and their minds, 219 therefore, to look down on this peaceful and exquisite valley, Evelyn’s home.

“It’s all very beautiful,” observed Miss Campbell. “I’m sure I never saw a more enchanting scene in my life. But there’s one thing that makes it more beautiful to me even than the Vale of Cashmere, and that’s a hot bath. I’m looking forward to a hot bath, my dears, and a good night’s rest on a hair mattress in the best hotel in the city. I trust you feel the same.”

“We look a good deal like a United States geological surveying party, after three months in the wilderness,” answered Daniel Moore, looking quizzically at the girls’ sunburned faces, and glancing down at his gray flannel shirt, borrowed from Jim Bowles.

“I do feel as if I had returned to my natural element,” said Elinor; “just a handful of dust. I am chewing dust and seeing dust and hearing dust. My hair is dust and so are my clothes.”

“After we are scrubbed and shampooed and manicured and fed and rested,” here put in Billie, 220 “I shall write a note to your Evelyn, Mr. Moore.”

“I’ve repented my bargain with you, Miss Billie. I’m afraid you might get into some kind of trouble. I should never forgive myself if I involved you in any difficulties.”

“Nonsense,” said Billie, who, having made up her mind to see Evelyn, was not going to be thwarted at the eleventh hour. “There could be no possible harm in my writing and asking her to call. Besides, we know her now anyhow, quite well. Don’t we, Helen?”

“Yes-s—,” hesitated her cousin. “But I agree with Mr. Moore, that we had better not make any more efforts to see Evelyn, although I can’t possibly see how we could become involved in any trouble by renewing our acquaintance.”

So the discussion came to an end. What this beautiful city with the mysteries which hung over it had in store for them, they could not even guess. Perhaps they would visit its chief points of interest like ordinary tourists, and 221 perhaps, who knows, they might penetrate far deeper into its secrets. They were certain of one thing, however, that Daniel Moore, for all his self-contained and calm exterior, was consumed with an unquenchable flame of determination. By hook or by crook, he would see Evelyn Stone, and, provided she was willing, he would take her away from Utah.

“And we are likely to be the ‘hook or crook,’” observed Billie, through whose mind these thoughts were passing, as she guided the Comet into a broad, spacious street, lined with beautiful stone houses.

“Where does Evelyn live?” asked Nancy. “Couldn’t we go by the house on our way to the hotel?”

“Their town house is on this very street,” answered Evelyn’s lover, “but they are likely to be in the country at this time of the year. That’s another difficulty. You will see the place presently. It’s on the corner. Old Stone is a very rich person, I’m afraid. If he hadn’t had so 222 much money, he wouldn’t have looked down on me as a son-in-law.”

Billie slowed up as they neared the fine granite mansion built by Evelyn’s father. The front shades were all pulled down, and there was not a sign of life about the place.

“It looks more like a prison than a home,” Billie exclaimed. “Does he keep his pretty Evelyn locked up there all winter?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Daniel ruefully. “She hasn’t had much liberty since she met me, anyhow. He’s an infernal old——”

Daniel broke off in the middle of a sentence, for the front door of the Stone house had opened, and there on the threshold, like a dragon at the castle gate, stood John James Stone. He could never be said to glance casually at anything, but his sharp eyes only rested for a moment on the passing motor car, and he turned on his heel and entered the house.

But they soon approached an immense, splendid hotel, 223 and the thought of hot baths and clean clothes was sweeter to the weary ladies at that moment than the most idyllic romance ever conceived.

It was to this hotel that Daniel Moore’s luggage had been checked, and there he found and redeemed it with the check the late train robber had considerately returned to him.

“You won’t see us again until seven o’clock to-night, Mr. Moore,” Miss Campbell had said. “And then you may not know us, we shall be so transformed with soap and water.”

“I may have news for you by then,” he said, as they separated at the elevator.

“I suppose butterflies feel about as we do,” observed Nancy that evening as they filed down to dinner.

“Meaning when they cease to be worms and appear clothed in fine raiment,” asked Billie.

“Not so very fine,” answered Nancy, fingering a streamer 224 of her pink sash with a tender touch, as she glanced complaisantly down at her lingerie frock.

“Little butterfly,” she said, “is there anything; you like better than pretty clothes?”

“There is just this minute,” she answered. “Dinner with waiters and soup and mayonnaise and strawberry ice cream.”

After a month’s Gypsying, it was good to be civilized for a few days before the thirst for wandering came over them again, and they must push on toward California.

Daniel Moore was not at the appointed meeting-place, in one of the small sitting rooms. They waited impatiently for him for a quarter of an hour, and finally left word at the desk that he would find them in the dining room. There, in the interest of dinner and of the occupants 225 of other tables, their recent fellow traveler completely passed from their minds.

“It takes a thousand miles of privation to appreciate real comfort,” observed Miss Helen Campbell, delicately nibbling the breast of a spring chicken. “My dear children, how very pleasant this is, to be sure.”

The Motor Maids fully agreed with her. The lights and the flowers, the music and the well-trained waiters, as well as the delicious dinner, afforded them supreme enjoyment for the moment. They tried to remember that less than seventy years had passed since the first ox-drawn emigrant wagon had entered the valley.

“And since that time all this has happened,” cried Mary dramatically. For it was she, more than the others, who loved the history of the places through which they passed. “They say Brigham Young saw it all in a dream,” she continued, “and the moment he set eyes on the valley and the lake, he said: ‘This is the place. Drive on.’”

“‘And forty years later Brigham Young laid 226 the corner-stone for the Temple,’” read Billie from the guide book in a sing-song voice. “‘The architecture is composite——’ What’s that?”

She raised her eyes questioningly. “Why, you haven’t heard a word I——” she began.

Four pairs of eyes were turned toward the entrance of the dining room, where stood a tall, slender, young girl, in a white dress. Her red-gold hair was coiled low on her neck. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and she gazed with a listless air into space, without seeing any of the diners at the tables. Her father, the imperturbable John James Stone, was on one side of her, and on the other an equally imperturbable young man, with a stern, rather hard countenance, a square jaw and a mouth as inscrutable and enigmatic as the shut door of a tomb.

The head waiter conducted the party to a table in a far-distant corner of the room, where the girls could see them without staring rudely.

“That’s Evelyn Stone,” said a woman at the table next to them. “She’s with her fiancé, Ebenezer Stone. He’s her second cousin, you know.” 227

“The day after to-morrow. That’s why they’re in town. She is to be married in the annex of the Temple on Saturday. They say she’s not over-anxious, either. There was another man in the case, you know. But something happened, and she’s consented to marry Ebenezer, who’s always wanted her. He’s a good Mormon and hard working. He’s made a lot of money, I believe——”

“Married the day after to-morrow,” they repeated in whispers. “And stopping in this hotel. Where, oh where, was Daniel Moore?”

“I think we’d better not stop in here, children,” said Miss Campbell in a low voice. “It would be only a kindness to keep Mr. Moore from coming into 228 the dining room while they are there.”

She led the way into the broad spacious hall of the hotel. But Daniel Moore had not been seen at the desk, nor was he in any of the parlors.

While they searched, Billie examined the hotel register. There on the same page with their own names were the three names—“John James Stone, Miss Stone, Ebenezer Stone.” Six lines above John James Stone, Daniel Moore had written his name in a fine, manly hand. Billie noted the number of Evelyn’s room, and then followed her friends up to bed.

“It’s too late for us to interfere, I am afraid,” said Miss Campbell sadly, as they stood in a silent little group in her room.

229CHAPTER XVIII.—DAVID AND GOLIATH.

It was nine o’clock when Miss Campbell and the girls bade each other a final good night. They had talked the matter of Evelyn Stone to shreds and ribbons, but Miss Campbell was determined not to interfere.

“My dear children, you are young and romantic girls, and I am a hardened old woman, and from my knowledge of the world, I assure you it would be unpardonable for us to thrust ourselves into this strictly family matter. Miss Stone evidently doesn’t want to marry Daniel Moore, or she never would have consented to marry that flint-like person named Ebenezer. No one can be coerced into marriage these days,” she added emphatically, as if attempts were being made to force her into an unhappy marriage.

When Miss Campbell once and for all vetoed a question under consideration, the Motor Maids 230 knew that the case was settled and there was no further appeal. Therefore, when those two intrepid fighters in all difficult battles, Nancy and Billie, retired to their bedrooms, their faces wore the downcast expression of the conquered. Nancy pressed a button which illuminated all the electric lights in the room, including four at the dressing table and a cluster in the center. Then she began silently examining a brown freckle on the end of her pretty nose. Billie sat near the open window in her favorite position, her hands clasping her knees. Nancy’s examining her freckle in the mirror was also a favorite position. The freckle, like the immovable cloud in the heavens at Terre del Fuego, was a permanent spot on Nancy’s physiognomy. When she examined it most closely she was thinking deeply, not of the freckle, but of something else. Billie also was immersed in meditation. Her brow was wrinkled—a danger signal with her. She was about to disobey.

“Well, why don’t you?” answered Nancy, not unprepared for the declaration.

“It isn’t much to read your mind,” answered her friend, not intending to be uncomplimentary. “Your eyes have been glued to the reflection of the telephone in the mirror for the last five minutes.”

Before Nancy could reply, she carefully removed her best frock and laid it away. Then she stretched herself on the bed. Nothing would induce her to lie down in that cherished garment.

“Say?” she began, stretching herself out comfortably. “Say—well—say ‘have you forgotten Fontainebleau?’”

“The very thing,” replied Billie. “She doesn’t know my name, of course. I might say—‘have you forgotten Prairie Inn? That was where we met her, and it wouldn’t involve Daniel. I think 232 she’s down on him, Nancy. It’s a shame, poor fellow.”

“I imagine,” continued Nancy reflectively, “that she will go to her room early. She didn’t look as if she cared to linger in the company of Ebenezer. Perhaps they will stay down and smoke some of those big black cigars like that stony man was smoking when we first saw him. If you want to catch her alone, you’d better try her now, Billie.”

“It’s against orders,” she said at last, with an expression not unlike a bad little boy’s.

“And it may get us into a peck of trouble,” went on Billie. “Will you stand by me, Nancy?”

“Never, Nancy-Bell; and it was an insult to your honor to have asked the question. Well, here goes.” 233

Billie marched to the telephone, and, with heroic decision, put the receiver to her ear.

“Miss Evelyn Stone’s room,” she said. “What’s that? Not allowed to call her up? Oh, very well. I’ll give my name—Miss Wilhelmina Campbell—an old friend—here for a few days.” She placed one hand over the mouthpiece and blinked at Nancy. “Shall I say Fontainebleau or Prairie Inn?” she called softly to Nancy, who, lying on her back on the bed, continued to peruse the brown spot on her nose by means of a small hand mirror.

“Prairie Inn,” said Nancy. “No—no, better say Fontainebleau. The father was at Prairie Inn.”

“Old Fontainebleau friend——” Billie called over the telephone. Then she put up the receiver. “The clerk will call us when he has delivered the message,” she explained. “But I’m scared, Nancy. I have a premonition of evil.”

The two girls waited breathlessly for five minutes. The telephone bell rang out.

Then she turned quite pale, and placing her hand over the mouthpiece, she whispered: “It’s old Stony-face. Come quick. You can hear.”

Even across the room Nancy caught some of those vibrant base tones, and with her ear against the telephone, she heard every word he said.

“A friend of my daughter’s, you say? An old school friend, eh? Humph——”

“Oh, yes,” called Billie. “That’s why I wanted to see her. I—er—you know——”

“Girls are all alike,” he said. “They love finery. Evelyn has got the finest trousseau that money can buy. I suppose you have heard of it. I’ll have you connected with her room.”

Evidently, Mr. John James Stone had spoken to Wilhelmina from the office, where he had made careful inquiries: five ladies in a motor car registering from the East; chaperone very distinguished looking.

Billie waited at the telephone. The ordeal of conversing with John James Stone had brought beads of moisture to her forehead. But she was still not sure that the danger was over. A man like that would be capable of keeping himself connected so as to overhear the conversation. The notion flashed into her mind, just as a sweet voice said, “Yes?” and she determined to take no chances.

“This is Wilhelmina Campbell”—there was a long pause—“Billie Campbell,” she repeated. “Evelyn, have you forgotten that day at Fontainebleau?”

Billie had played her trump card now. There was nothing else she could do. But she was glad she had not mentioned Prairie Inn, for instantly the bass voice interrupted with—“I thought you said school friend?”

“How angry she must be,” thought Billie, “to have her father eavesdrop on her like this.”

“Only a few days. But you made me promise to look you up if ever I came to Salt Lake City, and here I am, you see. There isn’t very much time. Perhaps I can see you to-night——”

Billie and Nancy exchanged long, frightened glances. They were meddling in matters which did not concern them, and which Miss Campbell had forbidden them to touch. 237

“I’ll be there right away,” said Billie, and she hung up the receiver. “Nancy, you’ll have to go to bed, and turn out all the lights. I’m so frightened about what I’m doing. It’s wrong, I suppose, but I don’t want the others to know anything about it.” She took Daniel Moore’s note from her satchel and slipped it in the neck of her dress. “No. 400,” she repeated to herself, as she hurried from the room. “He’s certain to go up on the first elevator. Fortunately, we’re on the same floor.”

She fled down a corridor; turned a corner and hurried down another, almost running into Ebenezer Stone, Evelyn’s stern fiance. She heard footsteps behind her, but she did not pause.

“Yes, Cousin John; and, by the way, there’s a little matter I wanted to see you about——”

Billie heard no more. She had reached No. 400, and old John James would be detained a moment. 238 As she tapped on the door, she drew the letter out of her dress. Instantly the door opened, and Evelyn, beautiful and pale, and very unhappy, stood before her.

“Take this quickly,” whispered Billie. “Hide it somewhere. It’s from Mr. Moore.”

“He’s not anything of the sort. I should think you’d feel ashamed to treat him so badly.”

Billie was standing with her back to the door, and suddenly Evelyn threw both arms around her neck and gave her a good squeeze.

“You were the girl at the inn,” she whispered. “And you bring me such wonderful news. I thought—they said—they showed me a clipping”—her voice changed—“think of not having seen you since Fontainebleau. You’re the dearest, sweetest——”

“Father, this is Miss——” There was just a perceptible pause, and Billie felt certain that Evelyn was searching vainly in her memory for her name. With great presence of mind, she interrupted her:

“Oh, your father and I have met,” she said. “We were introduced over the telephone. I was afraid you might think I was a boy when you heard my name was ‘Billie Campbell,’” she added, turning and facing that tower of strength and sternness. The young girl and the big man exchanged a long glance. They were not unlike David and Goliath on the field of battle, and in her heart Billie knew there was going to be a struggle.

“Show the young lady your things, Evie,” he said, with a certain complaisant pride in his tone. As if to say: “We will dazzle this young person with our magnificence.” 240

Evelyn wearily led the way into the next room, which was her bedroom, and evidently had no outlet except through her father’s room. Billie glanced at the filmy laces and beautiful frocks with lukewarm interest. She was never particularly interested in clothes.

Mr. Stone was called into the next room to the telephone, and in the two minutes he was away, Evelyn whispered:

“I must be getting back now,” said Billie, when the telephone conversation was over. “The things are lovely, Evelyn. Perhaps we shall see you to-morrow. We are going sight-seeing all day, but we shall be here for meals. Good-night.”

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

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

242CHAPTER XIX.—A DAY OF SURPRISES.

“The Comet is going to have a rest to-day,” observed Billie the next morning at the breakfast table. “He’s being screwed up and oiled and cleaned for his last spurt across the continent.”

“For my part,” said Miss Campbell, “I’m glad to take a rest from the Comet. I think I have automobile legs, just as ocean travelers have sea legs. When I’m sitting still, I seem to be constantly moving, and when I’m moving, I feel like a young bird learning to fly. I believe that by the time we reach San Francisco, my limbs will refuse their office, as grandpapa used to say.”

“I think a bath in the lake will do us all good,” said Billie. “You can’t sink, you know, Cousin 243 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 244 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.

“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.”

“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, 246 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.

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 247 arm and smiling into her face, as if she herself had been paid a high compliment.

“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, 248 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.

“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. 250 “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, 251 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 252 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.”

“We had better leave town to-morrow morning,” she said. 253 “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 254 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 255 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.

“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 256 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.

“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.”

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

“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,

258CHAPTER XX.—THE ELOPEMENT.

The morning mists still clung to the mountains and the citizens of the Mormon city appeared to be wrapped in a profound slumber when the Comet flashed joyously along the quiet streets.

How good it seemed to settle back among his comfortable cushions and hasten to leave this unfriendly town.

Billie at the wheel looked straight in front of her. Her heart was unquiet and her gray eyes troubled.

“If I only had the nerve to break the news to Cousin Helen that I have invited Evelyn to come with us,” she thought. “By seven o’clock we shall be there. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I have asked her, so I suppose I’ll have to stand by my own deeds, and I’m glad she’s going to run away, but I do wish she had eloped in another direction.”

The other Motor Maids were likewise troubled 259 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. 260

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.

“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 261 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 262 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 263 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. 264 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.”

“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.

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

“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. 265 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: 266

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

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

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 267 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.

“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 268 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 269 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.

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!

270CHAPTER XXI.—A MEETING IN THE DESERT.

Sand hills and plains, plains and sand hills, stretching out indefinitely and interminably. There was only one bit of color in all the monotonous landscape. A flash of red on the desert.

Six weary travelers, brown as Indians, hot and thirsty, their clothes, their hair, their eyes and nostrils filled with a fine dust. But a good traveler never complains and not one voice was lifted in protest.

Bang! went a tire—the second that day. Billie wearily stopped the motor and climbed out followed by the others.

“I feel as if we had come out of the nowhere into the here,” observed Nancy in a sad, thin voice.

“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 271 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 272 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.

“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.”

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 273 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 274 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.

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 275 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.”

“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.”

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 276 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.

“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 277 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 278 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 279 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.

“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.

280CHAPTER XXII.—A BIT OF OLD ITALY.

It was August 22, Miss Campbell’s birthday, although she herself had quite forgotten it, this being a celebration she was careful not to remember.

The girls had been planning for a long time to give her a birthday party. It was to be a surprise picnic wherever they happened to be between Sacramento and San Francisco. It was Evelyn who chose the spot for the party and who guided them to a lovely vineyard planted on terraces up the side of a mountain with a little valley smiling at its feet.

“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.” 281

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.

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:

Miss Campbell read the inscription over twice before she could make out its meaning.

“Absurd children,” she cried delightedly, “you are giving me a birthday party. I knew you were suppressing something with all your giggling this morning. And here I had quite forgotten I was a year older to-day.”

“Not a year older, dearest cousin, a year younger,” cried Billie. “It was Evelyn who knew about this fascinating little place, and we thought we would entertain you here instead of at one of those tiresome hotels.”

Pasquale rubbed his hands together and smiled broadly with his head on one side.

He led the way to the back of the house, through a low-ceilinged room paved with red tiles. At a small door at the end of the passage he paused and placed his fingers on his lips with an expression so arch and crafty that the girls laughed out loud in spite of his motions for silence. Then he flung open the door grandly 283 and placed his hand on his heart, heaving a deep and dramatic sigh.

It was not to be expected that our tourists who had come through every variety of scenery, grand, sublime and beautiful, should be very enthusiastic now. But the Italian knew that he had something very fine to show. Just as an old picture dealer knows when he has a good picture and a good audience. The girls fairly danced on the grassy terrace overlooking the exquisite little valley at the foot of the mountain. And there, on the lawn, stood a table covered with a white cloth.

“The ladies willa eat breakfast at what time?” asked Pasquale. “The festa, she commenca at two. You willa come—not so?”

“The ladies willa pardon. They have no objec to two others who also eta here?”

But the ladies were not in the humor to object to anything. They were too much engaged in 284 admiring the little valley and the olive grove opposite which clung to the hillside like a soft gray mist.

“It’s just like a little Italy,” cried Billie, enthusiastically. “It looks like Italy. The people are all Italians and so are the houses and the terraced vineyards. Isn’t it sweet?”

“Wait until you see the festa,” said Evelyn, “and Pasquale’s daughter, Lucia. She is out now gathering grapes with the others, I suppose.” Pasquale now appeared bearing a big soup tureen, followed by a graceful young Italian boy who carried a dish of grated cheese. There were plates of ripe olives on the table and in the centre a pyramid of fresh figs and grapes. How charming it all was! Down in the vineyard below came the sound of singing, which grew louder as the young men and girls climbed the mountain to the village.

“Sweet, lovely girls,” she said, “do you know how very dear you are to me? We have been 285 through so much together, through so many, dangers which we will forget, and pleasures which we shall always remember; up hill and down dale—across mountains—”

“Yes, across these interminable prairies, that I feel, now that we are coming to the end of it all, how lonesome I am going to be without you. I hope you will all marry, my dears. There is no one in the world so lonely as a spinster—”

Evelyn’s face flushed. The subject of marriage was a painful one to her, because, although she had written twice to Daniel, not one word had she received from him since she left Salt Lake City. And deep in her heart, she was wholly and utterly miserable. No one but Billie noticed the tears that glistened in her eyes, and under the table, the two girls clasped hands for a moment.

“—a spinster past middle age,” went on Miss Campbell, looking so charming and appealing that the girls were obliged to rush from their seats and embrace her.

And in the midst of this scene of affection, 286 comes Pasquale, smiling affably, and bearing an immense bouquet of roses.

“For La Signora Cam-el,” he said. “A gen-man presents with compliments.”

“I cannot say, Signora. They are of Sacremen’—these roses here. They came thisa morning by express, in the diligenza from the valley.”

Pasquale shrugged his shoulders almost to his ears and spread his hands out apologetically. Then he disappeared into the inn and presently returned with bouquets for each of the girls. Evelyn’s was as large as Miss Campbell’s, of roses, and the younger girls were smaller bunches of heliotrope, which gave out a delicious fragrance.

Evelyn would have liked to add—“It’s more like Daniel,” but she could not bring herself to mention his name when he had treated her so coldly.

“The hotel clerk knew,” replied Billie, “because we asked him about the road.”

At last, after finishing off with fruit and cheese and cups of black coffee, the delicious birthday luncheon reached an end, like all good things, and the ladies went forth to see the festa.

Down the street came some forty young men and girls singing a wild Sicilian pastorale, each verse of which ended in a weird turn. Many of them were crowned with grape leaves, like Bacchanalian dancers, and some of them carried baskets filled with the fruit. It was the end of the 288 grapecutting season, and each year, Pasquale, the great man of the village, gave a festa at this time.

In front of the inn was a long narrow table whereon stood jugs of wine, plates of cold meats and ripe olives, dear to the heart of every true Italian. The table fairly groaned under the weight of food—cheeses and long loaves, salads, figs, oranges and grapes.

A gentle old priest with a humorous, kindly smile, came out of the church and welcomed the motorists.

“You will enjoy the festa,” he said. “It is a pretty sight not often seen out of Italy.”

The feasting and singing lasted until late in the afternoon. Then the dancing began in the yard of the inn. Pretty Lucia, Pasquale’s daughter, and a young man with fierce black eyes, danced a tarentella together and another man and woman danced a Sicilian dance wilder even than the tarentella. Finally everybody began dancing and the girls joined in, leaving Miss Campbell and the old priest seated in a pergola at 289 the side of the house, absorbed in an interesting conversation.

As darkness descended torches were lit, but it was difficult to distinguish faces and no one noticed two men in dark slouch hats drawn well over their faces who mingled with the crowd. Evelyn Stone, standing alone on the outskirts of the crowd, watched her four friends waltzing among the dancers.

“How much happier Lucia is than I am,” she was thinking. “How I wish I had been born just a simple peasant girl. Money means so little in comparison.”

But her reflections were rudely interrupted. A black scarf was thrown over her head and she was lifted off her feet and carried out of the circle of light into the darkness.

Owing to the unusual festivities, supper for the guests at the inn was very late that evening, and not until well past eight o’clock did Pasquale announce that the ladies would be served on the terrace. 290

“Where is Evelyn?” asked Miss Campbell anxiously when they had gathered around the table.

But Lucia was waiting on the table and had not seen her. Pasquale sent a boy scurrying around to search for her while the others ate their supper. They were quite sure she had wandered off with some of the villagers whom she had known before.

Night deepened and the moon came up, flooding the valley with its golden rays. It was very chilly, and they put on their ulsters and sat in a row on the terrace, waiting. From the inn yard came the sound of music and the beat of the dancers’ feet on the hard ground.

At last the waiting grew unbearable. Miss Campbell went to confer with the old priest next door and the girls hurried down the village street to search for their friend from house to house. Men were sent down the mountain road to the valley below. Others hunted through the vineyard. Somewhere in the village a clock struck 291 midnight. The music ceased. The dancers crept off to bed, cold and tired.

Nothing could be done until morning, the priest said. And while it seemed impossible to sleep, they agreed they must take some rest.

Tired out with the long day, they did sleep however, and the sun was high in the heavens before they waked.

292CHAPTER XXIII.—A CHANGE OF HEART.

Next morning, they dressed hurriedly, reproaching themselves that they had slept so late.

“What’s to be done?” cried poor Miss Campbell, half distracted as she rushed about her room. “Shall we telegraph her father?”

“But where is Mr. Moore? He has never written a line in answer to our letters. That’s why I am uneasy. That poor girl was growing more unhappy every day.”

“That would be a good idea, but we must see Pasquale first. Send him up here at once, Billie,” called Miss Campbell as the young girl departed, 293 pinning on her hat as she ran down the narrow steps outside.

A hundred conjectures flashed through their minds as they hastened to get into their clothes. Could Evelyn have done anything rash and foolish? But Miss Campbell felt sure the girl was much too thoughtful and unselfish to have involved them in a trouble of that sort. No, it was that Stone man, her father, who had spirited her away.

Pasquale appeared at the door. His face was an impenetrable mask, through which his small eyes twinkled like the eyes of an animal.

“Pasquale,” cried Miss Campbell, “what are we to do? Where has the young lady gone? Have your men really brought no news whatever?”

“Don’t stand there blinking at me,” she cried. “Tell me what I must do. Is there no telegraph station up here?” 294

“Breakfast! Don’t talk to me about breakfast when I’m half distracted. Have some coffee ready and send around the motor car. We will start at once for Sacramento or some town where we can telegraph.”

“The Signora will pleasea have breakfast,” continued the imperturbable Italian.

Miss Campbell was tying on her blue veil ready to leave the instant they had swallowed their coffee.

“The Signora willa be pleased with breakfast. It is Americana breakfast, made specialmente for Signora and the young ladies—the chicken broila—Signora.”

“The man will drive me mad,” cried Miss Campbell rushing down stairs with veils flying, her hand bag in one hand, her coat in the other, followed by the girls who had been struggling to 295 pack their suitcases and get away as soon as possible.

At the bottom of the steps, they met Lucia, smiling and fresh in spite of her dissipations of the day before.

“On the terrace, Signora. Ah, the terrace, it is bella, bella, in the morning. Sacremen—you will see her on a clear day. Ah, madama, I entreata you to step forth on the terrace.”

Pasquale and Lucia stood in the most theatrical attitudes imaginable, their hands outstretched, exactly like two opera singers when they had reached the closing notes of a grand duetto.

“Ah, Signora, thisa gooda breakfast,—chicken broila—questa bella vista—”

“Good heavens, the man is mad. They are both perfectly mad,” cried poor Miss Campbell rushing to the terrace and almost into the arms of—Oh, horror of horrors! Oh, unspeakable 296 disgrace! John James Stone, who actually held her imprisoned in his iron embrace and looked down into her face with an expression so tender that Nancy and Mary were obliged to retire into the hall for a moment where they fell on each other’s necks and laughed immoderately.

“Release me, sir! How dare you?” cried the excited little woman, looking around to see if anyone else had been a witness of this disgraceful encounter.

There was, indeed, quite an audience. Daniel Moore, leaning on a cane, his other arm clasped in Evelyn’s, stood close at hand; also the four Motor Maids, Pasquale chuckling with joy and Lucia smiling broadly.

“Evelyn, my dear, you have given us such a fright. Where did you come from,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, almost in hysterics. “And Daniel Moore, too.”

“It’s a good ending to what might have been a very tragic affair, Miss Campbell,” replied Daniel. “Evelyn was kidnapped last night by Ebenezer Stone but as luck would have it, Mr. Stone 297 and I were making the trip from Sacramento to catch you here and we met them on the road last night. They had an accident, in fact, and stopped our car for assistance without knowing whom we were. Unfortunately, I couldn’t fight that scoundrel, Ebenezer,” he continued, clenching his fist and growing very white.

“Too ill even to know that Evelyn was not married,” went on Daniel. “That little wretch of a mare when she dragged me around by my leg, injured my hip. I owe my life to Miss Billie, and I ought to be thankful that the injury was no worse. The worry about Evelyn and the arrest in Salt Lake City precipitated matters, I suppose and I have been in the hospital ever since, until the day before yesterday. It didn’t seem to matter much with Evelyn married to that—to that——”

“Never mind,” said Evelyn soothingly. 298 “Father and I never really did like him. Did we father?”

This was rather straining a point but Mr. John James Stone was quite equal to it. The truth is the stony old Mormon had suffered a change of heart.

“Ebenezer is a cold blooded scoundrel,” he observed in a tone of conviction which brought covert smiles even to the lips of his long suffering daughter.

“But, please, tell me quickly how you and Mr. Stone came to meet?” demanded Miss Campbell, the answer of which question they were all burning to know.

Mr. Stone cast upon the charming little spinster a glance so melting that it was impossible for the Motor Maids to keep from laughing.

“They have you to thank for that, Miss Campbell,” replied the big man. “I am completely won over, I assure you, madam. A charming woman is the most powerful influence in the world.”

An expression of amazement passed over the spinster’s face, followed almost immediately by 299 one of intense amusement and embarrassment. There was a strained silence. Then Pasquale, clearing his throat several times significantly, announced breakfast.

In spite of the fatigue and nervous strain of the past six hours, everybody was hungry and Evelyn Stone was the most joyous member of the breakfast party. The shadow which had darkened her entire young life was dispelled. She had never dreamed that hidden deep somewhere behind that granite exterior her father had a real flesh and blood heart.

It was Miss Campbell who had discovered it and it was Miss Campbell who must now pay the penalty of her discovery.

No one ever knew exactly what conversation passed between her and the Mormon gentleman on the terrace that morning after breakfast. But they guessed that the little spinster had received a declaration of love and an offer of marriage. At any rate, half an hour later, she shut herself into her room and refused to appear again until dinner time. 300

As for Mr. Stone, he took an automobile ride with the Motor Maids and made himself most agreeable. On the way home, he bought everything he could find in the way of fruit and flowers for the little lady who had touched his heart. He was as frankly and openly in love as a boy, and love which comes to those past fifty is of an extremely poignant nature.

But Miss Campbell had no intention of wedding even a reformed Mormon and settling in Salt Lake City.

“Never again will I enter that hateful place except in chains as a prisoner,” she had repeated many times, and her old lover, whose youth had been renewed like the eagle’s and whose character had been strangely transformed, entreated in vain.

301CHAPTER XXIV.—SAN FRANCISCO AT LAST.

It was just at sunset, a time pre-arranged by Mr. Stone, who now thought of everything, when the two automobiles paused on the brow of a hill near Berkeley.

Spread before them was the glorious panorama of San Francisco Bay. San Francisco, at one end of the peninsula, was shimmering gold in the last rays of the sun as it sank in the ocean at the very entrance of the Golden Gate. The whole scene might have been painted with a brush dipped in gold so glorified were the surrounding hills and bay by the sun’s rays.

It was all very much like a dream, unreal and strange as they hastened up and down the hilly streets of San Francisco and finally came to a stop at the St. Francis Hotel.

It was the end of their trip across the continent; the end of the summer and the beginning 302 of happiness for their new friends. To-morrow there would be a wedding at which four Motor Maids would act as bridesmaids and Mr. John James Stone would give his daughter to Daniel Moore with a real fatherly blessing.

The bridegroom gave a dinner that night to the bridal party. It was a grand affair, a real dinner party. The girls wore their very best dresses and carried bunches of violets sent by that abject and thoughtful lover, Mr. Stone.

During the dinner which was given in one of the pretty private dining rooms of the St. Francis, John James Stone rose in his might and made a speech, just as if they were the most distinguished company in the world.

“Miss Campbell,” he said, and that lady stirred uneasily under the fire of his ardent black eyes, “and young ladies, I feel that I cannot let this delightful evening slip by without taking the opportunity to thank you for a gift which I count as the most precious I have ever received in my whole life.”

He spoke with the tone of an orator, his voice, 303 vibrating and deep, rising and falling like the sound of the waves on the seashore, and his words were somewhat Biblical, after the manner of the Mormon speechmaker.

“All my life I have been as one walking in the dark,” he continued. “Even my daughter was a shadow to me. Only one thing was real. Money! And now I have lost a great deal of my money. It has slipped from my fingers into the hands of another man, who, thank God, has not forced himself into my family and never will. But I have received something in place of my fortune which is now and always will be of infinitely more value to me than money. The darkness is lifted and I stand in the light. I feel as one who has been groping in the night and have now turned my face toward the rising sun. You have made me the gift of sight. This gracious little lady,” he continued, turning to Miss Campbell, “whose spirit and courage first aroused my admiration and then a deeper feeling,” he placed his hand on his heart with the most unblushing candor. It was difficult for the other members of the 304 party to hide their smiles. “This elegant little lady although she will not consent to make me the happiest of mortals has at least succeeded in inspiring me with a new content.

“Will she therefore and the young Motor Maids—” he paused and smiled at this expression which he had caught from the girls—“do me the honor to accept a slight token of my gratitude?”

The Mormon produced a package which he had been concealing under his chair. That the souvenirs had been planned long beforehand was evident, for the boxes bore the stamp of Salt Lake City.

The souvenirs were jewels and very beautiful. For each of the Motor Maids was a ring set with a deep yellow topaz, the setting and stone representing the “All-Seeing Eye,” the Mormon symbol carved on the Temple and in many other places in Salt Lake City. This was an especially appropriate choice since it might also stand for the Comet’s all-seeing eye which had guided them safely across two thousand miles. 305

Miss Campbell’s present was a beautiful topaz brooch and represented nothing except the deep regard of the giver.

They were obliged to accept these gifts, strange as it seemed to them to be receiving presents from one so recently a bitter enemy. But then, like Jim Bowles, Mr. Stone was a reformed character. Love had transformed his whole being.

Only two more incidents remain to be told before this history comes to an end. One of them concerns Peter Van Vechten, who, the girls learned at the hotel, never reached Chicago, although he succeeded in flying past the Rocky Mountains. But no else in the race reached the goal and he proceeded farther than any of the other aeroplanists. The young man was the grandson and only heir of one of the richest men in America.

The other occurrence will show that life is full 306 of coincidences and that if our memories are good and our impulses kind, we can always help someone.

The morning of the wedding Elinor was waiting for her friends at a window at one end of the hotel corridor. Someone else was waiting there also, but the two had not even glanced at each other so engrossed were they in their own thoughts. A door opened and a voice called:

“I beg your pardon,” they both began at the same moment and paused laughing.

“Do you know. I think we look very much alike,” began the strange girl. Her voice was English. “I am older than you, many years, I should imagine, but still we have the same profile.” 307

“No, not visiting, only—well, we have been traveling—we have been to a great many ranches through the West——”

“But, how did you guess?” exclaimed the other girl, clasping her hands with great agitation.

“I know because I reminded him of you,” answered Elinor Butler, “and because my name is Elinor.” 308

“It is in answer to my prayers—my meeting you,” cried the older girl. “Only it has taken such a long time. If only one has the patience to wait; but it has been very hard. Once we heard of his being in Canada, but when we went to fetch him, his father and I, he had gone and left no trace whatever. We were told that there are a great many young Englishmen on ranches in the Western States and we have been to—Oh, hundreds of places. Lord Blackstone has had detectives looking for him. But you see he changed his name and we have had no success.”

“You will be certain to find him this time,” said Elinor, “only when you go to fetch him, don’t tell him beforehand. Take him by surprise.”

The two girls looked into each other’s eyes, and smiled and pressed hands and—kissed.

“With all my heart I thank you a thousand times,” said the English Elinor. 309

Once more they kissed, as dear friends about to be separated for a long time, and Elinor Butler hurried to join her friends at the elevator. On the way, she caught a glimpse through an open door of a splendid looking old man leaning on a cane. He was very tall with the slight stoop of an old soldier, and as he glanced in her face, she saw that his eyes were the same as those of the cowboy’s who had sat out a dance with her one night in the courtyard of Steptoe Lodge.

At last the story is done. The journey across the continent has not been an unprofitable one. Through the kindly efforts of Miss Helen Campbell and the Motor Maids, lovers long separated have been reunited; hearts of stone melted into flesh and blood, and bad men transformed into good.

Before they left San Francisco, our young girls on a lark one day consulted a crystal gazer. She was only a common fortune teller but sometimes 310 these wandering Gipsy souls make correct guesses.

“In the crystal,” she said, “I see a great stretch of water. There is a ship on it. The waves are rough. I see foreign countries. You will take a long journey across the ocean. I see a flash of red like a shooting star——”

Perhaps, like the Motor Maids, you will be skeptical of the crystal gazer’s predictions concerning their future. But she spoke the truth as you will find for yourself if you read the next volume of this series. In the new book the Motor Maids will wander in their Comet through the British Isles and there many interesting and delightful adventures await them.

As the story ends, we find them gathered together in Miss Campbell’s sitting room at the Hotel St. Francis. On the next day they are to take the train for home. Mr. Stone is with them, and they are listening silently to a song Elinor is singing at the piano. It is a Gipsy song, and very appropriate. Our four girls after their 311 summer wanderings have turned into Gipsy lasses, brown skinned clear-eyed daughters of the Zingari.

As they listen to the thrum of the accompaniment, the walls of the little parlor fade away and once more they find themselves around the camp fire under the stars on the plains.

    “‘The  white  moth  to  the  closing  vine,
    The  bee  to  the  open  clover,
    And  the  Gipsy  blood  to  the  Gipsy  blood
    Ever  the  wide  world  over.

    “‘Ever  the  wide  world  over,  lass,
    Ever  the  trail  held  true,
    Over  the  world  and  under  the  world
    And  back  at  the  last  to  you.

    “‘Out  of  the  dark  of  the  gorgio  camp,
    Out  of  the  grime  and  the  gray,
    (Morning  waits  at  the  end  of  the  world),
    Gipsy,  come  away.
312
    “‘The  wild  hawk  to  the  wind-swept  sky,
    The  deer  to  the  wholesome  wold,
    And  the  heart  of  a  man  to  the  heart  of  a  maid,
    As  it  was  in  the  days  of  old.

    “‘The  heart  of  a  man  to  the  heart  of  a  maid—Light
    of  my  tents,  be  fleet!
    Morning  waits  at  the  end  of  the  world,
    And  the  world  is  all  at  our  feet!’”

Billie Campbell was just the type of a straightforward, athletic girl to be successful as a practical Motor Maid. She took her car, as she did her class-mates, to her heart, and many a grand good time did they have all together. The road over which she ran her red machine had many an unexpected turning,—now it led her into peculiar danger; now into contact with strange travelers; and again into experiences by fire and water. But, best of all, “The Comet” never failed its brave girl owner.

Wherever the Motor Maids went there were lively times, for these were companionable girls who looked upon the world as a vastly interesting place full of unique adventures—and so, of course, they found them.

It is always interesting to travel, and it is wonderfully entertaining to see old scenes through fresh eyes. It is that privilege, therefore, that makes it worth while to join the Motor Maids in their first ’cross-country run.

South and West had the Motor Maids motored, nor could their education by travel have been more wisely begun. But now a speaking acquaintance with their own country enriched their anticipation of an introduction to the British Isles. How they made their polite American bow and how they were received on the other side is a tale of interest and inspiration.

Roy Prescott was fortunate in having a sister so clever and devoted to him and his interests that they could share work and play with mutual pleasure and to mutual advantage. This proved especially true in relation to the manufacture and manipulation of their aeroplane, and Peggy won well deserved fame for her skill and good sense as an aviator. There were many stumbling-blocks in their terrestial path, but they soared above them all to ultimate success.

That there is a peculiar fascination about aviation that wins and holds girl enthusiasts as well as boys is proved by this tale. On golden wings the girl aviators rose for many an exciting flight, and met strange and unexpected experiences.

To most girls a coaching or yachting trip is an adventure. How much more perilous an adventure a “sky cruise” might be is suggested by the title and proved by the story itself.

The delicacy of flight suggested by the word “butterfly,” the mechanical power implied by “motor,” the ability to control assured in the title “aviator,” all combined with the personality and enthusiasm of girls themselves, make this story one for any girl or other reader “to go crazy over.”

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Motor Maids Across the Continent