It was after ten o'clock when we were finally ready and Carrie appeared in the door for us. She took us down another stairway into a vast hall filled with paintings and statuary, where a man in a dark blue suit and silver braid (I suppose that's what you'd call a footman in livery), stood stiffly as the statues around him. Carrie said something to him in a low tone (I presume she was explaining our presence without cards of invitation, such as he was collecting from the other guests), and he looked at us with an impassive eye and nodded his head. He was a very homely man with an exceedingly red nose with one bright blue vein running across it that gave him somewhat of a singular appearance. I remember thinking that if I were his mistress I should set him to working in the garden where nobody could see him, instead of posting him in the front hall to admit the guests.
After Carrie had turned us over to the Nose with the Vein she went up-stairs again and the man slid back a door on the left side of the hall. We found ourselves in the ballroom and in the midst of a scene as bewildering as it was gorgeous. Of course, our first thought had been to find our hostess and make ourselves known, but there was no way of telling which one Mrs. McClure was. Everybody was masked and frolicking around and there didn't seem to be anyone doing the duty of a hostess whom we could suspect of being Mrs. McClure. Later on we discovered that there was a reception-room off at the other end of the ballroom where Mrs. McClure had been receiving her guests, but at the time we saw nothing but the shifting masses of light and color around us, that resolved themselves into kings and queens and princes and Indians and turbaned Hindoos and pirates and Turks and peasants and fairies. The orchestra was playing the opening bars of a waltz and the dancers were seeking partners. We withdrew into a corner behind a large palm to look on. To our surprise and somewhat to our embarrassment we were asked to dance before the waltz was over. My partner was a Scottish highlander and a good dancer, and he evidently thought I belonged in the set who were the guests at this ball, because he kept pointing out different people and asking if I thought they were this one or that one. I did not speak much, however, and do not think he ever guessed that I was not a friend of Mrs. McClure's, was an outsider at the ball, and was, in fact, the mere tourist I was supposed to represent. I thought, however, I might get one piece of information out of him.
"I don't see Mrs. McClure," I said, looking over the dancing couples. Then it was that the Highlander told me about the reception-room at the other side of the conservatory that opened out of the ballroom, where Mrs. McClure was. I mentally thanked him for this piece of information and purposed to tell Nyoda about it as soon as the dance was over. But when that dance came to a close we were claimed by other partners for the next, and so on, and we did not get out of the ballroom.
The memory of that ball is like some queer oriental dream and even while we were in the midst of it I had to pinch myself to make sure that I was awake and the things around me were real. But the events that followed were real enough for anyone to know that they were not dreaming. There came an intermission in the dancing at last, and we five found ourselves in the glassed-in sun parlor opening from the ballroom while somebody was going for ices for us. As it happened we were the only ones in that little room, for the bigger conservatory next to it was a more popular resting-place. Sitting there waiting we began to talk about the scarab and the queer effect it seemed to have had on the chauffeur.
"Let me look at it again," said I. I was utterly fascinated by the thing.
Nyoda put her hand in the pocket of her coat where she had put the scarab for safe keeping, and drew out, not the odd-looking beetle, but something that flashed in the light like a thousand rain-drops in the sunshine. It was a diamond necklace, with a diamond pendant at the end, the stones arranged in the form of a cross. The thing blazed in Nyoda's hand like liquid fire running down over her fingers, and we fairly blinked as we looked at it. We were too astonished to say a word and simply stared at it as if we were hypnotised.
"Girls," said Nyoda in a horrified tone, "there's something queer going on here and we're mixed up in it. The sooner we get out of this house the better. There's a gang of thieves at work at this ball—there usually are at these big affairs—and unless we want to find ourselves drawn into a net from which we can't escape easily we'll have to run for it."
It was a good thing that the sun parlor was empty and the crush around the table where the ices were being served kept our friends from returning. Nyoda put the necklace into a jardinier containing a monstrous fern and we looked around for a way out. We thought we would slip out to the garage and get the Glow-worm. The sun parlor must have had a door leading to the outside, but it was so full of plants in pots and jardiniers that if there was a door it was covered up. We fled back into the conservatory, where couples were sitting all over, but there was no outside door from there. After that we got into a library filled with people playing cards at tables. We were looking anxiously around for a door into the hall which led to the porte-cochere entrance when we saw the maid Carrie come into the room with a tray full of glasses. When she saw us standing there she came up to us and under the pretense of offering us refreshments she whispered: "You are looking for the way out? Follow me."
We followed her across the room and out the door at the opposite side, which opened into a small reception-room. There stood the footman with the vein in his nose and without a word he led the way through various rooms and hallways to the porte-cochere entrance. We passed out quickly, and to our surprise there stood the Glow-worm under the porte-cochere with the lamps all lighted and the tanks filled. In a moment we were speeding down that driveway again and out into the midnight. The events of the evening were whirling through our heads. As yet we could make neither head nor tail to them. Bit by bit we began to see the significance of things, although, of course, the whole story was not clear to us until a day later, when things came to a head and the resulting explosion cleared up all mysteries.
This much we did understand, however, that someone had stolen a diamond necklace from one of the guests at the ball and expected us to get away with it. Also that the servants must have been in the plot, for how else had our get away been made so easy? And how came the Glow-worm to be standing at the door ready to drive away?
We laughed when we thought of the diamond necklace which they had supposed was safe in our possession, lying in the jardinier in the sun parlor. We fancied the commotion that would take place when the owner discovered its loss, and the equal dismay in the breasts of the conspirators when it was found in the jardinier.
But here we were again, without a place to spend the night, when we had expected to sleep in such luxurious beds. With one accord we decided to drive all night and put as much distance between us and the house as possible. We were constantly afraid that we were being pursued as it was, and strained our ears for the throb of a motor behind us that would tell of the chase. We did not make very fast headway, for the roads were abominable after the storm. In places we went through regular lakes and the water was thrown into the car by the wheels, so that we were drenched a second time, as well as spattered with mud from head to foot. Then we came to a hold-up altogether. In one place a small stream had risen from the flood and carried away the bridge by which we were supposed to cross. The water was too deep to drive through and we had to turn back and find another road. Then our troubles began in earnest.
The main road had been bad enough, but these side roads full of deep wagon ruts and mud holes were ten times worse. It would have been a problem to drive through there by daylight, but after dark it was a nightmare. Our electric head lamps were dim that night for some reason or other and only partly showed up the bad places, and several times I thought we were going to upset. The drizzling rain was still falling and we were soaked and uncomfortable. After a time we gave up trying to find another bridge to cross the stream and get back on the main road and frankly owned that we were lost. Once in a while we saw the dark outline of a farmhouse far back from the road, but we hesitated to wake up the people at that time of night and ask our way.
Margery complained of the feeling of her wet coat and Sahwah suggested that we all sing "How Dry I Am", and see if there was anything in mental suggestion. So we stopped still at the cross-roads and sang hoarsely in the rain and darkness like disconsolate frogs. The starter refused to work when we wanted to go on again and Nyoda had to get out in the mud and crank the engine.
"She stoops to crank her," said Sahwah, but none of us had the ambition to pinch her for making a pun.
We were apparently traveling through the country in a sort of Roman key pattern, up one road and down another without getting any nearer to the town for which we imagined we were headed. Suddenly something white loomed up before us which proved to be the gate of a fence; we were evidently on private property. Sahwah got out to open it but she could not do it alone, so both Nakwisi and I jumped out to help her. The mud was piled up so high under the gate that it was all we could do to swing it back. The Glow-worm passed through slowly and we closed the gate again. Just then a gust of wind sent down a heavy shower of drops from a near-by tree and we ran hastily for the shelter of the car. Nyoda started immediately and we found ourselves in the main road once more. The gust of wind continued and blew our veils into our faces and made us screw our eyes shut. In such fashion did we travel down the king's highway, and if ever my ardor for automobile touring was dampened, it was then. For a long time nobody had a word to say, not even irrepressible Sahwah. Each one of us sat apart wrapped in our own gloomy thoughts. Finally Nakwisi spoke.
"Does the water run down over the tip of your nose if your nose turns up? Sahwah, yours turns up, will you look and see which way the rain-drops are going?"
There was no answer.
"Well, don't answer, if you don't want to," said Nakwisi, rather crossly. We took our veils down from our eyes and looked around to see the cause of this unusual silence on Sahwah's part. Then we got the second big shock of the evening.Sahwah was not in the car!She had vanished utterly, silently, mysteriously, into the rainy darkness!
If I were an experienced writer of fiction I would know how to weave all the various odds and ends of my story into the telling so as to keep the action moving forward all the time, with all parts nicely balanced. But as it is, I am afraid that I have been trying to tell it all at once and am getting it rather one-sided. So far I have told only what happened to us girls in the Glow-worm, and I fear that the reader will have forgotten by this time that there were eight girls who started out on the trip instead of four. So now I am going to carry you back to a point almost at the beginning of the story; the point where we almost struck the old woman and where the Striped Beetle vanished from sight. As I said before, I am going to tell the story just as if I had been along and seen everything, without stopping to quote Gladys or Hinpoha or Medmangi or Chapa.
You will remember that we were proceeding westward through Toledo at the time and the Striped Beetle was in the lead. Hinpoha sat in the front seat with Gladys, holding Mr. Bob in her lap. The street was crowded with vehicles and Gladys was driving carefully. A wagon loaded almost to the sky with barrels threatened to fall over on them and they had a narrow squeeze to get through between it and the curb. Some small boys on the sidewalk shouted at the driver of the wagon and he shouted back; a street car trying to make headway on a track from which a sand wagon refused to move itself raised an ear-splitting racket with its alarm bell; the noise was so deafening that the girls put their hands over their ears and did not take them down again until Gladys had turned a corner into a quieter street. They had turned another corner before they discovered that the Glow-worm was not right behind them. Gladys merely stopped the car and waited for us to come up.
"They're probably caught in that line of wagons and trucks on T—— Street," said Gladys, when we did not come immediately. "I hope their engine didn't stall on that corner."
The minutes passed and we did not appear.
"Run down to the corner and see what is keeping them," said Gladys to Chapa and Medmangi. The two girls got out and retraced their steps. But nowhere did they see the Glow-worm. Puzzled, they returned to Gladys and she promptly turned the Striped Beetle around and drove back through the streets the way she had come. The Glow-worm had apparently vanished off the face of the earth. Inquiry at frequent points brought out the fact that the Glow-worm had knocked down an old woman (that is the way such things are exaggerated) and had gone on again. Their asking which way it had gone started an argument which ended in a fist fight, for the two small boys they asked each maintained stoutly that it had gone in a different direction. Then the mother of the boys ran out from a grocery store to see what the racket was about and seizing them by the back of their necks she shook them apart, boxing their ears. When the cause of the argument was made known to her she settled it in an emphatic manner by pointing with a fat forefinger down the street.
"They went that way," she declared. "Four girls in tan suits and green veils just like yours."
They took her word for it and started in pursuit of the Glow-worm, expecting to come upon it at every turn, their wonder growing momentarily. They could not understand why Nyoda had ceased to follow them and was taking a route which was not marked in the route book. They inquired at numerous places and found that we had passed just ahead of them.
"I don't blame Nyoda for going this way," said Gladys, "it's lots quieter than the other way; sort of back streets. She probably turned off when the jam occurred on T—— Street and thought we saw her and followed. It seems a little strange that she didn't wait for us to come up, though."
Mr. Bob, our long-eared mascot, had a most angelic disposition, but nevertheless, he knew when he was outraged, and when a yellow cur of no special breed and no breeding at all snarled impudently at him from the curb he jumped through Hinpoha's restraining arms with the intention of chewing up the insolent one. The yellow dog saw him coming and, turning tail, he fled yelping up a side street. Hinpoha shouted commands in vain; Mr. Bob had set out to put his teeth into that yellow dog and he would not be turned aside from his purpose. Gladys stopped the car and Hinpoha ran after Mr. Bob. The yellow cur knew his neighborhood and turned into an alley just as Mr. Bob nearly had him. Mr. Bob, with Hinpoha hard after him, also turned into the alley. The back door of an empty store offered the fugitive a safe refuge and he darted inside. So did Mr. Bob, growling ferociously, and so did Hinpoha, panting for breath and holding her hand to her side. From the back room of the store the dogs passed to the front and Mr. Bob caught the yellow dog in a tight corner behind a counter. For all he had run in such a cowardly fashion the yellow dog was a good fighter and the battle which occurred when the two clinched frightened Hinpoha out of her wits. She seized an old broom which was standing against the wall and ran behind the counter to beat them apart. In the darkness behind the counter she almost fell over something on the floor, and the broom clattered out of her hand. In her astonishment she forgot the fighting dogs. The thing she had fallen over and which she had, at first, thought was a sack of something, stirred and huddled up against the wall and Hinpoha heard the sharp intaking of a breath. Then she made out the form of a girl; a girl in a blue suit sitting on the floor with her hands over her face.
"Did—did the dogs frighten you?" asked Hinpoha. The girl dropped her hands and looked up quickly. Just then the yellow dog broke away from Mr. Bob and retreated through the back door. Mr. Bob, who had evidently derived honorable satisfaction from the encounter, came over to Hinpoha and subsided at her feet. With a look of wonder Hinpoha turned to the girl crouching on the floor. She had moved into the light from a window and Hinpoha could see that fear was written all over her face. It was a girl about eighteen years old with a round cherubic countenance, framed in fluffy light hair, wide open guileless blue eyes, with an expression as innocent as a baby's. Just now the eyes were swimming in tears.
"You are in trouble?" asked Hinpoha, with ready sympathy.
The girl reached out her hand and took hold of Hinpoha's jacket as a child holds on to its mother, in spite of the fact that she was evidently older than Hinpoha. Hinpoha caught her hand and held it tightly.
"Tell me about it," she said, gently.
The girl gulped down a big sob and wiped her eyes. "I'm—I'm hiding," she said, in a shaky voice.
"Hiding from what?" asked Hinpoha.
"From—from the man I work for," said the girl. "He said I stole something and I didn't, and he says he can have me arrested," she said with fresh sobs.
"But how can anyone have you arrested if you didn't steal anything?" asked Hinpoha.
"I don't know," answered the girl, "but I'm afraid he will." She cried for a moment and then collected herself and went on. "My name is Pearl Baxter," she said. "I used to live on a farm down state with my mother and then she died and I came here to the city and went to work in an office. I was the only girl in the office and I knew the combination of the safe. A few days ago Mr. Sawyer, that's one of the men I work for, asked me to get certain papers out of the safe, and when I went there I couldn't find them. He made an awful fuss and said I had taken them. They were bonds, if you know what they are. He said he would have me arrested. I believe his son took them because he knew they were there. When the other partner of the firm found they were gone he insisted on having the office searched and the bonds were found in my desk drawer. They would not believe me when I said I did not put them there. That was yesterday and I ran away and hid here all night and I'm afraid to go out for fear they will get me."
She broke down again and wept into her handkerchief. Tender-hearted Hinpoha was ready to weep in sympathy. "You poor thing!" she exclaimed. "Have you no friends who would help you?" she asked.
The girl shook her head. "I don't know anybody up here," she said. "I've only been working here three months."
For Hinpoha there was always one court of last resort. That was Nyoda.
"You come along with me," she said. "I know somebody who can tell you what to do."
She led the girl out to the Striped Beetle and told her story to the other girls. They all agreed that the only thing to do was to take her to Nyoda as quickly as possible. She sat in the tonneau of the car between Chapa and Medmangi with her veil tied down over her face, through which she peered nervously to the right and left as the car moved on through the streets. Gladys's brow was drawn up into a frown of perplexity as corner after corner was turned and they still did not come upon the Glow-worm. Boys playing in the street told them that it had gone past over fifteen minutes before. Hinpoha anxiously wished for a sight of the familiar car so that Pearl could be turned over to Nyoda very soon.
"It's like a game of Hare and Hounds," said Chapa from the back seat "Nyoda is the hare and we are the hounds. She's probably doing it on purpose to see how well we can trail her to the city limits. You know how fond she is of putting us to unexpected tests."
"I'll make it," said Gladys, determinedly.
Several times she consulted her route book and then she laughed. "The joke is on Nyoda after all," she said. "This way leads to the southern route and not the northern, and they'll have the pleasure of crossing the city again. Won't we have the laugh on them, though, when we meet them at the city limits?"
But the Glow-worm was not waiting for them at the city limits and they were much surprised to learn that it had traveled on over the road to the west. "The southern route?" asked Gladys, wonderingly, "I can't imagine what Nyoda is doing. I'm sure she understood we were to take the northern. It's all right, of course, because there is no great difference in the routes, they each lead to Ft. Wayne, but I can't imagine why she changed without telling us."
"Maybe she couldn't stop the car," said Hinpoha, beginning to giggle. "It's happened before. The fellow next door to us bought a motorcycle and got it started and couldn't stop it again and he whizzed up and down the city until the gas gave out, and there were eleven policemen chasing him before he got through."
The picture of the Glow-worm traveling across country with the bit between its teeth, carrying its passengers willy-nilly over the wrong road, was so funny that they all laughed aloud, in spite of the improbability of it.
"Maybe she'll make us trail her all the way to Ft. Wayne," said Gladys, musingly. "It's really our fault for losing her; we should have kept a better lookout. But it's a cold day when the Striped Beetle can't catch up with the Glow-worm." And Gladys put on full speed ahead.
Hinpoha was not worrying much about us and our disappearance; her thoughts were taken up with Pearl and her night in the empty storeroom. Hinpoha always takes other people's troubles so to heart.
At Napoleon they stopped for gasoline and learned that the Glow-worm had passed some time before and had also stopped for gasoline.
For the most part Pearl sat silent, turning her head every little while to watch the road behind them. She was that pink-and-white-doll-baby-helpless-in-emergency type of girl who ought never be allowed away from home without a guardian. After they had been traveling awhile she leaned back against the seat and looked so white and faint that the girls became alarmed.
"Do you feel ill?" asked Medmangi, feeling her pulse with a practised hand. Medmangi is going to be a doctor and is in her element when she has a patient to attend to. Pearl opened her big blue eyes languidly.
"I just got light-headed," she said, in a weak voice. "I think maybe it's because I'm—I'm hungry."
"Why didn't we think of it before?" asked Hinpoha, filled with self-reproach. "We might have known you hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday if you stayed in that storeroom all night. We'll stop in this village and get you something."
"I'd rather you wouldn't," said Pearl, in a somewhat embarrassed manner. "I really don't want anything to eat."
"Not want anything to eat!" echoed Hinpoha. "Why don't you want to eat if you're hungry?"
"You see," answered Pearl, still more embarrassed, "when I, when I ran away, I didn't stop to take my purse and I haven't any money to pay—"
"That's nonsense," said Gladys, firmly. "You have got to let us help you. It isn't any more than you would do for someone in the same position."
They stopped and got her something to eat and the others drank pop to keep her company. In spite of her being as hungry as she must have been Pearl did not eat very much; her trouble had evidently taken away her appetite. The girls exerted themselves to cheer her and assured her that everything would come out all right as soon as they found Nyoda and got her advice.
Somebody must have been moving a crockery store in the neighborhood and dropped it in the middle of the road, for, as they were passing through the outskirts of the little village where they had stopped they ran into a regular field of broken china. Gladys stopped short when she saw it, but it was too late, they were already in the midst of it. Both the front tires breathed their last. I think it should be made a criminal offense to leave things like that in the road. But then maybe the man carrying the china was knocked down by an automobile in the first place, and left the pieces in order to get revenge on some member of the auto driving fraternity. Ever since then I have been wondering how many of our calamities are brought down upon us by our best friends.
Gladys backed out of the mess and set about repairing the damage. The Striped Beetle carried two extra tires done up in a nice shiny cover all ready for emergency, but for some reason or other Gladys couldn't get the old tires off. It seems the demountable rims refused to demount, or whatever it is they are expected to do when you take a tire off.
Don't expect me to get the details straight or I shall throw up the job of reporter right here. I never could see through the workings of a motor car. I am like the Indian who had the automobile explained to him until he knew every part like a brother and then, when asked if he understood it, he replied that he understood all but one thing and that was what made it go without horses. So if the reader, who knows a car from A to Z, will kindly forbear to smile when I muddle things up, I will be her debtor forever.
Gladys saw that she would have to have help in getting those tires off and began scanning the horizon for a man. There are times when a man is a most useful member of society. There was not a man on the horizon at that time, though, and the only promising thing was a house set far back from the road in a grove of trees, and with a vegetable garden running down to the road. They had already left the village behind and habitations were scarce. Gladys went up to the house and returned in a short while with a man, who wrestled with the tires awhile and then proposed driving the car into the yard in the shade of the trees, as the sun was scorching hot in the road. Gladys accepted the invitation with alacrity.
While the Striped Beetle was holding up its poor cut front shoes for the man to take off the girls strolled over to the pump for a drink. A tired-looking woman, holding a fretful baby in her arms, came to the door and asked the girls to come up on the porch and sit down until the exchange of tires was made. Medmangi promptly offered to hold the baby while the woman finished her work. With a sigh of relief the woman handed her the baby.
"Such a time I've had with him to-day," she said, mopping her forehead. "He's cried steady since morning. He acts sick and he's got a fever."
Medmangi took the fretful child and endeavored to soothe him while his mother went about her work. Hinpoha, who is crazy about babies, insisted on holding him half the time, but neither of them could make him stop crying. A three year old girl, red-faced and heavy-eyed, as if she had recently awakened from sleep, peered shyly through the screen door and Chapa coaxed her to come out and sit in her lap. The mother came to the door every few minutes to tell us how thankful she was for the relief.
The relief promised to be one of considerable length, for the Striped Beetle steadfastly refused to put on its new tires. At last, the man proposed going after another man who lived down the road to help him. Gladys joined us on the porch while he was gone and helped amuse the babies. Still the little fellow cried. Medmangi explored for pins with a skilled hand but there was nothing sticking into him. Neither did he appear to be teething.
"There's something the matter with this baby," she said to the mother, when next she came to the door. "Hadn't you better have a doctor?"
The woman came out on the porch and looked down at the child in a worried way. "I sent my husband to town for the doctor this morning," she said, "but he had gone out into the country on a call and would not be back until late to-night. The next nearest doctor is in B——; that's eight miles away and we have no horse. So we'll have to wait until Dr. Lane gets back from the country."
"Wouldn't you like to have me drive over and get the doctor from B—— as soon as the tires are on?" asked Gladys. Gladys is always the one to offer the helping hand.
"Would you?" asked the woman, eagerly.
"I would be very glad to," said Gladys.
The man came back with his friend and between the two of them they managed to get the Striped Beetle shod anew. Gladys drove off to B——, leaving Chapa and Medmangi and Pearl and Hinpoha on the porch with the babies and taking Mrs. Martin with her. She had seen Mrs. Martin give a wistful glance toward the big car and surmised rightly that she had few chances to go automobile riding. They were back in less than an hour saying that the doctor would be right along, and he appeared presently in a dusty roadster with another man beside him, probably a friend.
I suppose everybody has been taught from childhood that virtue is its own reward and one good turn deserves another. But once in awhile they discover that the reward of virtue is just as apt to be trouble as not, and that one good turn can unscrew the lid of a whole canful of calamities. Thus it was that Gladys's generous offer to fetch the doctor from B—— ended up in disaster for all five of us. For the doctor examined the fretful baby and the heavy-eyed little girl and announced that they both had scarlet fever.
Scarlet fever! The girls looked at each other in dismay. Not one of them had had it. And they had all handled both the babies; Medmangi had hung over the little boy most of the time.
"If we have ourselves disinfected," said Medmangi, as they moved hastily toward the car, "there won't be much danger of our getting it. Scarlet fever isn't really contagious in the first stages."
"Stay right where you are," said the doctor, in a tone of authority. "No one must leave this house. You are all under quarantine."
"But we can't stay here," said Gladys. "We're touring and only stopped here."
"That makes no difference," said the doctor. He was a very young doctor and had recently been appointed health officer in his district. There was a serious epidemic of scarlet fever in that part of the state which it was almost impossible to check because people would not keep to themselves when they had it in the house. Young Dr. Caxton had made up his mind that the next case that was reported would be as rigidly quarantined as they were in the big cities. And automobile tourists would be the very ones to spread the infection abroad through the countryside. He was determined to hold them there at all costs.
They argued and pleaded in vain; he was obdurate. He had brought a friend with him in the car and he proceeded to station him as guard over the house to see that no one left it. Oh yes, he would see to it that they got all necessary supplies; they would suffer no hardship, but, on no account, would a member of that household set a foot off the grounds. He ordered the babies put to bed and the curtains taken down in that room and the rugs taken out. Mrs. Martin obeyed his orders in a flutter of distress. She was frightened because her children had the scarlet fever and worried half to death at the predicament her passing guests were in. She had been so grateful to Gladys for taking her along in the automobile to B——.
But her distress over it was nothing compared to theirs. To be held up in the midst of a tour and quarantined with a scarlet fever case! Whatever was to become of them? If Nyoda were only there!
"Now you'll have to telegraph your father," said Chapa.
Gladys's face was drawn with distress. "Mother would be frightened to death if she knew about it," she said. "I don't believe I'll tell her yet. I'll wait until I hear from Nyoda."
"How will we get word to Nyoda?" asked Hinpoha.
"Ft. Wayne," answered Gladys. "We were to stay there to-night and she must be there by this time."
"You'll send a wire for us?" she asked the doctor beseechingly.
"Certainly," he answered, amiably. "Any service—"
But Gladys cut him short. He was plainly enjoying the situation. The doctor departed with his horrid shiny little case and the message in his pocket and left the guard to watch the house. The first thing he did was to take something out of the Striped Beetle—I don't know what—so Gladys couldn't start it and make a dash for liberty. Gladys was ready to cry with rage at this high handed act, but that was all the good it did her.
"Well, there's one thing about it," said Hinpoha, who was far more philosophical than the rest, "if we have to stay prisoners here we might as well get busy and help Mrs. Martin. It's no fun to have five people quartered on you when there are two sick children in the house." Medmangi was already in the sick room giving medicine and drinks of water in an accomplished manner. It seems that the Winnebagos have a specialist in every line.
The others went down to the kitchen and finished paring the peaches which Mrs. Martin had been trying to can.
Later in the evening the guard slipped an envelope through the screen door. It was a telegram. It was signed by the telegraph company and read: "Yours date addressed Elizabeth Kent Potter Hotel Ft. Wayne undelivered. Party not registered."
The girls were entirely at sea at not reaching Nyoda at Ft. Wayne. They had counted so confidently upon her advice to help them out of the difficulty in which they found themselves. Being lost from her was the worst calamity they could conceive of. They were very much puzzled and a little hurt that she should have run away and left them as she did. It was so unlike Nyoda. On all other expeditions she had kept them under her eye every minute, like the careful Guardian she was. None of them slept much that night for worrying over the strange predicament they were in. Besides that they had to sleep three in a bed. Gladys made up her mind to wire her father in the morning when the doctor came.
When they looked out of the door in the morning the guard of the day before was gone and a new one had taken his place. Evidently Dr. Caxton was going to do the job thoroughly. Towards noon a buggy drove into the yard and a white-haired man got out and came up on the porch. He carried a shabby medicine case.
"Why, Dr. Lane!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin cordially, when she saw him.
"You left a call for me yesterday when I was out in the country," said Dr. Lane, in a pleasant voice. "I did not get in until early this morning. What's the trouble?"
"It's the children," said Mrs. Martin. "They've got scarlet fever. I was so worried about Bobby yesterday that I sent for Dr. Caxton from B——. We'll have to keep him now, I suppose, but do you want to look at them anyhow? Mary doesn't want to take her medicine, and maybe you could—"
"Certainly I'll go up and see them," said Dr. Lane. He was the kind of man you would love to have for your grandfather. His pockets bulged suspiciously as though they contained bags of lemon drops or peanuts. Talking cheerfully all the while he entered the sick room and looked at the patients.
"So Dr. Caxton said they had scarlet fever!" he said, musingly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Martin.
"Scarlet fever your grandmother!" returned Dr. Lane. "They've got prickly heat. If Dr. Caxton called that scarlet fever, what would he call a real case of scarlet fever?"
A minute later the man on guard heard a laugh that almost shook the windows of the house. Not long after that he was pedaling down the road on the bicycle that had brought him, very red in the face and very hot under the collar. The quarantine ended right then and there. Whether Dr. Caxton came again or not we never found out, for the girls left immediately. They sped over the road to Ft. Wayne as fast as the Striped Beetle could carry them. They went to the Potter Hotel and naturally discovered that we had not stayed there. I believe they had held to the hope all the time that we had arrived after the telegram had gone back undelivered. They stood around irresolutely until the check man to whom we had talked spied them and told them that we had left not half an hour before and were on our way to Chicago by way of Ligonier. They could hardly believe their ears when they heard that Nyoda had gone off and left them the second time. But as they were so close behind us the only thing for them to do was to follow.
Gladys stopped at a service station and had the Striped Beetle's carburetor adjusted, or something that sounded like that, and then started post-haste on the road to Chicago. Pearl looked from one to the other of the girls with fear and suspicion in her face. "Is there—is there really such a person as you say you are taking me to see, or are you taking me somewhere else?" she faltered.
And the girls had a hard time convincing her that Nyoda was not a myth, although they began to wonder if she had not turned into one. Gradually Pearl began to thaw out under their persistent cordiality and was really not such a bad companion after all. She still furtively watched the road behind them as if she feared pursuit, but some of the scared rabbit look was going out of her eyes when she began to realize that the width of a whole state lay between her and her persecutors and they had absolutely no clue to her whereabouts. She repeatedly expressed her amazement that a group of girls so young had the courage to travel by themselves in an automobile, and were not frightened to death to have gotten separated from their chaperon, but were calmly following her up as fast as they were able.
She was much interested when she heard they were Camp Fire Girls, and wanted to know all about the Winnebago doings.
"I wish I could have belonged to something like that in the city where I worked," she said with a sigh, "maybe I wouldn't have been so lonesome all the time. And I would have had a Guardian—is that what you call her?—to go to when I got into trouble."
"Maybe you'll get into a group yet," said Hinpoha, optimistically. "There are some in the city where you live."
Pearl was as great a curiosity to them as they were to her. How any girl of eighteen could be so babyish and helpless as she was was a revelation to them. Everyone of them wished devoutly that she could become a Winnebago so they could make something out of her. Hinpoha began making plans right away.
"As long as you have no people and it doesn't matter where you work, why couldn't you come to Cleveland and find work, and possibly join our group?" she suggested. "I'm sure Nyoda would take you in. When Migwan goes to college she won't be able to attend the meetings regularly and there will be a vacant place. Couldn't you?" she cried, warming to her plan, and the rest of the girls voiced their approval.
"Oh, do you suppose I could?" asked Pearl timidly, clasping her hands before her in a nervous manner. "Oh, I never could do it. I'm afraid to go to a bigger city for fear I'll get into trouble again. And I never could do the things you girls do, I just never could." And she looked at them with appealing helplessness in her big blue eyes.
"Nonsense," said Hinpoha, "you can do anything you want to if you only think you can do it." And she told her a marvelous tale of how I earned the money to go to college when things seemed determined to go against me. Which is all perfectly nonsensical; the chance of earning money to go to college fell right into my lap. Pearl only opened her eyes wider at Hinpoha's recital and answered with a sigh, "Oh, I never could do it!"
The girls went on happily planning how they would take her back to Cleveland with them and make her one of the Winnebagos.
They had to slow up the Striped Beetle along the road for a cow and a calf that were monopolizing the right of way and Hinpoha decided to take a picture of them. "Oh, this film's finished," she said impatiently, examining her camera. "I'll have to stop and reload. Oh, Gladys, do you mind if I open the trunk here on the road? My extra films are all in there."
"Go ahead and open it," said Gladys good-naturedly, handing her the key.
Hinpoha got out and went behind the machine to get her film from the trunk, all the while calling out to the cow and her calf in a friendly and coaxing manner not to walk away before she could take them. But she stopped suddenly in the midst of a persuasive "Here, bossy, stay here," to utter a surprised exclamation.
"What's the matter?" asked Gladys.
"There isn't any trunk here." cried Hinpoha. "It's gone!"
Consternation reigned in the Striped Beetle. The trunk, containing all their extra clothes, had vanished from the rack at the back of the car!
"And my scarf was in it," said Hinpoha, ready to cry with distress, "that mother sent me from Italy!"
"Don't worry, we'll get it again," said Gladys soothingly, although she was as much dismayed herself. "Where did we have it last? We had it in Ft. Wayne, I know, because we opened it there. It must have been taken off in the service station where we had the carburetor adjusted. We'll have to go back and see if it's there."
Accordingly they turned around and drove swiftly back to Ft. Wayne. Inquiries at the service station at first brought out nothing, because the proprietor declared that the trunk had not been touched—whoever heard of taking off a trunk to adjust a carburetor? But a repairman coming in just then, heard the talk about the trunk and said he was the man who had made the adjustment on the car and he noticed that the trunk rack seemed to be sagging and took off the trunk to fix it. He had not put the trunk on again, because just then he had been called to help install new gears in a car for a man who was in a great hurry and had called one of the helpers to put on the trunk and fill the tank. The helper was called and admitted that he had put a trunk on a car, but it was not the Striped Beetle; it was a similar car owned by a man who was driving to Indianapolis. He had thought the trunk belonged to him.
The girls looked at each other tragically. Their trunk on the road to Indianapolis!
"How long ago did he start?" asked Gladys.
"About an hour," answered the repairman.
"We'll have to go after him," said Gladys, resolutely. "We need that trunk. Can you tell us what the man's name is?"
"Hansen," replied the repairman. "George Hansen. Driving seven passenger touring car, brown, with black streamer and gold striping. He was driving to Indianapolis over the road that goes through Huntington, Marion and Anderson; I heard him talking about it. That's one of the main roads out of here. You ought to be able to overtake him on the way; he's a slow driver and his motor was missing pretty badly. Wouldn't let me fix it though, because it would take too long and he wanted to get to Indianapolis in time to see the races. He lives there, so you ought to be able to find him; runs some kind of a store."
He poured out his information eagerly; he seemed anxious to do anything he could to aid in the recovery of the trunk, since he had put it on the wrong car. "Funny how well it fitted that other rack!" he said. But Gladys says there is nothing peculiar about that because the two cars, being the same make, had the same style rack, and the trunk was the ordinary one carried by automobilists.
She hastily looked up the route to Indianapolis and started in pursuit of the unconscious thief. It was then nearly five o'clock in the evening. They really did not have much hope of catching the other car on the way, since it had an hour's start, but they were confident of recovering the trunk in Indianapolis, where they could find out the man's address and follow him to his home. Fortune played into their hands in that they found good roads all the way and had no breakdowns, and sometime after eight they reached Indianapolis. There were half a dozen George Hansens in the telephone book, four of whom were away on automobile trips. But further inquiry brought out the fact that one of them did own a seven passenger brown W—— car. He was expected home that evening, but had not yet arrived. His wife (it was she who was talking) was very sorry about the trunk, but if it had been placed on the rack of her husband's car it would undoubtedly arrive when he did. He would probably come home during the night, as he was very anxious to see the races, which were to take place the next two days. Would they call later?
Somewhere on the road they had passed him, but it was too late now to wonder where. The only thing to do was to wait until he came. At ten o'clock he had not arrived yet. The girls went down to the Young Women's Christian Association, where they could spend the night. Gladys concluded that Nyoda must be told if possible where they were, and judging that she had reached Chicago by that time she wired the Carrie Wentworth Inn, where they had planned to stay that night, telling what had happened and saying she would arrive in Chicago the next day.
They called the Hansen home the first thing in the morning and learned to their dismay that Mr. Hansen had not yet returned. But he was expected any minute and Hinpoha would not hear of leaving without the trunk. Shortly afterward their telegram came back undelivered from the Carrie Wentworth Inn in Chicago, with the notation, "Party not registered." That threw them into a state of bewilderment, but Gladys, after thinking hard and long about the matter, remarked that the Glow-worm had a habit of breaking down at inconvenient times and that probably accounted for our not having reached Chicago the night before.
Every half hour they called up the Hansen home to find out if Mr. Hansen had returned and every time they received a negative answer. Finally, Hinpoha suggested that they drive out to his house and sit on the curbstone where they could see him coming, before they spent all their substance in a riotous feeding of nickels into the public telephone. Which they proceeded to do. But their vigil was vain, for he came not and it became apparent that they must either depart without the trunk or stay there another night. Gladys was for going on and having it sent after them, but Hinpoha refused to budge until she had seen that scarf with her own eyes. Accordingly, they sent another wire to the Carrie Wentworth Inn, thinking surely Nyoda must have arrived by that time, and stayed a second night in Indianapolis.
The next morning they received the news that Mr. Hansen had arrived, but alas, he had brought no trunk with him. He knew nothing about the matter at all. He could remember no trunk being on the back of his car when he left the repair shop in Ft. Wayne, but then, he had not looked particularly. He had made several stops on the way home on business—he was a traveling salesman—and that was how they had passed him on the road. The car had stood for a time in a dozen different places, the trunk could easily have been stolen, and he had never known the difference. Possibly they could hold the repair shop responsible.
The girls were much downcast at this news, especially Hinpoha, on account of the scarf that had been the last gift of her mother. Where was the trunk now? It might be anywhere between the north and south poles in that length of time. Gladys's only hope was now that it had been mislaid and not stolen, and that it would fall into the hands of some honest person who would ferret out the owner.
They were just about to start out for Chicago again when they were handed a telegram. It was from the Carrie Wentworth Inn and was dated midnight of the night before. It read: "Wire from party you want says address Forty-three Main Street Rochester Indiana."
That wire threw them into great perplexity. What were Nyoda and the girls doing in Rochester, when they had been on the road to Chicago two days before?
"The Glow-worm is more like a flea than a glow-worm," said Hinpoha. "It's never where you expect to find it. I really believe Nyoda has lost control of the car and it is taking her wherever it wants to."
Gladys was consulting the route book. "Rochester is on the direct road to Indianapolis," she said. "We can make the run in a few hours. I'm going to wire Nyoda that we're coming and she should wait for us."
So she sent the wire we received that morning in Rochester:
"Where on earth are you? Wait Rochester for us. Coming to-day noon."
That was Friday, the day of the big races in Indianapolis. The town was full of people. Tourists from all over managed to make the city just at that time, and the streets were crowded with motor cars of every description. Gladys looked sharply at every car they passed on the way out of the city to see if her trunk was on the back of any of them, but in vain.
"I suppose I'll never see that scarf again," said Hinpoha, sadly.
Pearl looked a little enviously at the women who came to town in their big fine cars with drivers and bull dogs. "It must be lovely to be rich and taken care of," she said, with a sigh.
Pearl was the kind of a girl who should have been born to a life of luxurious ease. She certainly had no backbone to fight her own battles in the world. She was a Clinger, who would curl around the nearest support like a morning glory vine. She didn't seem to have any more spirit than an oyster. Hinpoha, still imbued with the idea of taking her in hand and making a Winnebago out of her, kept trying to draw her out with an idea of finding out what her possibilities were. It was rather a matter of pride with us that each one of the Winnebagos excelled in some particular thing. When Hinpoha asked her what her favorite play was she answered that she had never been to the theater and considered it wicked. She opened her eyes in disapproval when Hinpoha mentioned motion pictures. Hinpoha had been on the verge of launching out on our escapade with the film company the summer before, but checked herself hastily. She also suppressed the fact that I had written scenarios, which fact Hinpoha glories in a great deal more than I do and which she generally sprinkles into people's dishes on every occasion. The fact that Gladys danced in public seemed to shock her beyond words. Clearly she was unworldly to the point of narrowness, and Hinpoha began to reflect that, after all, she might be somewhat of a wet blanket on the Winnebago doings if she came and joined the group. Pearl showed such marked disapproval of Gladys when she remarked that she wished her father were in town so they could have gone to the races that an awkward silence fell on the group. No topic of conversation seemed safe to venture upon.
They were driving along country roads now and in one place they crossed a small river with the most gorgeous early autumn flowers growing along its banks. They caught Hinpoha's color-loving eye and she must get out and wander among them. Gladys and Chapa and Medmangi decided that they too would like a stroll beside the river, after sitting in the car so long. Pearl did not care to get out; she offered to stay in the car and hold the purses of the other girls until they returned. The four girls walked along the stream, admiring the flowers, but not picking any, because they would only fade and wither and if left on the stems they would give pleasure to hundreds of people. Now and then they dabbled their fingers in the cool water.
"It's such a temptation to go wading," sighed Hinpoha, who never will grow up and be dignified if she lives to be a hundred.
Gladys was afraid Hinpoha would yield to the temptation if it stared her in the face too long, and announced that it was time to be under way. Reluctantly, Hinpoha tore herself away from the river and followed Gladys to the road.
What a rude ending that little wayside idyll was destined to have!
For when they returned to the road where they had left the Striped Beetle there was nothing but empty air. Car, Pearl, and four purses, containing every cent the girls had with them, had vanished!
At first the girls could not believe their eyes. But it was all too true. The deep tracks in the dust of the road showing the well-known prints of the Striped Beetle's tires told beyond a doubt that the car had gone on and left them.
"But I never heard it start!" said Gladys.
"It was the murmuring of your old brook, Hinpoha, that you were raving about," said Chapa, "that filled our ears."
It took them actual minutes to realize that Pearl, the spineless clinging doll-faced girl they had befriended, had sold them out.
"And we took her for such a baby!" said Hinpoha, in bewilderment.
"Who would ever dream she could drive a car?" gasped Gladys. "She was afraid to toot the horn." To lose your automobile in the midst of a tour must be like having your horse shot under you. One minute you're en route and the next minute you're rooted, if the reader will forgive a very lame pun. And the spot where the Striped Beetle had been (figuratively) shot from under the girls could not have been selected better if it had been made to order for a writer of melodrama. There was not a house in sight nor a telephone wire. The dust in the road was three inches deep and the temperature must have been close to a hundred. They were at least five miles from the nearest town. Chapa looked at Medmangi, Medmangi looked at Hinpoha, and Hinpoha looked at Gladys. Gladys, having no one else to look at, scratched her head and thought.
"Well," she said finally, "we can't stay here all day. We might as well walk to the nearest town and tell the police. They may be able to trace the car. It was stolen once before and they found it in a town forty miles away."
Whenever anyone mentions that walk in the heat the four girls begin to pant and fan themselves with one accord. They had gone about three miles when they came upon the Striped Beetle standing in the road, abandoned. With a cry of joy the girls threw themselves upon it. The cause for its abandonment soon came to light. The gasoline tank was empty. Otherwise it was undamaged. But before it could join the innumerable caravan again it must have gasoline, and naturally there was none growing on the bushes.
"You two sit in the car and see that no one else runs away with it," said Gladys to Medmangi and Chapa, "and Hinpoha and I will go for gasoline."
It was not until they had finished the two miles to town and stood by a gasoline station that they remembered that they had no money. The gasoline man firmly refused to give them any gas unless they paid for it. Gladys was aghast. Hinpoha leaned wearily against a post and mopped her hot face. Hinpoha suffers more from the heat than the rest of us.
"Pretty tough to be dead broke, aint it, lady?" asked a grimy urchin, who had been an interested witness of Gladys's discomfiture.
"Worse to be alive and broke," jeered another one. Gladys's face was crimson with heat and embarrassment. She turned and walked rapidly away from the place, followed by Hinpoha.
"You'll have to wire home for money now," said Hinpoha.
"And lose the bet," said Gladys, disconsolately. "And father'll laugh his head off to think how neatly we were beaten.
"I know what I'll do," she said, resolutely. "I'll not wire him at all. I'll wire the bank where I have my own money and have them wire me some."
Accordingly, she hunted up the telegraph office and sent a wire collect to her bank, feeling much pleased with herself at the idea of having found a way out without calling on her father for aid.
The telegraph office was in the railway station and she and Hinpoha sat down after sending the wire and waited for the ship to come in, wondering what the other girls would think when they failed to come back with the gasoline. It was past dinnertime but there was no dinner for them as long as they had no money. From jaunty tourist to penniless pauper in two hours is quite a change. An hour passed; two hours, but no gold-laden message came over the wire. Hinpoha had been chewing her fingers for the last hour.
"Oh, please stop that," cried Gladys irritably, "you make me nervous. You remind me of a cannibal."
"Isn't there a poem about 'My beautiful Cannibalee?" returned Hinpoha. "I'll go out and eat grass if that will make you feel any better," she continued. She strolled outdoors, leaving Gladys listening to the clickety-click of the telegraph instrument and growing more nervous every minute. Presently Hinpoha came back and said she couldn't stand it outside at all because there was a crate of melons and a box of eggs on the station platform, and she was afraid she wouldn't have the strength to resist if she stayed out there with them.
"And it's going to rain," she announced. "You ought to see the sky toward the west."
And then the darkness began to make itself felt; not the blue darkness of twilight, but the black darkness of thunder clouds through which zig-zags of lightning began to stab. A baby, waiting in the station with its mother for the train, began to wail with fright and Hinpoha forgot her hunger in an effort to amuse him. Then the storm broke. The train roared in just as it began and mingled its noise with the thunder. Hardly had it disappeared up the track when there came a crash of thunder that shook the station to its foundations, followed by a dazzling sheet of blue light, and then the telegraph operator bounded out of his little enclosure, white with fear. His instrument had been struck, as well as the wires on the outside of the building and the roof began to burn. Gladys and Hinpoha rushed out into the rain regardless of their unprotected state and found shelter in a near-by shed, from which they watched the progress of what might well be taken for a second deluge.
"If the water rises much higher in the road we won't need any gasoline," remarked Hinpoha. "The Striped Beetle will float."
"I only hope the girls got the storm curtains buttoned down in time," Gladys kept saying over and over again.
"If it starts to float," persisted Hinpoha, "do you suppose it will come this way, or will they have to steer it? Would the steering-wheel be any good, I wonder, or would they have to have a rudder? Oh," she said brightly, "now I know what they mean by the expression 'turning turtle'. It happens in cases of flood; the car turns turtle and swims home. If it only turned into turtle soup," she sighed.
Gladys looked up suddenly. "What time was it when we sent that wire to my bank?" she asked.
"A quarter after one," replied Hinpoha, promptly. "I heard a clock chiming somewhere. And I calculated that I would just about last until you got an answer."
"A quarter after one," repeated Gladys. "That's Central time. That was a quarter after two Cleveland time. The bank closes at two o'clock. They probably never sent me any money!"
"Now you'll have to wire your father after all," said Hinpoha.
For answer Gladys pointed to the blackened telegraph pole which was lying with its many arms stretched out across the roof of the station. There would be no wires sent out that day.
By the time the rain had ceased the darkness of the thunder clouds had been succeeded by the darkness of night, and Hinpoha and Gladys took their way wearily back over the flooded road to where the Striped Beetle stood.
"Did you have to dig a well first, before you got that gasoline?" called Chapa, as they approached. (Theyhadput down the storm curtains, Gladys noted.)
Gladys made her announcement briefly and they all settled down to gloom.
"Talk about being shipwrecked on a desert island," said Hinpoha. "I think one can get beautifully shipwrecked on the inhabited mainland. We are experiencing all the thrills of Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss family Robinson combined."
"We haven't any Man Friday," observed Gladys.
"What good would he be if we had him?" inquired Hinpoha, gloomily.
"He could act as chauffeur," replied Gladys, "and supply the modern flavor."
"This is Friday, too," remarked Medmangi.
"That's why the car won't start," said Hinpoha, "it won't start anything on Friday."
"Couldn't we dig for oil?" suggested Chapa. "We're in the oil belt. There must be all kinds of gasoline in the earth under our very feet, and we languishing on top of it! It's like the stories where the man perishes of thirst in the desert right on top of the water hole."
"We really and truly are Robinson Crusoe-like," said Gladys, looking out at the flooded fields and deserted road.
"Robinson Crusoe had the advantage of us in one thing," said Hinpoha, returning to her main theme. "He had a corn-stalk, and clams, and things."
"'If we only had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we only had some eggs,'" quoted Gladys.
"Here's where the Slave of the Lamp would come in handy," sighed Hinpoha.
"You might rub the lamp," said Gladys, pointing to the tail light, "and maybe the Slave will appear."
"I want baked potatoes on my order," said Gladys.
"And I want broiled chicken," said Chapa.
Hinpoha got down and solemnly rubbed the tail lamp of the Striped Beetle, exclaiming, "Slave, appear!"
Something black bounded out of the darkness at the side of the road and landed at her feet. It was Mr. Bob, who had gone off for exercise. He carried something in his mouth which he laid decorously on the ground beside her. She stooped to look at it. It was an apple.
The girls all shouted. Hinpoha straightened up. "Girls," she said solemnly, "coming shadows cast their events before, I mean, coming events cast their shadows before. Where there's honey you'll find bees, and where there's apples you'll find trees. The famine is over, and now for the feast."
She led the way down the road with Chapa and Medmangi on either side. They found the tree, close beside the road, and loaded with fruit. They filled their pockets for Gladys and returned to the Striped Beetle, and then for some time, as Hinpoha said, "Nothing was heard in the air but the hurrying munch of the greening."
"It must be a disadvantage to be a negro," remarked Hinpoha reflectively, "you can't tell the difference when they're clean."
"May I ask," inquired Gladys politely, "just what it was that caused you to make that remark at this time?"
"Greening apples," returned Hinpoha, calmly. "You can't tell which are ripe and which are green."
"You can tell by the seeds," said Gladys.
"All seeds are black by night," returned Hinpoha.
"Not changing the subject," said Chapa, "but where are we going to stay to-night?"
"You're notgoingto stay," replied Hinpoha, "you're staying. Right here. The Inn of the Striped Beetle.
"Under the wide and starry skyFold up the seats and let us lie!"
"We'll sleep with the raggle taggle gypsies, O!" added Gladys.
"I want a fire," said Hinpoha. "We always have a fire when we sleep out."
"Well, build one in a puddle, if you can," said Gladys. "Your hair will be the only blaze we have to-night."
Chapa and Medmangi stood up together on the running-board and began to sing dolefully,
"Forsaken, forsaken, forsaken, am I,Like the bones at a banquet, all men pass me by."
"I wish a few would pass by," said Gladys, "By the way, have you noticed that not a single car or wagon has passed through here since we've been stranded? I thought this was the main road."
"If this is the main road," said Hinpoha, "I'd hate to be stranded on a by-path."
Of course, the girls did not know then that the storm had washed out the bridges on either side of them and the roadway had been closed to traffic. They sat peering into the darkness like Columbus looking for land and wondering why no one came along to whom they could appeal for a tow into the village. The moon shone, a slender sickle in the west that Gladys said reminded her of the thin slices of melon they used to serve for breakfast at Miss Russell's school.
"I think it looks more like a toe nail," said Hinpoha, squinting sidewise at it.
"Don't look at it squarely, it'll bring you bad luck," said Chapa.
"I'm not looking at it," said Hinpoha, "it's looking at me."
"Where does the man in the moon go when it turns into a sickle?" asked Medmangi.
"That doesn't worry me half so much as where Pearl went with my silver mesh bag," said Gladys. That brought them all down to earth again and back to the cause of their predicament, and the moon turned into a yellow banana and fell off the sky counter while they voiced their indignation. And, of course, they all turned on Hinpoha for being taken in by her in the first place, and Hinpoha vented her irritation on Mr. Bob, who was sitting with his head on her knee in a lover-like attitude.
"It's all your fault that we are in this mess," she said to him, crossly. "If you hadn't jumped out of the car after that yellow dog and chased him into the empty store I wouldn't have had to go after you, and if I hadn't gone after you I would never have discovered Pearl and brought her along with us. It's the last time I'll ever travel with you." Mr. Bob, feeling the reproach in her tone, crept away with his head down.
"O come, let's not quarrel about whose fault it was," said Gladys. "It isn't the first time people have been taken in."
"We seem to be left out, rather than taken in," murmured Hinpoha.
"You're unusually brilliant to-night," remarked Chapa. "It must have been the apples, because on an ordinary diet you never say anything bright."
"Is that so?" said Hinpoha.
"Look at the stars," said Gladys hastily, "aren't they brilliant to-night?"
"Almost as brilliant as Hin—" began Chapa.
"If we sit up late enough," said Gladys, cutting in on Chapa's remark, "we may see some of the winter stars. I actually believe there's Orion now."
"And the Twins," cried Hinpoha, forgetting her momentary offended feeling in the interest of her discovery.
"And Sirius and the Bull and the River," added Gladys. "It's just like getting a peep at the actors in their dressing-rooms before it is time for them to come out on the stage, to see the winter stars now."
"I hate to look at the stars so much," said Hinpoha, dolefully. "They make me feel so small."
"I should think that anything that made you feel small would—"
Gladys again interrupted the flow of Chapa's wit, directed this time against Hinpoha's bulk.
"I'm going to bed," she announced. There was a scramble for the robes and for comfortable places in the tonneau, and it took much adjusting and readjusting before there was anything resembling quiet in the bedchamber of the Striped Beetle. But weariness can snore even on the floor boards of a car and that long walk over the road had done its work for at least two of the girls. The last thing they heard was Hinpoha drowsily spouting:
"Let me sleep in a car by the side of the road,Where the hop toads are croaking near-by,With Medmangi's camera between my knees stowed,And Gladys's foot in my eye!"
And then, when they were all nicely settled and had dropped off to sleep, Hinpoha had the nightmare and screamed the most blood-curdling screams and cried out that the apple tree was hugging her to death, which sounded nonsensical, but was really suggestive. For, in the morning she discovered that green apples are gone but not forgotten when used as an article of diet and sat doubled up in silent agony on the floor of the car and announced she was dying.
"It serves you right," said Medmangi, in her best doctor manner. "You were in such a hurry to eat them that you ate every one that came along without waiting to find out whether it was ripe or not. The rest of us stuck to the ripe ones and we're all right."
"Well, the unripe ones are sticking to me," groaned Hinpoha, unhappily.
Mr. Bob laid his head on her knee with an air of sympathy. Where Hinpoha is concerned he never stops to think whether the sympathy is deserved or not.
"What family do apples belong to, anyway?" asked Gladys idly, seeing it was time to turn Medmangi aside from preaching to Hinpoha.
"Not my family," said Chapa, "we're all peaches."
"Forget-me-not family," said Hinpoha, with another groan.
They ate more apples for breakfast, except Hinpoha, who pretended not to see when they offered them to her. Then Gladys decided to walk to town again to see what cheer there was there.
"Up, up, Hinpoha," she cried, "and join me in my morning stroll."
"You should say 'Double up, Hinpoha', like 'double up Lucy'," said Chapa, and then dodged as Hinpoha's hand reached out for her hair.
Hinpoha tried to stand up, but immediately sat down again, and Chapa went to town with Gladys.
They sat and watched the repairmen fixing the wires of the telegraph and, after a while, the messages began to pour in again. And one of them was the one that brought joy to Gladys's soul and as soon as the formalities were gone through she had actual money once more. They bought enough gasoline to bring the Striped Beetle in and returned to the anchored ones in triumph. They found that during their absence Hinpoha had manufactured a large "For Rent" sign and hung it on the front of the car, intending, as she said, to go into business and rent out the car at a dollar an hour until they had enough money to proceed.
"How were you intending to rent it out without any gasoline to run it?" inquired Gladys.
"Make them pay in advance," replied Hinpoha.
"With the constant stream of foot-sore pedestrians over this road it would no doubt have been profitable," said Gladys, scanning the road up and down. There was not a living being in sight. But Gladys knew the reason now, for she had seen the washout.