"You needn't preach to me, Eleanor," said the lawyer, laughing. "You converted me long ago. I'll stand for anything you do, anyhow. You're all right—you've got more sense than most men. It's a pity there aren't more girls like you."

"That's rank flattery, and it isn't true, anyhow," laughed Eleanor. "But if I am any better than I used to be, it's because I've learned not to think of myself first all the time. That's what the Camp Fire teaches us, you see. Work, and Health, and Love, that's what Wohelo means. And it means to work for others, and to love others, and to bring health to others as well as to yourself. Come down to the farm while we're there, and you'll see how it works out."

Jamieson got up.

"I probably will," he said, smiling as he held out his hand in farewell. "I'll have to come down to consult my client, you see."

"And you'll let us know if there's any news of Zara, Mr. Jamieson, won't you?" said Bessie. "I love the idea of going to the farm, but I rather hate to leave the city when I don't know what may be happening to Zara."

"You can't help her by staying here," said the lawyer, earnestly. "I'm quite sure of that. And I really think she's all right, and that she's being properly treated. After all, it's pretty hard to carry a girl like Zara off and keep her a prisoner against her will. It would be much better policy to treat her well, and keep her contented. It's quite plain that she thought she was going with friends when she went, or she would have made some sort of a row. And their best policy is to keep her quiet."

"But they didn't act that way before we got away from Hedgeville—clear away, I mean," said Bessie. "Farmer Weeks caught her in the road, you know, and locked her in that room the time that I followed her and helped her to get away through the woods."

"Yes, but that was a very different matter, Bessie. In that state Weeks had the law on his side. The court was ready to name him as her guardian, and to bind her over to him until she was twenty-one. In this state neither he nor anyone else, except her father, has any more right to keep her from going where she likes than they have to tell me what I must do—as long as we obey the law and don't do anything that is wrong."

"Then you think she's well and happy?"

"I'm quite sure of it," said Jamieson heartily. "This isn't some foreign country. It's America, where there are plenty of people to notice anything that seems wrong or out of the ordinary; And if they were treating Zara badly, she'd be pretty sure to find someone who would help her to get away."

"Yes, this is America," said Bessie, thoughtfully. "But you see, Zara has lived in countries where things are very different. And maybe she doesn't know her rights. After all, you know, she thinks her father hasn't done anything wrong, and still she's seen him put in prison and kept there. What I'm afraid of is that she'll get to think that this is just like the countries she knows best, and be afraid to do anything, or try to get help, no matter what they do."

"Well, we mustn't borrow trouble," said Jamieson, frowning slightly at the thoughts Bessie's words suggested to him. "We can't do anything more now, that's sure. Have a good time, and stop worrying. That's the best legal advice I can give you right now."

Once her mind was made up, Eleanor acted quickly. The outing at her father's farm, which was not at all like the Hoover farm in Hedgeville of which Bessie King had such unpleasant memories, was one that had long been promised to her girls, and she herself had been looking forward to going there. The troubles of Bessie and Zara had almost led her to abandon the idea of going there herself, and she had arranged for a friend to take her place as Guardian for a time. Now, however, she sent word to all her girls, and that very evening they met at the station and took the train for Deer Crossing, the little station that was nearest to the farm.

"They'll meet us in the farm wagons," said Eleanor, when the girls were all aboard. "So we'll have a ride through the moonlight to the farm—the moon rises early to-night, you know."

It was a jolly, happy ride in the train, and Bessie, renewing her acquaintance with the Camp Fire Girls, who had seemed to her and Zara, when they had first seen them, like creatures from another world, felt her depression wearing off. They had a car to themselves, thanks to the conductor, who had known Eleanor Mercer since she was a little girl, and as the train sped through the country scenes that were so familiar to Bessie, the girls laughed and talked and sang songs of the Camp Fire, and made happy plans for walks and tramps in the country about the farm.

"It's just like the country around Hedgeville, Miss Eleanor," said Bessie, as the Guardian stopped beside the seat she shared with her first chum among the Camp Fire Girls, Minnehaha. "The houses look the same, and the stone fences, and—oh, everything!"

"I wonder if you aren't a little bit homesick, down in your heart, Bessie?" laughed Miss Mercer. "Come, now, confess!"

"Perhaps I am," said Bessie, wonderingly. "I never thought of that. But it's just for the country, and the cows and the animals, and all the things I'm used to seeing. I wouldn't go back to Maw Hoover's for anything."

"You shan't, Bessie. I was only joking," said Eleanor, quickly. "I know just how you feel. I've been that way myself. When you get away from a place you begin very quickly to forget everything that was disagreeable that happened there, and you only remember the good times you had. That's why you're homesick."

"We'll be able to take walks and go for straw rides here, won't we, Wanaka?" asked Minnehaha. She used Eleanor's fire name, Wanaka, just as Minnehaha was her fire name; her own was Margery Burton.

"You'll have to, if you expect to be in fashion," laughed the Guardian. "And you shall learn to milk cows and find eggs and do all sorts of farm work, too. I expect Bessie will want to laugh often at you girls. You see, she knows all about that sort of thing, and you'll all be terrible greenhorns, I think."

"I ought to know about a farm," said Bessie. "I lived on one long enough. And I don't see why I should laugh at the rest of the girls. They know more about the city now than I ever will know. I've been there long enough to find that out, anyhow."

Just then the conductor put his head inside the door, and called "Deer Crossing!"

As the train slowed up, all the girls made a rush for their bags and bundles, and five minutes later they were standing and watching the disappearing train, waving to the amused conductor and trainmen, who were all on the platform of the last car. Then the train disappeared around a curve, and they had a chance to devote their attention to the two big farm wagons that were waiting near the station, each with its team of big Percherons and its smiling driver. The drivers were country boys, with fair, tousled hair, and both wore neat black suits. At the sight of them Eleanor burst into a laugh.

"Why, Sid Harris—and you, too, Walter Stubbs!" she cried. "This isn't Sunday! What are you doing in your store clothes, just as if you were on your way to church?"

Both the boys flushed and neither of them had a word to say.

"Did you get mixed up on the days of the week!" Eleanor went on, pitilessly.

All the girls were enjoying their confusion, and black-eyed Dolly Ransom, the tease of the party, laughed aloud.

"I bet they never saw so many girls together before, Miss Eleanor," she said, with a toss of her pretty head. "That's why they're so quiet! They probably don't have girls in the country."

"Don't they, just!" said Eleanor, laughing back at her. "Wait until you see them, Dolly. They'll put your nose out of joint, the girls around here. If you think you're going to have it all your own way with the boys out here, the way you do so much at home, you're mistaken."

Dolly tossed her head again. She looked at the confused, blushing boys on the wagons, who could hardly be expected to understand that Dolly was only teasing them, and wanted nothing better than a perfectly harmless flirtation.

"They're welcome to boys like those," she said airily. "I'll wait until I get home, Miss Eleanor."

Then she turned away, and Eleanor, her face serious for a moment, turned to Bessie.

"She'll wait until she's grown up, too, if I've got anything to say about it," she said. "Bessie, when Zara comes back, of course you'll be with her mostly. But I wish you'd make a friend of Dolly Ransom,—a real friend. Her mother's dead, and she has no sisters."

"I hope I can," said Bessie, simply. "I like her ever so much."



CHAPTER VIII

A NEW CHUM

The farm was nearly five miles from the station, and the two big wagons made slow time with the heavy loads, especially as the roads were still muddy from a recent downpour. But none of the Camp Fire Girls seemed to mind the length of the trip.

Now that she was actually out in the heart of it, Bessie found that the country was not as much like that around Hedgeville as it had seemed to be from the train windows. The fields were better kept; there were no unpainted, dilapidated looking houses, such as those of Farmer Weeks and some of the other neighbors of the Hoovers in Hedgeville whom she remembered so well.

Neat fences, well kept up, marked off the fields, and, even to Bessie's eyes, although she was far from being an agricultural expert, the crops themselves looked better. She spoke of this to Eleanor.

"These aren't just ordinary farms," Eleanor explained. "My father and some other men who have plenty of money have bought up a lot of land around here, and they are working the farms, and making them pay just as much as possible. My father thinks it's a shame for so many boys and young men, whose fathers own farms, to go rushing off to the city and work in stores and factories. And they started out to find out why it was that way. They're business men, you see and as soon as they really began to think about it they found out what was wrong."

"Why the boys went to the city?" asked Bessie. "I should think that would be easy to see! It was around Hedgeville. Why, on a farm, the work never is done. It's work all day, and then get up before daylight to start again. And even Paw Hoover, who had a good farm, was always saying how poor he was, and how he wished he could make more money."

"I'll bet he was always buying new land, though," said Eleanor, looking wise.

"Yes, he was," admitted Bessie. "He always said that if he could get enough land he'd be rich."

"He probably had too much as it was, Bessie. The trouble with most farmers is that they don't know how to use the land they have, instead of that they haven't enough. They don't treat the soil right, and they won't spend money for good farm machinery and for rich fertilizers. If they did that, and studied farming, the way men study to be doctors or lawyers, they'd be better off. How many acres did Paw Hoover have? Well, it doesn't matter, but I'll bet that my father gets more out of one acre on his farm than Paw Hoover does out of two on his. You see, the man who's in charge of the farm went to college to study the business, and he knows all sorts of things that make a farm pay better."

"Paw Hoover was talking about that once, saying he wished he could send Jake to college to study farming. But Maw laughed at him, and Jake couldn't have gone, anyhow. He was so stupid that he never even got through school there in Hedgeville."

"I suppose he is stupid," said Eleanor. "But after all, Bessie, when a boy doesn't get along well in school it doesn't always mean that it's his fault. He may not be properly taught. Sometimes it's the school's fault, and not the pupil's."

"Other people got along all right," said Bessie. She wasn't quite prepared to say a good word for Jake Hoover yet. He had caused her too much trouble in the past.

"Why," she went on, "I used to have to do his lessons for him all the time. He just wouldn't study at home, Miss Eleanor, and in school he was so big, and such a bully, that most of the teachers were afraid of him."

"That just shows they weren't good teachers, Bessie. No good teacher is ever afraid of a bully. She has plenty of people to back her up if she really needs help. I don't say Jake Hoover is any better than he ought to be, but from all you tell me, part of his trouble may be because he hasn't been properly handled. But let's forget him, anyhow. Look over there. Do you see that white house on top of the hill?"

"Against the sun, so that it's sort of pink where the sun strikes it?" said Bessie. "Yes, what a lovely place!"

"Well, that's where we're going," said Eleanor.

"But—but that doesn't look a bit like a farmhouse!" said Bessie, surprised. "I thought—"

"You thought it would be more like the Hoover farm, didn't you?" laughed Eleanor. "Well, of course that's only our house, and Dad built a nice one, on the finest piece of land he could find, because we were going to spend a good deal of time there. There's electric light and running water in all the rooms and we're just as comfortable there as we would be in the city."

"It's beautiful, but really, Miss Eleanor, I don't believe most farmers could afford a place like that, even if they were a lot better off than Paw Hoover—"

"They could afford a lot of the comforts, Bessie, because they don't cost half as much as you'd think. The electric light, for instance, and the running water. The light comes from power that we get from the brook right on the farm, and it costs less than it does to light the house in the city. And the water is pumped from the well by a windmill that cost very little to put up. You see, there's a big tank on the roof, and whenever there's a wind, the mill is started to running and the tank is filled. Then there's enough water on hand to last even if there shouldn't be enough wind to turn the mill for two or three days, though that's something that very seldom happens. If all the farmers knew how easily they could have these little comforts, and how cheap they are, I believe more of them would put in those conveniences."

"Oh, how much easier it would have been at Hoover's if we'd had them!" sighed Bessie. "There we had to fill the lamps every day, and every bit of water we used in the house had to be drawn at the well and carried in pails. It was awfully hard work."

"You see, Maw Hoover didn't have such an easy time, Bessie," said Eleanor. "She had all that work about the house to do for years and years. She didn't need to be so mean to you, but, after all, she might have been nicer if she'd had a pleasanter life. It's easy to be nice and agreeable when everything is easy, and everything goes right, but when you have to work hard all the time, if you're a little bit inclined to be mean, the grind of doing the same thing day after day, year after year, seems to bring the meanness right out. I've seen lots of instances of that, and I'm perfectly sure that if I were a farmer's wife, and had to work like a slave I'd be a perfect shrew and there'd be no living with me at all."

They turned in from the road now, the wagon in which Bessie and Eleanor rode in the lead, and came into a pretty avenue that led up a gentle grade to the ridge on which the house was built. There were trees at each side to provide shade in the hot part of the day, and for a long distance on each side of the trees there were well kept lawns.

"My father likes a place to be beautiful as well as useful," said Eleanor, "so he had those lawns made when we built the house. All the farmers in the neighborhood thought it was an awful waste of good land, but since then some of them have come to see that if they ever wanted to sell their places people would like them better if they were pretty, and they've copied this place a good deal in the neighborhood.

"We're very glad, because right now Cheney County is the prettiest farming section anywhere around, and the crops are about the best in the state, too. So, you see, we seem to have shown them that they can have pretty places and still make money. And sometimes those lawns are used for grazing sheep, so they're useful as well as ornamental."

Then in a few minutes they were at the house, and the smiling housekeeper, whom Eleanor introduced to the girls as Mrs. Farnham, greeted them.

"Come right in," she said, heartily. "There's supper ready and waiting—fried chicken, and corn bread, and honey, and creamed potatoes, and fresh milk, and apple pie and—"

"Stop, stop, do, Mrs. Farnham!" pleaded Eleanor. "You'll make me so hungry that I won't want to wash my hands!"

And the supper, when they came to it, was just as good to taste as it was to hear about. Everything they ate, it seemed, came from the farm. No store goods were ever used on the table in that house. And Bessie, used to a farm where chickens, except when they were old and tough, were never eaten, but kept for sale, wondered at the goodness of everything.

That night, although it was not part of the plan, there was an informal camp fire, held about a blazing pyre of logs. But it did not last long, for everyone was tired and ready indeed for the signal that Eleanor gave early by lifting her voice in the notes of the good-night song, Lay Me to Sleep in Sheltering Flame.

Bessie, rather to her surprise, found that she was not to room with Margery Burton, or Minnehaha, as she had expected, but was to share a big room, under the roof, with Dolly Ransom, the merry, mischievous Kiama, as she was known to her comrades of the fire.

"Do you mind if I snore?" asked Dolly promptly, when they were alone together. "Because I probably shall, and everyone makes such a fuss, and acts as if it was my fault."

"I'm so tired I shan't even hear you," said Bessie, with a laugh. "Snore all you like, I won't mind!"

Dolly looked surprised, and pouted a little.

"If you don't mind, there's no use doing it," she said, after a moment, and Bessie laughed again at this unconscious confession.

"I thought you couldn't help it," she said with a smile.

Dolly looked a little confused.

"I can't sometimes, when I've got a cold," she said. "But they go on so about it then that I have sometimes tried to do it, just to get even."

"You're a tease, Kiama," said Bessie, merrily, "and I guess it's that that you can't help. But go ahead and try to tease me as much as you like. I won't mind."

"Then I won't do it," decided Dolly, suddenly. "It's fun teasing people when they get mad, but what's the use when they think it's a joke?"

Bessie had seen little of Dolly in the first days of her acquaintance with the Manasquan Camp Fire, but now, as they appraised one another, knowing that they were to be very intimate during their stay on the farm, Bessie decided that she was going to like her new friend very much.

Not as much as Zara, probably—that would be natural, for Zara was Bessie's first chum, and her best, and Bessie's loyalty was one of her chief traits. But she was not the sort of a girl who can have only one friend. Usually girls who say that mean that they can have only one close friend at a time, and what happens is that they have innumerable chums, each of whom seems to be the best while the friendship lasts. Bessie wanted to be friendly with everyone, and what Eleanor had begun to tell her about Dolly made her think that perhaps the mischief maker of the Camp Fire was lonely like herself.

"You're just like me—you haven't any mother or sister, have you?" said Dolly, after they were both in bed.

Bessie was glad of the darkness that hid the quick flush that stained her cheeks. Since she had talked with Brack she was beginning to feel that there was something shameful about her position, although, had she stopped to think, she would have known that no one who knew the facts would blame her, even if her parents had behaved badly in deserting her. And, as a matter of fact, Bessie clung to the belief that her parents had not acted of their own free will in leaving her so long with the Hoovers. She thought, and meant to keep on thinking, that they had been unable to help themselves, and that some time, when good fortune came to them again, she would see them and that they would make up to her in love for all the empty, unhappy years in Hedgeville.

"Yes, I'm like you, Dolly," she answered, finally. "I don't know what's become of my parents. I wish I did."

"I know what's become of mine," said Dolly, her voice suddenly hard—too hard for so young a girl. "My mother's dead. She died when I was a baby. And my father doesn't care what becomes of me. He lives in Europe, and once in a while he sends me money but he doesn't seem to want to see me, ever."

"Where do you live, Dolly?" asked Bessie.

"Oh, with my Aunt Mabel," said Dolly. "You'll see her when we go back to town for I'm going to have you come and visit me if you will. She's an old maid, and she's terribly proper, and if ever I start to have any fun she thinks it must be wicked, and tries to make me stop. But I fool her—you just bet I do!"

They were quiet for a minute, and then Dolly broke out again.

"I don't believe Aunt Mabel ever was young!" she said fiercely. "She doesn't act as if she'd ever been a girl. And she seems to think I ought to be just as sober and quiet as if I were her age—and she's fifty! Isn't that dreadful, Bessie!"

"I think you'd have a hard time acting as if you were fifty, Dolly," said Bessie, honestly, and trying to suppress a laugh but in vain. "You don't, do you?"

"Of course not!" said Dolly, giggling frankly, and seemingly not at all hurt because Bessie did not take the recital of her troubles more seriously. "Aunt Mabel would like you, I don't mean that you're stiff and priggish like her, but you seem quieter than most of the girls, and more serious minded. I bet you like school."

"I do," laughed Bessie. "But I like vacations too, don't you? This is the first time I ever really had one, though. I've always had to work harder in summer than in winter before this."

"I think that's dreadful, Bessie. Listen! You know all about farms, don't you? Let's go off by ourselves to-morrow and explore, shall we?"

"Maybe," said Bessie. "We'll see what we're supposed to do."

"All right! I'm sleepy, too. Bother what we're supposed to do, Bessie! Let's do what we like. This is vacation, and you're supposed to do what you like in vacation time. So you see it's all right, anyhow. We can do what we like and what we're supposed to do both. That's the way it ought always to be, I think."

"They'd say we ought to want to do what we're supposed to do, you know, Dolly. That's the safe way. Then you can't go wrong."

"Well—but do you always want to do what you're supposed to do?"

"I'm afraid not. Good-night!"

"Good-night!"



CHAPTER IX

A STRANGE MEETING

Breakfast on the farm was just such another meal as supper had been. Again Bessie wondered at the profusion of good things that, at the Hoovers, had always been kept for sale instead of being used on the table. There was rich, thick cream, for instance, fresh fruit and all sorts of good things, so that anyone whose whole acquaintance with country fare was confined to what the Mercer farm provided might well have believed all the tales of the good food of the farm. Bessie knew, of course, without ever having thought much about it, that on many American farms, despite the ease with which fresh fruits and vegetables are to be had, a great deal of canned stuff is used.

"Bessie," said Eleanor, after breakfast, "this is rather different from the Hoovers, isn't it?"

"It certainly is," agreed Bessie.

"Well, of course it isn't possible right now, Bessie, but I've been thinking that some time, when Maw Hoover has gotten over her dislike for you, you may be able to teach her and some of the other farm women in Hedgeville how much more pleasant their lives could be."

Bessie looked surprised.

"Why, I don't believe I'll ever dare go back there," she said. "I believe Maw Hoover would be willing to put me in prison if she could for setting that barn on fire. I'm sure she thinks I did it. She wouldn't believe it was Jake, with his silly trick of trying to frighten me with those burning sticks."

"She'll find out the truth some time, Bessie, never fear. And think about what I said. One of the great things this Camp Fire movement is trying to do is to make women's lives healthier and happier all over the country. And I don't believe that we've thought half enough of the women on the farms so far. You've made me realize that."

"But there are lots and lots of Camp Fires in country places, aren't there, Miss Eleanor? I read about ever so many of them."

"Yes, but not in the sort of country places I mean. There are Camp Fires, and plenty of them, in the towns in the country, and even in the bigger villages. But the places I'm thinking of are those like Hedgeville, where all the village there is is just a post office and two or three stores, where the people come in from the farms for miles around to get their mail and buy a few things. You know how much good a Camp Fire would do in Hedgeville, but it would be pretty hard to get one started."

Bessie's eyes shone.

"Oh, I wish there was one!" she cried. "I know lots of the girls on the farms there would love to do the things we do. They're nice girls, lots of them, though they didn't like me much. You see, Jake Hoover used to tell his maw lies about me, and she told them to her friends, and they told their girls—and they believed them, of course. I think that was one reason why I couldn't get along very well with the other girls."

"I think that's probably the real reason, Bessie, just as you say. But if you go back you can make it different, I'm sure. You needn't be afraid of Jake Hoover any more, I think, especially after what he did at General Seeley's."

"Killing that poor pheasant? Wasn't that a mean thing for him to do? They used to say he did some poaching, sometimes, around Hedgeville, but then about everyone did there, I guess. But I didn't think he'd ever try to catch such beautiful birds as the ones General Seeley had."

"I could forgive him for killing the bird much more easily than for trying to get you blamed for doing it, Bessie. But let's change the subject. How did you and Dolly Ransom get along?"

Bessie smiled at the recollection of the stream of questions she had had to answer from her new roommate.

"She's great!" she said, enthusiastically. "I think we're going to be fine friends, Miss Eleanor."

"I hope so. There isn't a bit of real harm in Dolly, but she's mischievous and loves to tease, and I'm afraid that some time she'll go too far and get herself into trouble without meaning to at all."

"She doesn't like her aunt, Miss Eleanor—the one she lives with now that her father's away so much."

Miss Mercer made a wry face.

"Miss Ransom's lovely in many ways," she said, "but she doesn't understand young girls, and she seems to think that Dolly ought to be just as wise and staid and sober as if she were grown up. I think that is the chief reason for Dolly's mischief. It has to have some way to escape, and she's pretty well tied down at home. So I overlook a lot of her tricks, when, if one of the other girls was guilty, I'd have to speak pretty severely about it. Well, here she is now! Go off with her if you like, Bessie."

"Oh, Miss Mercer, what do we have to do this morning?" shouted Dolly as soon as she saw Bessie and the Guardian.

"What you like until after lunch, Dolly. Then perhaps we may want to arrange to do something all together—have a cooking lesson, or learn something about the farm. We'll see. But you and Bessie might as well go over the place now and get acquainted with it. Bessie can probably find her way about easier than you city girls."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Dolly. "Come on, Bessie! I bet we can have lots of sport."

So they went off, and, though Bessie wanted to see the great barn in which the horses were kept, Dolly wanted to go toward the road at the entrance of the place, and Bessie yielded, since the choice of direction didn't seem a bit important then.

"I saw one of those boys who drove us up last night going off this way," Dolly explained, guilelessly, "and, Bessie, he looked ever so much nicer in his blue overalls than he did in that horrible, stiff, black suit he was wearing last night."

"You shouldn't laugh at his clothes. They're his very best, Dolly. The overalls are just his working clothes, and you'd hurt his feelings terribly if he knew that you were laughing at the store clothes. He probably had to save up his money for a long time to buy them."

"Oh, well, I don't care! I wonder if there's any place around here where you can buy ice-cream soda? I'm just dying to have some."

"I thought you were going without soda and candy for a month to get an honor bead, Dolly."

"Oh, bother! I was, but it was too hard. I got a soda when I'd gone without for two weeks, and I never thought of the old honor bead until I'd begun to drink it. So that discouraged me, and I gave it up."

"But don't you feel much better when you don't eat candy and drink sodas between meals?"

"I don't know—maybe I do. Yes, I guess I do. But they taste so good, Bessie!"

"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to do without the soda here."

Dolly was still really leading the way, and now, her eyes on a blue clad figure, she decided to leave the avenue of trees that led to the road and cut across a field.

"Don't you love the smell of hay, Bessie?" asked Dolly. "I think it's fine. That's one of the things I like best about the country, and being on a farm."

"I guess I know it too well to get excited about it, Dolly. You see, I've lived on a farm almost all my life, and so things like that aren't new to me. But it is lovely and, yes, I do believe I've missed it, there in the city."

"Wouldn't you rather live in the city, though?"

"Yes, because I wasn't happy where I was in the country, and in the city I've had everything to make me happy. I suppose you'd rather live in the country, though?"

"No, indeed! I like to hear the city noises at night, and to see all the people. And I like to go to the theatre, when my aunt lets me go to a matinee, and to the moving picture shows, and everything like that. Don't you love the movies?"

"I never went, so I don't know."

"Not really? You don't mean they haven't even got a moving picture place In Hedgeville? I never heard of such a thing!"

Bessie laughed.

"Moving pictures are pretty new, Dolly. No one could go to them until a little while ago, no matter where they lived, or how much money they had. And I guess people got along all right without them."

"Yes, but they had to get along without lots of things until they were invented—telephones and electric lights, and lots and lots of useful things like that. But you wouldn't expect us to get along without them now, would you?"

"I guess it's only the things we know about that we really need, Dolly. If we don't know about a lot of these modern things, we keep right along getting on without them. Like Hedgeville—the only man there who has a telephone is Farmer Weeks."

"Yes," said Dolly triumphantly, "and he's got more money than all the rest of the people in the place put together, hasn't he!"

Bessie laughed.

"And all this just because you want an ice-cream soda! What will you do if you really can't have one, Dolly?"

"I don't know! I'm just hankering for one—my mouth is watering from thinking about it!"

"We might ask this boy. Miss Eleanor said his name was Stubbs, Walter Stubbs."

Bessie smiled to herself as she saw how surprised Dolly was trying to seem at the discovery that they had come to the part of the field where Walter was working. He was red to the ears, but Bessie could tell from the way he was looking at Dolly that the city girl, with her smart clothes and her pretty face, had already made a deep impression on the farm boy. Now as the two girls approached, he looked at them sheepishly, standing first on one foot, and then on the other.

"Do you work all the time?" Dolly asked him, impishly, darting a look at Bessie.

"Cal'late to—most of the time," said Walter.

"Don't you ever have any fun? Don't you ever meet a couple of girls and treat them to ice-cream soda, for instance?"

"Oh, sure!" said Walter. "Year ago come October Si Hinkle an' I, we went to the city for the day with the gals we was buzzin' then an' we bought 'em each an ice-cream sody."

"Did you have to go to the city to do that?" said Dolly.

"Sure! Ain't no place nigher'n that. Over to Deer Crossin' there's a man has lemon pop in bottles sometimes, but he ain't got no founting like we saw in the city, nor no ice-cream, neither."

Dolly was a picture of woe and disappointment.

"Tell yer what, though," said Walter, bashfully. "Saturday night there's a goin' to be an ice-cream festival over to the Methodist Church at the Crossing, an' I'm aimin' ter go, though my folks is Baptists. I'll treat yer to a plate of ice-cream over there."

"Will you, really?" said Dolly, brightening up and looking as pleased as if the ice-cream soda she wanted so much had suddenly been set down before her in the field.

"I sure will," said Walter, hugely pleased. "Say, they play all sorts of games over there—forfeits an' post office an'—"

Bessie had to laugh at Dolly's look of mystification.

"Come on, Dolly," she said. "We mustn't keep Walter from his work or he'll be getting into trouble. We can see him again some time when he isn't so busy." And as they walked off she told Dolly about the country games the boy had spoken of—games in which kissing played a large part.

"The country isn't as nice as I thought," said Dolly dolefully. "I'm so thirsty, and there's no place to buy even sarsaparilla!"

"Maybe not, but I can show you something better than that for your thirst, Dolly. See that rocky place over there, under the trees! I'll bet there's a spring there. Let's find out."

Sure enough, there was a spring, carefully covered, and a cup, so that anyone working in the fields could get water, and even Dolly had to admit that no ice-cream soda had ever quenched her thirst as well.

"What delicious water!" she exclaimed. "Where's the ice?"

"There isn't any, silly!" laughed Bessie. "It's cold like that because it comes bubbling right up out of the ground."

"I bet that's just the sort of water they sell in bottles in the city, because it's so much purer than the city water," said Dolly. "But that's an awfully little spring, Bessie."

"The basin isn't very big, but that doesn't mean that there isn't always plenty of water. You see, no matter how much you take out, there's always more coming. See that little brook? Well, this spring feeds that, and it runs off and joins other brooks, but there's always water here just the same. Of course, in a drought, if there was no rain for a long time, it might dry up, but it doesn't look as if that ever happened here."

"Well, it is good water, and that's a lot better than nothing," said Dolly. "Come on! We started for the road. Let's go down and sit on the fence and watch the people go by."

So they made their way on through the field until they came to the road, and there they sat on the fence, enjoying some apples that Bessie had pronounced eatable, after several attempts by Dolly to consume some from half a dozen trees that would have caused her a good deal of pain later. Two or three automobiles passed as they sat there, and Dolly looked at their occupants enviously.

"If we had a car, Bessie," she said, "we could get to some place where they sell ice-cream soda in no time, and be back in plenty of time for lunch, too. I wish some friend of mine would come along in one of those motors!"

None did, but, vastly to Bessie's surprise, they had not been there long before a big green touring car that had shot by them a few minutes before so fast that they could not see its occupants at all, came back, doubling on its course, and stopped in the road just before them. And on the driver's seat, discarding his goggles so that Bessie could recognize him, was Mr. Holmes—the man who had taken her and Miss Mercer for a ride, and whom she felt she had so much reason to distrust!

"This is good fortune! I'm very glad indeed to see you," he said, cordially, to Bessie. "Miss King, is it not—Miss Bessie King, Miss Mercer's friend? Won't you introduce me to the other young lady!"



CHAPTER X

A FOOLISH PROCEEDING

Reluctantly enough, Bessie yielded to his request. If she had known how to avoid introducing Holmes to Dolly, she would have done it. But she was not old enough, and not experienced enough, to understand how to manage such an affair. Had there been occasion, Miss Eleanor, of course, could have snubbed a man and still been perfectly polite while she was doing it. But Bessie had not reached that point yet.

"Are you staying down here together? How very pleasant!" said Holmes. "This seems to be a beautiful place from the road, but of course one can't see very much from an automobile."

"We're down here with our Camp Fire—a lot of the girls," explained Dolly, hurriedly. "Miss Mercer is Guardian of the Camp Fire, and this is her father's farm. It is a nice place, but it's dreadfully slow. Just fancy, there isn't a place anywhere around where we can even get an ice-cream soda!"

"Dolly!" said Bessie, in a low voice, reproachfully. "You mustn't—"

"What a tragedy!" said Holmes, laughing.

"Oh, of course, you don't know what it is to have a craving for soda and not be able to get it!" said Dolly, pouting. "So you laugh at me—"

Holmes was all regret in a moment.

"My dear Miss Dolly!" he protested. "I wasn't laughing at you at all—really I wasn't! I was smiling at the idea of there being such a primitive place in a civilized country. Really, I was! And I'm sure it is a tragedy. I believe I'm as fond of ice-cream soda as you, if I am such an old fellow. And, after all, though it seems so tragic, it's easily mended, you know. I happen to remember passing a most attractive looking drug store in a town about five miles back, and that's no ride at all in this car. Jump in, both of you, and I'll run you there and back in no time!"

"Oh, that's awfully kind of you, but I really think we shouldn't," stammered Dolly, who had meant, as soon as she saw that Holmes knew Bessie, to get that invitation.

"Of course we shouldn't, Dolly," said Bessie, irritated, since she saw through Dolly's rather transparent little scheme at once. "It's very kind of you, Mr. Holmes, but we mustn't think of troubling you so much. Dolly doesn't really want an ice-cream soda at all; she just thinks she does, and she's much better off without it."

"Oh, come, that's very unkind, Miss Bessie! I can see that your friend is really suffering for a strawberry ice-cream soda. And you mustn't talk as if I would be taking any trouble. I'm just riding around the country aimlessly, for want of something better to do. I'm not going anywhere in particular, and it doesn't matter when I get there or if I never get there at all. I'm just a useless man, too old to work any longer. Surely you won't refuse to let me make myself useful to a young lady in distress?"

"Oh," said Dolly. "Really, is that so, Mr. Holmes? Wouldn't it be a dreadful amount of trouble to you? Of course, if that's so, and you really want us to come—"

"Nonsense, Dolly!" said Bessie, severely. "We can't go, and we must be getting back to the house. Thank you ever so much, Mr. Holmes—and good-morning!"

But Dolly was not to be deprived of her treat so easily.

"I think you're very rude, Bessie!" she said, bridling. "That may be the proper way to act in the country where you came from, but it's not the way we do things in the city at all. Thank you very much, Mr. Holmes, and I shall be very pleased to accept your kind invitation, if you're sure it's not troubling you."

"There you are, Miss Bessie!" said Holmes, heartily. "Now, you won't be so unkind as to let Miss Dolly come with me alone, will you? She's coming, and I think you'd better change your mind and come, too."

Poor Bessie was in a quandary. She knew that Miss Mercer, even though she had laughed at her suspicions of Mr. Holmes, would not approve of such a prank as this; but she knew, also, that Dolly, inclined to be defiant and to resent the exercise of any authority, would not be moved by that argument. And, in the presence of Holmes, she could hardly tell Dolly the story of Zara's disappearance and her own suspicions concerning the part that Holmes, or, at least, his car, had played in it. Neither, she felt, could she let Dolly go alone. The chances were that Holmes meant no harm, but she knew that Miss Eleanor had put Dolly in her charge in a measure, and she felt responsible for her new chum.

So, displeased as she was, Bessie climbed into the car after Dolly, who had already taken her place in the tonneau, and in a moment they were off, taking the road that led away from Deer Crossing. Holmes only smiled as she got in the car, but before he put on his dust glasses Bessie was sure that she saw a look of triumph in his eyes, as if he had succeeded beyond his hopes in some plan he had formed. Bessie did not at all relish the prospect of the little adventure upon which Dolly's whim had launched her, but she decided to take it with a good grace, since, now that she was in the car, she had to see it through.

Once the car was under way, going fast, Mr. Holmes had to devote all his attention to driving, and, as it was a large one, there was so much noise the two girls could talk without being heard.

"I suppose you're awfully mad at me," said Dolly, in a whisper, looking at Bessie's stern face. "Oh, Bessie, I couldn't help it! He was so nice about it, and it was such a lovely chance to tease you! I do try to be good, but every time I see a chance to do anything like that I just can't seem to help it."

"I asked you not to. You could see I didn't want to go, Dolly. And if we're going to be friends, you oughtn't to force me into doing things I don't want to do."

"Oh Bessie, you're not going to be mean about it, and keep on being angry? You won't tell Miss Eleanor, will you? She'd send me home—I know she would!"

"I won't tell her, and I'm not going to be angry, either, Dolly. But I'm very much afraid you'll be sorry yourself before we get back to the farm, and I don't see how Miss Eleanor can help finding out, because I'm pretty sure Mr. Holmes isn't going to get us back in time for lunch."

"Why, Bessie, he said he would—he promised! Don't you think he means to keep his word?"

"I hope so, Dolly, but he told me something once that wasn't so, and—oh, well, let's not worry about it now, anyhow. I can't explain everything to you now, there isn't time. It's a lovely ride, isn't it? We might as well enjoy ourselves, now that we're in for it."

"That's what I say, Bessie. There's no use crying over spilt milk, is there? And I guess it will be all right. I think he's awfully nice, I don't see why you don't like him."

"You will when you know as much as I do, Dolly, I'm afraid. But we won't talk any more about that. Oh, look, there is a town, right here! We're coming into it now, do you see? Probably this is the place Mr. Holmes meant he was going to bring us to."

But Bessie's fears were redoubled a minute or so later, when the car, without slackening speed at all, shot through a street that was lined with shops, two or three of which, as they could see, were drug stores with ice-cream soda signs that they could easily read even from the fast moving car.

Looking at Bessie as if she were already a little frightened and sorry, Dolly leaned over and touched Mr. Holmes on the shoulder.

"Aren't you going to stop here?" she asked, "I'm sure those are awfully nice looking stores Mr. Holmes."

He slowed up the car at once, and turned to them with a pleasant smile.

"Oh, this isn't the place I meant at all," he said. "I don't know anything about the stores here. The place I was thinking of is much better, and it's not very far away. Besides, it's early yet, and I think we ought to have as much of a ride as we can, don't you?"

Dolly looked dubious. One glance at Bessie had show her that her chum was not prepared to accept this explanation. But they had no choice, for Holmes, seeming to take their assent to his plan for granted, had turned on full power, and the car was roaring out into open country again, but now in a direction almost at right angles to its former course. They were traveling due west, and Bessie, without anything definite to alarm her, felt herself growing more and more nervous with the passing minutes. She felt that something was wrong.

Her distrust of Holmes, save for so much of it as was due to his statement that he had never been in Hedgeville, when she herself had seen him there, was almost wholly instinctive, but Bessie knew that instinct is sometimes a better guide than reason, and she began to regret Dolly's impulsive action in getting into the car more and more. Still, as matters stood, there was nothing to do but wait and see what was to happen.

After all, no matter what might come, she would not be utterly unprepared. She was expecting trouble of some sort, and she knew that the worst blows are those that are unexpected, just as the worst lightning is that which flashes from a clear sky.

Suddenly, as the car approached a little country store, at a crossroads, and looking as though no one ever went there to buy anything, Holmes slowed up again.

"This isn't the place you mean, is it?" asked Dolly, smartly. "If it is, I must say I think those stores you wouldn't stop at are much nicer!"

Holmes laughed back at her. He seemed to have taken a great fancy to her, spoiled and pert though she was.

"No, indeed," he said, "but I happened to see by that blue sign that they have a telephone inside, and I just remembered, after we passed through that last village, that I ought to telephone a message to a friend of mine in the city. So, if you don't mind, I'll leave you in the car while I run in and telephone. It won't take me a minute, then we'll be on our way again."

Then he got out, and cutting off the motor, stepped into the store. In a moment Bessie was ready to take advantage of the opportunity that chance and his carelessness offered her.

"You keep perfectly still, Dolly," she said, earnestly. "I know it isn't supposed to be nice to listen to what you're not meant to hear, but I think this is a time when I've got a right to try to find out what I can. I may not be able to do it at all, but I'm going to do my best to listen to Mr. Holmes while he's sending that message and find out all I can about it. Do you see that window at the side of the store? Well, there's just a chance, I believe, that the telephone inside may be near the window. If it is, I may be able to find out what he's doing."

And, without giving Dolly a chance to protest, or even to voice her surprise, Bessie slipped from the car and ran lightly to the side of the ramshackle old building that served as a store. Crouching down there, she was able to hear what Holmes, inside, was saying, as she had hoped. And the very first words she heard sent a thrill through her, and banished any lingering regrets she might have had at playing the part, usually so dishonorable, of eavesdropper.

"Hello! Hello!" she heard him saying. "What's the matter, Central? I want Hedgeville—number eight, ring five. Can't you get that!"

Bessie did not know the number, but very few people in Hedgeville had a telephone, and that in itself was suspicious. She waited while Holmes, expressing his impatience volubly, amid sympathetic chuckles from the audience inside the store, got his connection.

"Hello! Hello! Is that you, Weeks?" she heard him say, at last, and it was all she could do, when she heard the name of the man who had proved himself such a determined enemy to Zara and herself, to keep from betraying herself with a cry. "Yes, yes, this is Holmes! Where am I? Oh, ten miles from nowhere! You wouldn't know the place if I were to tell you. What you want to know is where I'm going to be an hour from now. What? Tell you! Well, that's what I'm trying to do! Listen a little and don't ask so many questions. I'm going to be in an automobile at Jericho. Know where that is?"

He waited, evidently listening to Weeks.

"Yes, that's right. You'll be there, eh? You've got the papers? Well, don't leave them at home. We don't want any mistake about this. I had a lot of luck, didn't expect to be able to do it so soon, or so easily. I'll tell you about that later. Jericho, then. You won't be late? And an hour from now. This is risky work, Weeks. If you make any of your fool breaks this time, you'll hear from me. Well, good-bye!"

As he said good-bye Bessie slipped back to the automobile, and when Holmes came out, all bluff good-nature, only Bessie's heightened color showed that anything out of the ordinary had happened to her. As soon as she returned, Dolly began to hurl question after question at her, but Bessie refused to answer.

"Keep quiet, Dolly!" she urged. "I'll tell you all about it when I can, but this isn't the time to talk. You don't want to let Mr. Holmes know what I was doing, do you? Well, please keep quiet, then!"

Of course, if Holmes planned to do anything wrong, he would not have revealed his plans boldly to the loafers in the store who had been listening to his telephone conversation. Bessie understood that what he had said probably meant more to Farmer Weeks than it could to her or any casual listener. But, even so, there was plenty to disturb her in what she had heard. Evidently the danger point was Jericho, and she tried hard to remember what she had ever heard about that place. It was a little town, she thought, not far from Hedgeville—and, then, suddenly, she got a clue to the whole plot. She realized why the change in their direction had worried her. They were going toward Hedgeville, back toward the section of the country from which she and Zara had escaped with so much difficulty on account of Farmer Weeks's vindictive pursuit.

And she remembered, too, Charlie Jamieson's warning about crossing the state line. That, then, was what Holmes meant to do—get her into the state where, although she did not understand exactly how, she was in danger of being deprived of her liberty for a time at least. It would be easy enough, in the automobile. State lines are not well marked along country roads. Even now she might have crossed that imaginary boundary that spelled the difference between safety and peril for her.

"Listen to me, Dolly," she whispered, when she had finished revolving her thoughts. "I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm sure that Mr. Holmes is trying to get me back to the people I had to run away from in Hedgeville. You remember—you know what happened when we were on our way to General Seeley's place, when that man caught Zara and carried her off?"

Dolly nodded, greatly excited.

"So you can see that I may get into a lot of trouble, Dolly. You'll help me, won't you?"

"Of course I will! And I'm awfully sorry for getting you into it in the first place, Bessie."

"Don't worry about that! I'm going to forget about it. But now remember that you must do just as I say for the next hour or so, even if you don't understand why. I don't know yet what Mr. Holmes is going to do, and so I can't make any plans ahead. I'll just have to try to do the best I can to fool him when he shows his hand, and it may be that the only way I can do it is with your help."

"I'll help you, Bessie. I won't be silly again."



CHAPTER XI

A DARING MOVE

For some time, then, Holmes drove the car in what Bessie soon saw to be an aimless fashion. The morning was nearly done, and Bessie, used to guessing at the time from the sun, knew that it was very near noon. Holmes seemed to be doubling on his tracks, and to be driving in what resembled a circle, as if he were chasing his own tail, and at last Bessie determined to speak to him and try to make him show his hand. The suspense of waiting for something to happen was making her nervous. She felt that even the realization of her fears would be welcome, since then, at least, she could do something.

"Mr. Holmes," she said, "I really think you'd better be taking us back. It's very late, and I'm afraid Miss Mercer will be worried about us."

"Not she!" said Holmes, cheerfully. "The fact is, I've rather lost my way, and those stupid men at that store where we stopped did not seem to be able to do much toward setting me right. So, knowing that we might be late, I took the liberty of telephoning to Miss Mercer and said that, if she didn't mind, I'd take you two to luncheon somewhere and bring you back in the afternoon."

Bessie gasped at the cool daring of the way in which he told the lie. But then she reflected, just in time to keep her from taxing him with having told an untruth, that he knew nothing of her eavesdropping, and therefore thought it was safe to tell her anything he liked.

"Oh!" she said. "I—I didn't know you'd done that. You said you were going to send a message to a friend—"

"Well, I flatter myself that Miss Mercer and I are friends," said Holmes, smiling. "Why don't you cheer up, Miss Bessie? It's all right—really it is! You ought to know that I wouldn't get you into trouble with Miss Mercer for the world. Why, I'm old enough to be your father!"

"But if you're lost, how do you know where you're going?" asked Bessie, sticking to her guns.

"I don't know, of course—not exactly, that is. But I know that if I keep on going this way I'll come to some place here we can get a nice luncheon. This is pretty thickly settled country around here, you know, and it's used a lot by automobile parties. So we're sure to find some sort of a place soon. They have them wherever they think they can persuade motorists to stop and spend their money."

"If Miss Mercer knows where we are and said it was all right for us to stay it must be all right, Bessie, mustn't it?" asked Dolly, who had overheard what they were saying. "Oh, I'm so glad, Bessie! That shows you were mistaken, doesn't it, and that it wasn't so wicked of me to get you to come?"

"Hush, Dolly!" said Bessie, in a whisper. "I can't let Mr. Holmes know it now, of course, but don't you remember that I heard him while he was telephoning, when he thought I was safe here in the car, and out of sight and sound of him? He didn't telephone to Miss Mercer at all. He's just saying he did, because he thinks he can fool me and make me believe anything he says. I heard what he telephoned, and he never even called up the farm!"

Even Dolly was a little scared at that. It never occurred to her to doubt what Bessie said. Somehow, people seemed always to be ready to believe her. And, remembering the way Holmes had declared that he had spoken with Miss Mercer, Dolly began to realize that Bessie was right, and that there must be something underhanded about Holmes. Bessie, although she was sorry that Dolly had to be frightened in such a fashion, was glad of the fact just the same, because it meant that she could depend upon Dolly now to obey her, no matter what she told her to do.

As a matter of fact, it seemed to Bessie that fear was about the only thing that did drive Dolly, who, if she thought the consequence would not be too unpleasant, usually managed to have her own way as decidedly as she had done in regard to accepting the offer of Holmes to take them to a place where they could get her much coveted ice-cream soda.

Bessie, remembering what she had heard Holmes say about meeting Farmer Weeks in an hour, began now to keep her eyes open, and she soon discovered that they had ceased their aimless driving about, and were traveling along what was evidently a highroad, since it showed the marks of many wheels and hoofs. And a glance at the sun was enough, too, to let her know that the crisis of this silly adventure was approaching, since nearly an hour had elapsed since she had overheard the conversation.

And, sure enough, just as she had expected, it was not long before Bessie saw that the houses along the road were closer and closer to one another, and a few moments later the tall, white steeple of a church and the smoke from the chimneys of a small town made it plain that they were approaching a town—most likely Jericho.

"Well, well, I know this place," said Holmes, turning to speak to them. "It's Jericho, and it's in your own state, Miss Bessie. Didn't you tell me that you used to live in Hedgeville? That's not so very far from here."

There was a strange look in his eyes as he looked fixedly at Bessie, and now she no longer had any doubt that he meant mischief, and that it behooved her, if she wanted to escape from the trap into which she was being led, to have all her wits about her. As they entered the town she kept her eyes open, but there was no sign of Farmer Weeks. He was late, and Bessie was glad of that, since, now that she could guess what she must face, every added minute of safety and freedom from interference was so much clear gain. A plan was forming in her head, a wild, reckless sort of plan, but still one that offered some chance, at least, of getting out of a very disagreeable position.

"Hungry!" asked Holmes, turning to them as he slowed the car near the railroad station. "Well, we'll have some lunch in just a minute. I'm just going in here to make some inquiries about the roads and I'll be right back."

Bessie's eyes followed him into the station, and then, just as she had done before, she slipped from the car as soon as he was inside, following him cautiously, but feeling that there was less danger than there had been at the store, since here, if she were surprised, she could explain that she felt cramped from the long ride, and had gotten out of the car to restore her circulation. Then, peeping inside, she saw Holmes talking eagerly, and, as she thought, angrily, to Jake Hoover!

"He'll be here soon—jes' as soon as he can get here," she heard Jake say. And she heard Holmes's angry reply, and nothing more, since that was enough, and more than enough, to confirm her fears and make her understand that if she was to get out of this trap she must make a move at once. And now, knowing perfectly well the risk she was running, she sped back to the car, and climbed aboard, but in the front seat, where Holmes had been sitting, and not next to Dolly, in her own proper place. For her plan was nothing more nor less than to get away in Holmes's own car!

Bessie had never driven an automobile in her life, and she knew as little, almost, as it was possible for anyone to know about them. But she felt that all the sacrifices she had endured so far would be made useless unless she got away, and, moreover, she was sure now that Zara would need her help more than ever. And if she could only get a little distance away from Holmes, she was sure that she and Dolly would be able to elude him. So, doing exactly what she had seen Holmes do, she threw in the clutch, and, with nervous, trembling hands on the wheel of the big car, guided it as it gathered speed and moved across the railroad tracks.

From the moment when the idea of making her escape in this fashion had first entered her mind, Bessie had watched Holmes and every move he made like a cat, determined to be able to do as he did if the emergency arose. And now her remarkable ability to do things that required, the skilled use of her hands stood her in good stead.

The car was a silent one at low speed, and it had gone nearly a hundred feet before Holmes realized that something was wrong, and came running out of the station, followed by the wide-eyed Jake Hoover. And Bessie increased her start while he stood there, too stunned with amazement even to cry out.

By the time he had gathered his wits enough to begin shouting and running after his car, pursuit was hopeless, and Bessie, afraid any minute of having an accident, was running the car, still slowly, but too fast for anything but another car to overtake it, out along the road that led out of Jericho.

Dolly had screamed when she saw what Bessie meant to do, but after that she had been too frightened even to speak. But when they were out of range of Holmes's shouts and angry cries she regained her courage enough to lean over and speak to Bessie.

"Oh, Bessie, do stop!" she begged. "We might run into someone, or be run into ourselves. This is awfully dangerous, I know!"

"So do I know that," said Bessie. "But we had to do something, Dolly, and this was the only thing I could think of to do, though I didn't want to. But we're not going to stay in the car, don't worry! Do you see that lane that comes into the road just beyond that big oak tree? Well, I'm going to turn up there, and leave the car so that they can find it. I don't want to steal the car, you know."

Bessie managed the turn successfully, and, frightened as she was, even the few minutes that she had spent in driving the car had thrilled and exhilarated her. She ran slowly up the lane, and when the main road was hidden by a curve, she stopped the car and got out.

"There!" she said. "Dolly, if I only knew more about running it, I'd like to go back to the farm in the car. It would serve Mr. Holmes right if we did, you know, for he was trying to play a mighty mean trick on me. I wonder if I'll ever be able to learn to drive a car like that? I'd love to be able to, and to have one of my own to drive!"

"How are we going to get home?" wailed poor Dolly. "Oh, Bessie, what an awful fool I've been! And now I'm hungry and tired, and we're lost, and miles from the farm, and Miss Eleanor will be furious at me!"

"Cheer up, Dolly! We'll get home all right. And I'll see that Miss Eleanor understands all right. She won't be angry. She'll probably tell you that you've been punished enough when we get back. I don't know about getting anything to eat, though. We can't do that around here. All we want to do now is to get away from here."

Then suddenly she had an idea.

"I'm not going to steal his nasty old car," said Bessie, "but I am going to borrow something that ought to be in it, and that's a map! Anyone who travels around as much as he does must have maps that show the roads, and, as long as he has got us into this mess, I don't see why we shouldn't take something from his car to help us out of it. I'll send it back to him as soon as we get to the farm. Here—let's see—yes, here's a whole lot of little maps."

"Let me see, Bessie. I've seen those maps before. I bet I can find the right one that we want in a jiffy. Yes, here it is!"

"All right. Let's get off in the woods here and look at it, Dolly. We don't want to stay near the car, because they'll soon find that we turned up this lane, and they'll come looking for the machine and for us. So we want to be off where they can't see us. I'd hate to be caught again right now after taking such a chance with that automobile!"

"But you didn't act as if you were taking a chance, Bessie. I thought you were the bravest girl I'd ever seen—"

"Nonsense, Dolly! I was just as frightened as you were—more frightened, I guess. I didn't know whether what I was doing was right or not, and I was afraid every second I'd push the wrong thing, or touch something with my foot, and start it going as fast as it could."

"Well, when I'm frightened, I show it, and I don't do things that I'm afraid of. Someone told me once that to do something you were really afraid to do was really the bravest thing—braver than if you're not afraid when other people would be."

"Well, I was afraid, and the only reason I started that car was because I was more afraid to stay there than to run the car, Dolly. So I guess we needn't worry much about my having been brave. It was simply a question of which I was the most afraid of—the car or Mr. Holmes. Here, this is a nice spot. We can sit down on this old log, and there's enough sunlight coming down through the trees for us to see the map."

They sat down together on the trunk of a fallen tree, and put their heads together over the map.

"Here's Jericho, and here, see, Dolly, that's the railroad we crossed. Here's the road—and, yes, here's the lane we came up. It's a good thing we didn't try to go much further, isn't it? That star at the end means that it stops and just runs into the woods. I expect they use it for bringing out the trees after they're cut in the winter."

"Well, I'm glad we know just where we are, but how are we going to get back, Bessie? That's the chief thing, it seems to me. Don't you think so?"

"I've got a little money with me," said Bessie, thoughtfully. "If we can walk until we get to a railroad station—not the one at Jericho, of course,—I think we ought to be able to get back that way very easily. Let's look up Deer Crossing and see if that railroad doesn't run near somewhere."

Bessie took the map then, and she found that Jericho was in the same state as Hedgeville, just as she had suspected. She did not know what the Hoovers had done, and whether they had obtained any papers giving them control of her, as Farmer Weeks had done in the case of Zara, but she was pretty sure that if she were caught in their state Farmer Weeks would find some way of keeping her there, and of preventing her from getting back to Miss Mercer and her friends of the Camp Fire Girls.

"Mr. Holmes took an awful roundabout way to get here, Dolly," said Bessie, when she had finished looking at the map. "But he didn't really bring us so very far away. If we were riding in an automobile, I don't think it would take us more than an hour to get back. But, as we haven't got a car, here's the best thing for us to do. We can follow this lane, except that we'd better walk through the woods instead of going back to the lane, and come out on another main road about two miles away. That will take us over here"—she pointed to a place on the map—"and there we can get a trolley car to this station. There'll be a train to take us to Deer Crossing from there, and then we can get home easily. Of course, we don't know how the trains run, and we may have to wait a long time for one, but it's the best thing to do, I'm sure."

"Well, we'd better start right away, I guess," said Dolly, stoutly. "I'm an awfully slow walker in the woods, Bessie. I'm not used to them. But I'll hurry as much as ever I can for I've given you trouble enough already today."

The woods were very quiet, and Bessie was rather surprised at the absence of signs of life—human life, that is. Of squirrels and chipmunks and birds there were plenty, but it seemed strange to her that in so thickly settled a part of the country so much land should be left covered with woods. But it was good for their purpose, since she was sure that Holmes would have complained that his car was stolen, and he would not, of course, have told people the reason Bessie's seemingly mad action. Nor would their word be likely to be taken against his. So the thing for them to do was to escape observation. And until just before the woods began to clear, they seemed likely to do so. But then there was a shock for Bessie, for, right in front, she suddenly heard Jake Hoover's voice.



CHAPTER XII

FRIENDS IN NEED

Bessie clutched Dolly's arm and drew her back just in time, for Dolly, growing enthusiastic at the sight of the road, had been about to spring forward with a cry of joy.

"That's Jake Hoover, the boy who used to bully me and tried to frighten us when we were all in camp. Do you remember, Dolly? We mustn't let him see us! He's in with Mr. Holmes and Farmer Weeks, and I'm really more afraid of him than I am of Mr. Holmes. He hates me, anyhow, and he'd do anything he could to hurt me, I believe."

They crouched down behind some bushes then, and worked their way forward cautiously, making as little noise as possible, until they could see the road and so have a chance to find out what Jake was doing in that neighborhood. At first Bessie, who was in the van, did not see Jake, and, looking hastily up and down, she found that there were no houses in sight and that they had struck a lonely and solitary part of the road. Then she heard Jake's voice again, and, answering him, Mr. Holmes's.

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," growled Holmes. "If old Weeks had got to Jericho on time, we'd have saved all this trouble."

"He was doing his best, mister," said Jake. "But he had to take the train. He can't ride a bicycle, like me, and a horse and buggy would have taken him a long time. The old man done his best. 'Tweren't his fault he was late."

"Well, no use crying over spilt milk," said Holmes. "You'd better walk down this road until you come to the trolley line. Watch that. I think they'll try to get aboard the car there and get to the railroad that way. That would get them back to Deer Crossing, you see. Once they're out of this state, we can't touch Bessie, and the little baggage knows it. She's too clever for her own good. If they had been coming out this way they would be here by now, I think. But I had an idea they'd strike through the woods. They wouldn't follow the lane where they left my car, because they would know very well that we'd be watching that."

"An' Bessie can find her way through any woods you ever seen," said Jake Hoover, gloomily. "Used ter run away from maw at home that-away, an' we never could find her till she got good an' ready to come home an' take her lickin'."

Dolly grinned at Bessie.

"Good for you!" she whispered. "Did you really do that, Bessie? You're a good sport, after all! I never thought you'd be disobedient."

Bessie smiled.

"Listen!" she whispered. "We mustn't talk yet."

"What'll I do if they come to the trolley line?" asked Jake.

"Catch Bessie and hold her," said Holmes. "Don't pay any attention to the other one, of course. We've nothing to do with her, and we don't want to be bothered by her. She's a silly, brainless little thing, anyway."

Bessie's hand sought Dolly's and held it tight. And Bessie, looking at her chum's face, saw that it was red with anger and mortification. It was a harsh blow to Dolly's pride in herself, and her belief in her own power to charm everyone she saw.

"Never mind, Dolly! You're not what he calls you, and we both know it," whispered Bessie. "Don't get angry! Remember that he's furious because we slipped out of his hands, that's all. I don't believe he really means that at all. He isn't silly enough to believe it, I'm sure of that."

"I bet I'll make him feel sorry he ever said that, just the same," vowed Dolly, clenching her fist. "I'd like to pull his hair out for him, the nasty, mean liar!"

"Well, we've got to think of getting away from them before we can do that," said Bessie. "And it's not going to be as easy as I thought, either, Dolly, because if they watch that trolley line, I don't see how we're going to get aboard without being seen. Jake Hoover is going down this road, you see."

"Well, why don't we just strike the trolley at another place?"

"That isn't so easy, either, Dolly, because that trolley doesn't run along the road there. It goes through the fields, like a regular railroad, and it only stops at certain places. There isn't a trolley station marked for a mile or so either side of the one on this road, and I don't see how we can get to the nearest ones, either. I don't know the country around here well enough to do much wandering in the woods. You have to know your way about to do that, especially if you're in a hurry to get anywhere."

"Sh—listen!" said Dolly, holding up her finger.

"Well, you understand, then?" said Holmes, in the road below. "Take this road until you come to the trolley line, and wait there for the girls to come along. If Bessie comes, grab her, and don't let her get away from you. I'll go to the railroad station where they'll have to change for the train to Deer Crossing, in case they manage to reach it in some other fashion, and old Weeks will stay on guard in Jericho. Now, don't make any mistakes. Remember, I know some things about you that you don't want others to find out, young man, and I've got a habit of punishing people who fail when they are working for me."

"I ain't noticed that you reward them much when they do things," grumbled Jake. "It's a poor rule that don't work both ways, mister. You say you'll punish me if I don't make good; how about payin' me if I do?"

"We'll talk about that when you've accomplished something, my young friend," said Holmes, with an ugly laugh. "It seems to me that you ought to be pretty grateful to me for not having split on you before this, though. If I told all I know about you, I guess you'd be in the state reformatory now—and I'm not sure that it wouldn't be a good place for you. Eh?"

"Stow that, you!" snarled Jake. "I could tell a few things about you if I wanted to. This stunt you pulled off this morning is pretty nigh to bein' kidnappin'—know that?"

Bessie touched Dolly on the arm.

"Oh, I do hope they keep on quarreling," she whispered. "That is our very best chance to escape from them, Dolly. If they get to fighting between themselves, it's going to be much harder for them to do anything to us. They'll distrust one another, and we may be able to fool them."

But Holmes evidently saw that, too. When he spoke again, his voice was good-natured, and he had resumed his chaffing, easy tone.

"Don't go up in the air that way, Jake," he said. "I was only trying to string you a little, trying to make you mad. I wouldn't give you away; never fear that. You'll do your best, I know. And you'll find that you'll get your reward, all right, too, if you make a good job of this. We've got one of them. Now we want the other, and I'll feel safe. So go ahead now and don't waste any more time. Take your bicycle and make the best time you can to that trolley station."

"I got a right to hold her, haven't I?" asked Jake, a little dubiously, as Bessie thought.

"Sure you have!" said Holmes, impatiently. "I've told you that, haven't I? Weeks has got papers from the court making him her guardian, just as he did in the case of that other girl."

"All right," said Jake.

And he got on his bicycle and rode off, while Holmes walked back along the road, and they heard him, a minute later, cranking up his automobile, which he had evidently found and taken around by another road.

The information, unintentionally given to her by Holmes, that Weeks was her legal guardian, made Bessie shiver. She was more afraid of the miserly old farmer than of anyone she had ever seen, and the idea of being subject to his authority for any length of time filled Bessie with dread. He hated her already; she knew that she would be far less happy in his care than she had ever been at the Hoovers', where, sometimes, it had seemed to her that the limit of discomfort and severe treatment had been reached.

So, if Bessie had needed anything to spur her determination to escape from the trap into which poor Dolly had so innocently led her, this accidental discovery of what her fate was to be would have been enough. But as she pondered, she could not, for the time, see what was to be done.

"Bessie," said Dolly, when they had been quiet for several minutes, "is that Jake Hoover as stupid as he looks!"

"He's not very bright, Dolly. He's cunning, like some animals, and that makes him seem cleverer than he is. But I think that he really just acts by instinct most of the time, and that that's one reason he's so mean."

"Well, have you thought of any way of getting back to the farm except by the trolley?"

"No—o. The only thing I did think of was that you might go ahead. They wouldn't bother you, I guess. They'd be afraid to, you see, because you've got a lot of friends and relatives who'd make an awful fuss if they tried to bother you. Then I could stay here, and you could tell Miss Eleanor, and she'd get Charlie Jamieson, or someone to come after me here in an automobile—"

"I think that's too risky, Bessie. They'd guess that I knew where you were, and if they're ready to take such big chances to get hold of you, they might carry me off and keep me somewhere for a few days—long enough to keep me from taking word to Miss Eleanor and bringing help to you. And you see you wouldn't know why they didn't come, and, oh, no, I think we'd better not try anything like that!"

"It would be risky, Dolly, and I know it as well as you do. But I don't see what else we're going to do. I hate to see you mixed up with my troubles—it isn't fair. I think I'd better just let them catch me, and take a chance of getting away afterward—"

"Bessie King, do you think I'd let you anything like that? Whose fault is it that you're in this trouble? Mine, isn't it? Well, we're going to stick together! I'm certainly not going to let you get into more trouble just for the sake of saving me from sharing it. And I've got an idea, anyhow. Jake Hoover looks to me as if one could fool him pretty easily. He doesn't know what I look like, does he?"

"I don't suppose he does, Dolly. I don't see how he could. But what's that got to do with it?"

"Just you wait and see! If you had any plan, Bessie, I wouldn't want to suggest anything, because I think you're a lot cleverer than I am. But I have fooled boys before now, just for fun, and I think maybe I can do it this time, when I've really got a good reason for doing it. These woods along the road here aren't very thick so let's walk along, and follow the road, until we come in sight of the trolley. Then we'll see what it's like where the trolley comes along, and maybe we'll he able to fool Mr. Jake Hoover, the horrid thing! I think he must be a dreadful coward to persecute a girl the way he does you. You never did anything to him, did you?"

"No, but he never liked me from the time he was a little boy. He was always trying to get me into trouble with Maw Hoover. I don't know why he hates me so, but he certainly does."

"Well, he doesn't hate you half as much as I hate him, I promise you that, Bessie! And I've usually managed to get even with the people I hate, if it wasn't too much trouble. I'm hungry now, and thirsty, and it's his fault—partly. I'm going to get even with him for that."

Bessie was surprised to find that Dolly seemed to have conquered her nervousness and her fear of the strange situation in which she was placed. A little while before she had seemed almost on the verge of a collapse, and Bessie had been afraid that her chum, unused to hardships of any sort, and to roughing it, as country girls almost all learn to do from the time they are very small, was going to break down. But now Dolly seemed to be as resolute and as unafraid as Bessie herself, and the knowledge naturally cheered Bessie, since it assured her that she would not have to bear the burden alone.

So they started, as Dolly had suggested, walking along through the woods, perhaps a hundred feet back from the road. They could not be seen themselves, but, by moving to the side of the little rise or bank along the road from time to time, they were able to see what was going on. For most of the distance they were unable to see anything at all. The road seemed to be little used, and they passed only one house on the way to the trolley station.

They had warning of their approach to the trolley some time before it was in sight, too, when they heard the wires singing as a car passed along.

"Now we're getting near the place," said Dolly, happily. "Oh, but it's going to be fun, Bessie! You're just going to let me run things now for a little while, for a change. I've got a splendid plan—and I'll tell you about it in good time."

As they neared the trolley line the woods began to get somewhat thinner, and Dolly grew nervous.

"I hope the ground isn't too clear around the track, Bessie," she said. "That wouldn't be good for my plan at all."

But her fears were groundless, for, as it turned out, the trolley line ran right through the woods on their side of the road, although on the other side the trees had all been cleared away. Soon they saw a little shed, and a bench outside. And on the bench, watching the road in the direction from which they had come, sat Jake Hoover.

"Now, listen," said Dolly. "Jake doesn't know me, you see, and I'm going right out there and talk to him. I bet he'll be glad to talk to me, too, and I'll keep him busy, so that you can sneak over the tracks and get to the other side. Then you wait there until you hear a car coming. See? And when it comes, get on from the other side. I'll be holding Jake's attention, and I don't believe he'll ever see you at all. I'll get aboard, too, and you can manage so that he won't be able to see you on the car. Even if he does, I don't believe the men would let him touch you, but he won't, until the car begins to move, and then it will be too late."

"But, Dolly, do you think you can keep Jake Hoover quiet? Suppose he knows you, he'd suspect right away that I was in the neighborhood. And then there's another thing. Mr. Holmes may have told him what sort of clothes you are wearing."

"I never thought of that, Bessie. That's so. Oh, I know! You change dresses with me, right here. He's so stupid that he'd never think of our doing that, I know."

"That's a good idea, Dolly. I do think it may work."

So, in the shadow of the trees they changed dresses, and then, while Bessie advanced toward the track cautiously and as quietly as possible, with her training in the woods, Dolly went back, and appeared presently walking carelessly along toward the trolley station.

Jake looked at her suspiciously, and she smiled at him.

"Oh, hello!" she said, cheerily. "You waiting for a car, too? How soon does the next one come along?"

"About two minutes," said Jake. He was eyeing her clothes, and evidently suspected nothing after that scrutiny.

"That's good! I was afraid I'd miss that car. Oh, you're not going, are you? That's your bicycle, isn't it?"

"Naw, I'm not goin'—got to stay here. Say, why don't you wait here and talk to a feller?"

"I might," smiled Dolly. The car was really coming—it rounded a curve just then, and came in, slowing up. Dolly saw Bessie get aboard, but Jake was looking at her. "No, I guess I can't," she said then. And she sprang aboard, just as the car moved off.



CHAPTER XIII

AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

The two girls fell into one another's arms on the car, laughing almost hysterically as it moved away. Looking back, Dolly saw Jake Hoover, a stupid look in his round eyes, staring after them.

"Bessie! Let him see you!" she begged. "I want him to know how he was fooled! I bet he's just the sort of boy to go around saying what poor things girls are, and how little use he has for them!"

Bessie stood up on the back platform, and Jake saw her. The sight seemed to drive him frantic. They saw him waving his arms, and faintly heard his shrieks of anger as he saw his prey slipping away. But he was helpless, of course; there was no way in which he could chase the car, and he had sense enough, at least, to realize that.

"You're quite right about him, Dolly," said Bessie, laughing so hard that there were tears in her eyes. "He always did go around saying that girls were no good and that he couldn't see why any of the fellows wanted to have anything to do with them!"

"He's the sort that always does, Bessie, and it's because the girls won't have anything to do with them. He was pleased enough when I started talking to him, and awfully bashful, too, just like a silly calf. That's all he really is, anyhow, Bessie. But it's a good thing he's as silly as he is, because he's so mean that if he were clever, he could make a frightful nuisance of himself."

"I think he'll have a bad time when Mr. Holmes and Farmer Weeks find out that he let us get away, Dolly. I don't know what sort of a hold they've got on him, but it was easy to tell there was something, from the way Mr. Holmes spoke."

"Yes, indeed! And Mr. Holmes meant just what he said when he threatened him, too. The only reason he pretended afterwards that he was joking was so that Jake wouldn't be too frightened to do anything, don't you think so?"

"Yes, I do, Dolly. I wonder if Miss Eleanor and Mr. Jamieson will believe that I was right about Mr. Holmes now? They laughed at me before when I said that I wouldn't trust him, and was so sure that he had something to do with Zara's being carried off—"

"Why, what's that, Bessie? I hadn't heard of that at all."

"Oh, I forgot! You don't know about that, do you? Well, this is a good chance to tell you."

So Bessie told Dolly something of the strange and involved affair of Zara and her father, and of Zara's mysterious disappearance from the Mercer house in the middle of the night.

"I'll bet they fooled her, just the way Mr. Holmes fooled me," said Dolly, excitedly. "He looks so nice, and he's so smooth and clever, and he talks to you as if he wanted to be your best friend. I don't believe they carried her off. I think they fooled her, so that she was willing to go with them."

"That's just what I think, Dolly, and this business today makes me worry about her more than ever. I think we ought to try to get her away from them and back with us just as soon as we can."

"I suppose they wanted you because you know too much," said Dolly, thoughtfully. "They probably thought that you would try to get Zara away from them."

"I think there's more than that, though, Dolly," said Bessie, her eyes shining with excitement. "I don't know what it is, but I've just got a sort of funny feeling that they know something about me that I don't know, and that they don't want me or my real friends to find out. I'm going to be just as careful as I can be, anyhow. Have you got that map we took from the car? I want to see just where this car will take us."

Dolly produced the map, and they bent their heads over it. No one on the car seemed to be paying much attention to them. There were only two or three passengers, and Bessie thought they had not seen the manner in which they had boarded the car. But the conductor, coming around for fares, had noticed that there was something out of the ordinary about their presence. He was smiling when he held out his hands for the fare.

"Gave that young feller the slip pretty neatly back there where you got aboard," he remarked. "Which of you was he after? Don't blame him much—pretty young ladies like you!"

"Oh, he's just a stupid boy! We didn't want him riding with us," said Dolly, "so we tried to make him think we weren't coming on this car, and then jumped aboard when it was too late for him to follow us."

"I saw you—I saw you," chuckled the conductor. "So did Hank. He's my motorman, and the best one on the line. That's why he started the car to goin' so quickly. Lots of excitement around this way this morning."

"How's that?" asked Bessie.

"Oh, there was a city feller over to Jericho kickin' that a couple of girls had stolen his automobile. Me, I don't believe it—didn't like his looks. Serves him right, I say, if they did."

Bessie was afraid that Dolly would betray them by a laugh, but nothing of the sort happened. It was quite plain that the conductor never thought of connecting them with the two girls Holmes had charged with the theft of the car. But, even so, the knowledge that he had made such an accusation publicly worried Bessie. She did not know much of the law, and she was afraid that she and Dolly might possibly have rendered themselves liable to arrest by taking the car, even though they had abandoned it almost at once, and Holmes had recovered it undamaged.

In that case, she feared getting out of the state might not save them. They might, for all she knew, be arrested and taken back to Jericho, where she would be in the power of Weeks. However, she decided not to worry much about that, and when she mentioned her fears, Dolly laughed at them.

"People in glass houses can't afford to throw stones," she said, sagely. "Look here, Bessie, he might be able to make people believe that he had a right to catch you, if he was acting for this nasty old Farmer Weeks. But they haven't any right to touch me, and I believe they could make a lot of trouble for Mr. Holmes for carrying me off. I remember that they sent a man to prison for a long time not long ago for carrying off a child that lived near us. I guess Mr. Holmes won't be very anxious to go to law about his old car."

"Well, look here, Dolly, we're not quite out of the woods yet, you know. Here's the station where we have to get out to catch the train for Deer Crossing. It's marked Tecumseh. And it's a funny thing, but the railroad is in the other state, and the trolley car stops in this one. Do you see? When we get off the car we'll still be in this state, but it won't take more than a minute to cross the line. Mr. Holmes told Jake he'd be waiting there, so we must look out."

"Oh, Bessie, are you sure? Wouldn't it be dreadful to have escaped this far, and then be caught just when everything seemed to be all right? I'd rather have been held up by Jake Hoover, I do believe! And I thought everything was all right now."

"Well, there's no use getting discouraged. We're much better off than we were when we were in the car, Dolly, and we got out of that mess. So we might as well try to think that we'll be all right, anyhow. Oh, I just thought of something! Is there a station on this trolley line before we come to Tecumseh?"

They looked eagerly at the map, but disappointment was their lot. There was no station between the one where they had boarded the car and Tecumseh. But Dolly had an idea again, just as they had about decided that they would have to take their chances with Holmes at Tecumseh.

"Doesn't this car ever slow down at all between stations?" she asked the conductor, smiling and looking as attractive as she could.

"Well, that depends," said the conductor, returning the smile. "If a passenger's got a pull with me or the motorman, it might. Why?"