A terrific clap of thunder caused Grace to clap her hands over her ears with a little moan, while even steady-nerved Betty jumped in her seat and took a tighter grip of the steering wheel.

"Oh, what shall we do!" cried Grace, for she hated a thunderstorm worse than she hated anything else on earth. "We can't go on this way, Betty. We're likely to get struck any moment."

"Well, I don't see that we'll be any less likely to get struck if we stand still," retorted Betty, a little sharply, for the situation was becoming wearing, to say the least. "If you can suggest any way that we can get out of this fix—" the sentence was cut short by a still louder and more terrifying clap of thunder.

Grace huddled in her seat, miserably trying not to die of fright.

"Is Mollie still following us?" asked Betty, after an interval of weird flashes, crashing thunder, and rain beating relentlessly against the glass in front and turning the road to a sea of mud. "If she should get stuck I don't know what we would do."

"Yes, she's still struggling," replied Grace. "But it's getting so dark I can't more than just make out the lines of the car. Oh, Betty, don't you suppose we must be pretty close to Bensington?"

"No, I don't," Betty replied wearily. "You see how we've been traveling—not more than a snail's pace, and it won't be very long before we shall have to stop altogether. I'm surprised that Mollie has been able to keep going so long. You will have to keep your eye on her all the time, now, Grace, since it is getting so dark. We don't want to lose her."

"But," Grace suggested hesitantly, "I don't see that we could do them very much good by staying here with them, if they do get stuck. Wouldn't it be better to go on and try to make Bensington? Then we could send help back to them."

"I've thought of that," said Betty simply, "and it would work all right provided we did manage to reach Bensington. But the probability is that we would be forced to stop a little further on, and I must say I don't exactly enjoy the prospect of spending the night alone on this deserted road."

Grace shivered, but answered with a nervous little laugh: "I don't know but what we would be safe enough at that. If we can't get through, probably nobody else could."

"Just the same," said Betty decidedly, "I think I would rather cling to the old theory that there is safety in numbers. Besides, probably your mother would rather decide that for us. Are they still coming, Grace?"

"Goodness, you remind me of Bluebeard's wife," Grace laughed hysterically. "I thought you were going to say, 'Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see a man'?"

"Well, I see something better than a man," cried Betty suddenly, straining her eyes through the darkness and the streaming windshield. "Grace honey, do my eyes deceive me, or is that a light?"

"A light!" cried Grace excitedly. "Oh, Betty, where—wait—yes, I see it! It is a light! And there's another! Two lighted windows! Betty, honey, we're saved!"

"It's a house!" cried Betty jubilantly, while the hand that held the steering wheel shook with relief. "You darling, wonderful house. Gracie, dear, I think it showed on the horizon just in the nick of time. Look behind once more."

"Yes, they're still coming. Oh, if they only don't get stuck in front of the door!"

"Don't be a goose, Gracie," chided Betty, feeling in hilarious spirits now that the end of their trouble was in sight. "You ought to get down on your knees in thankfulness that there is a front door to get stuck in front of!"

"Oh, is that so?" mocked Grace, her own spirits reviving at the prospect of relief. "Well, I'm thankful enough, but I certainly don't intend to get down on my knees about it. There isn't room in here and you can see it's too muddy outside!"

Two minutes later Betty swung the little car from the, by this time, almost impassable road on to a gloriously graveled driveway that led up to the hospitably lighted house.

"Now, if whoever lives here will only let us in," she sighed, as she stopped the car and glanced behind to be sure Mollie was following them, "we'll have nothing left to ask for."

"Except something to eat," amended Grace hungrily. "I thought I had eaten enough lunch to last me a week, but I see I'm muchly mistaken. What shall we do, Betty?" as the latter started to open the curtain and closed it quickly again as the rain beat in upon them. "We are apt to get soaked just running that little distance to the porch."

"And the umbrellas are all wrapped up in the back of Mollie's car," lamented Betty, then added, with sudden decision: "I guess unless we want to sit here all night we'd better chance it. I for one am so hungry I'd be willing to brave more than a rain for the sake of something to eat."

"I'd say so!" groaned Grace, again reminded of her own state of starvation. "You get out your side Betty and I'll get out mine and we'll make a quick dash for it."



So they lifted the curtains and slipped out, thankful for the gravel walk that, while it was wet and slippery, was still a delightful contrast to the muddy sea of road they had left. They ran head down against the blinding rain, and gained the bottom step of the porch at the same time.

A moment more, and they had climbed to the shelter of the porch itself, out of breath but jubilant.

"Thank goodness!" cried Grace.

"And here come your mother and Mollie and Amy," chuckled Betty as the trio followed their example and raced for the porch. "I guess none of them ever knew she could run so fast in her life before. Hello, folks. Beautiful weather, isn't it?" she inquired gayly, as the three scrambled, panting, up on the porch. "You seem in a terrible hurry to get somewhere."

"Speak for yourself, John," gasped Mollie, shaking out her wet skirts and trying to regain some of her dignity by putting her hat on straight. "If you could know what I've been through for the last hour, just coaxing the car along an inch at a time—"

"Well," laughed Betty, as she turned to the front door and pushed the bell, "I've been through a little bit of everything, myself, for the last few hours, except a good square meal. And, judging from the delightful aroma that hovers about this place," she added sniffing hungrily, "I shouldn't wonder if that oversight wouldn't be swiftly remedied!"

Then the door opened and a tall, gray-haired lady stood in the lighted doorway.



CHAPTER X

THE KNIGHT OF THE WAYSIDE

The lady stared at the bedraggled party in amazed silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Ford stepped impulsively forward.

"I don't wonder you look surprised," she said in her sweetly modulated voice, "for this is rather an unheard of calling hour. But you see we were caught in this awful downpour and had to seek your house for refuge."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed the lady, opening the door wider and motioning them into the cheerfully lighted living room. "I didn't mean," she added with a smile, as they most willingly accepted her invitation, "that I was sorry you came, but that you were forced to come by such conditions. Won't you take off your things? But you are wet!" she exclaimed, as the girls started to remove their dripping wraps.

"And we got it all," said Mrs. Ford with a wry smile, "just running about twenty feet from our cars to your porch."

"Your cars!" the hostess repeated. "Then you motored down. If I had known that I shouldn't have been so surprised at seeing you. Pedestrians are rather rare on a night like this."

"Yes, and motorists, too, if they have any sense," said Mollie dryly, at which they all laughed and their hostess looked still more interested.

"Please sit down and dry out a little," said the lady, indicating a grate fire which had evidently only recently been lighted on account of the chill in the air. "I'm glad I had the fire made. I must have known," she added with a gracious smile, "that you were coming to-night."

Then she excused herself, and the girls held out eager hands to the fire.

"This is bliss," sighed Amy.

"Well, this is some contrast to about five minutes ago," chuckled Grace. "I thought we were in for a night in the mud at least."

"I'll never say we aren't lucky again," agreed Betty, leaning an arm on the mantel and getting her wet skirt as close to the fire as she could. "We were just wondering," she added, addressing Mrs. Ford, "whether, if Mollie's car got stuck, you would rather have Grace and me struggle on to Bensington and get some help or stay and keep you company. Although," she added ruefully, "if we couldn't pull through that mud, I don't know what we could find in Bensington to do it."

"Probably the only gasoline vehicles they have in the place are jitneys," agreed Mollie, with a chuckle.

"I wonder," Amy broke in, apropos of nothing, "who our charming hostess is. She seems so lovely. It seems odd to meet a person like her and a house like this out in the wilderness."

"Yes, one does rather expect a farmer's wife and a rambling old farmhouse so far out in the country," agreed Mrs. Ford.

"Well, maybe her husband is a scientific farmer," suggested Mollie, adding wickedly as she turned a merry eye on Grace: "The kind Roy once said he'd like to be. Remember, Grace?"

"Yes, I remember," Grace answered in a tone that indicated the memory was not a pleasant one. "And I told him he had better drop that idea in a hurry if he expected me—I mean—any girl—" she floundered, while they laughed mockingly at her, "to have anything to do with him," she finished rather weakly, while the girls giggled exasperatingly.

"Well, I don't know," remarked Betty, in an altruistic effort to pour oil upon the troubled waters, "that I would particularly mind marrying a scientific farmer if they all have houses like this and acres of ground with orchards and cows and chickens—"

"And potato bugs," finished Grace, while the girls laughed merrily.

"Well," remarked Mollie, with a desperate gleam in her eye, "I'd marry just about anybody who would give me a square meal."

"Goodness," remarked Betty, twinkling, "it's mighty lucky for Frank that there aren't any young men of marriageable age on the horizon just now."

The next moment she regretted her innocent little speech, for she could see that the mention of the boys had brought more vividly to Grace and Mrs. Ford and Amy the thought of Will—dear, bright, merry Will—lying wounded in some far-away hospital, how badly wounded they could not know, and dared not think.

The silence that fell upon them was broken by the sound of their hostess' voice, evidently issuing a command to some one in the kitchen. Then the lady herself swept into the room.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting so long," she apologized, "but I have had to help the maid get dinner on the table. She is a new one, and, oh, so utterly helpless. Then, too, I was hoping my son would come home, but since everything is ready and I know you must be starving, we won't delay dinner any longer. If you will come, please—"

"But this is imposing upon good nature," protested Mrs. Ford, as the lady held back the portiers and disclosed an inviting table set for seven, elaborate with shining crystal and silver. "To drop down upon you from a clear—or rather, a cloudy sky—"

They laughed, and their hostess dismissed the protest with a little wave of her hand.

"It is a pleasure," she said, adding, as they took their places: "I am only thankful that a lucky chance enabled me to entertain you well to-night. I was expecting guests from the nearest farm, but since our next door neighbors are five miles down the road, they hesitated to make the trip because of the threatening weather. I guess it is just as well for them they did not come," and she paused to listen to the rain which was still pouring down in torrents.

Mrs. Ford made an appropriate answer, and the two ladies entered into a little confidential chat that left the girls pretty much to their own devices. And they were trying their best not to disgrace themselves and to pay decorous attention to what their hostess was saying, while their hearty young appetites were crying their protests aloud.

At last came the new maid whom their hostess had described as 'so utterly helpless,' looking to the famished girls an angelic being, bearing about her an aroma of tomato soup and fried chicken, more tempting than ambrosia.

Without any perceptible hesitation, the girls immediately began to eat and continued the agreeable occupation without interruption to the end of the meal, save for an answer to a question or two asked by their hostess.

The helpless maid was just bringing in an enormous layer cake to the accompaniment of admiring glances from the girls when the sound of a latch key in the door made the lady of the house look up with a start.

"It must be my son!" she said, rising hastily, "if you will excuse me a moment—"

Then came the sound of a hearty greeting in a masculine voice, followed by a slithery sound of wet clothing. Evidently the newcomer was divesting himself of some uncomfortably damp apparel. They could hear his mother speaking in a low voice—probably she was preparing him to meet the unexpected guests.

"By Jove! did you say two cars?" they heard him exclaim, and it suddenly seemed to them there was something familiar about his voice. "Now I wonder—all right, Mother. Just give me a minute to get some dry clothes on and I'll be right with you. Gosh, but I'm starved!"

The girls smiled sympathetically, for was it only half an hour ago they had been in that identically uncomfortable state.

"I bet he's nice," said Mollie to Betty, in a whisper just before their hostess once more entered the room. "Anybody with an appetite like that, has to be."

"Oh, you shouldn't have waited for me," said the lady, noting that the ice cream that had followed hard on the heels of the chocolate cake had begun to melt. "I don't know what to do with that boy," she added, smiling with a mixture of irritation and fond indulgence. "When he gets out on his motorcycle, miles mean nothing to him and time means less. He is always late to dinner."

"I shouldn't think he would have found the riding very pleasant to-night," said Betty smiling. "In fact, it is a wonder he could ride at all—the roads are almost impassable."

"Quite impassable, you mean," put in Mollie.

"Oh, he has conquered that difficulty," their hostess explained, her eyes once more lighting with pride in her son. "He has a sort of path through the woods, which, while it perhaps lacks the comforts of a state road, at least is not inches deep in mud. He did get caught that way once and was several hours coming a few miles."

"She said he rode a motorcycle," remarked Grace to Mollie with apparent irrelevance as the lady turned to speak to Mrs. Ford.

"Well, what about it?" inquired Mollie, as she proceeded with wonderful concentration to spear one last small but delicious piece of chocolate on the end of her fork.

"Doesn't that convey anything to your benighted mind?" Grace was drawling sarcastically when Betty leaned toward her eagerly.

"I thought his voice sounded familiar," she said. "Of course we know who he is now."

"Good evening, everybody," said the familiar voice, and they turned to find its owner strolling toward them across the room.

"Mr. Joe Barnes!" cried Mollie impulsively, then checked herself and slowly grew red.

"That's who," sang out Joe Barnes slangily, and in the laughter and greetings that followed Mollie forgot her embarrassment.

Only Joe Barnes' mother looked completely surprised and taken aback.

"You know each other, then," she rather stated than asked as there was a lull in the conversation. "I had no idea—"

"Of course you hadn't," agreed her son, as he took the vacant seat beside her and turned upon her a pair of very handsome laughing eyes. "I didn't either until a few minutes ago, and we haven't been acquainted more than a few hours."

"Your son did us the favor of helping us out of a difficulty this afternoon," Mrs. Ford explained, taking pity on the lady's bewilderment. "To be explicit, he performed the very disagreeable operation of putting a new tire on the front wheel of our car."

"Oh, so that's it," laughed Mrs. Barnes.

"Mother, what do you say to cutting out ceremony and getting down to brass tacks?" put in Joe Barnes, eyeing hungrily the plate of steaming soup the maid had set before him.

"We don't serve them," said his mother demurely. "But I shouldn't wonder if what we have would prove more digestible."

So Joe Barnes entertained them with fun and jokes while he devoured the different courses with a thoroughness that awoke the admiration of the girls.

But no matter how conscientiously Joe did justice to the good things set before him, there was not a moment when he was not conscious of Betty—Betty on the other side of the table, dimpling and sending him back sally for sally with ready wit. What lucky chance had prompted nature to send a thunderstorm that afternoon? The jolly old lady was certainly on his side!

Then when Joe had decided that nothing remained to devour, the party adjourned to the living room, where the former put some records on the phonograph.

The Barnes had a collection of very wonderful records, and for more than an hour the girls sat entranced as, one by one, Joe produced for their enjoyment, the greatest artists of the musical world.

Finally some one suggested that Betty play some of the songs they had loved in those service-filled days at the Hostess House. As the girlish voices rang out in one patriotic song after another, Joe Barnes, who was seated on the edge of a table with one foot swinging idly, fidgeted uneasily, while over his face came a sober, almost sullen expression.

"Gee, I wish they wouldn't!" he murmured to himself.



CHAPTER XI

MYSTERY

Betty presently broke into the opening strains of "There's a long, long road awinding," and the girlish voices took it up eagerly. They put into the melody all the pathos and longing of their hearts. They forgot where they were, the pleasant room faded away, and they saw only a sinister gray line of trenches, trenches that were death traps for the flowering youth of America. They were singing to the boys, their boys, and as she listened Mrs. Ford's eyes filled with tears.

Nor was she the only one of that little audience who could not listen to the song unmoved. Joe Barnes felt a great, unaccustomed lump rising in his throat, and as the hot tears stung his eyes he rose hastily and stood staring at, though not seeing, a great picture of some illustrious ancestor that hung over the mantel.

And Mrs. Barnes, looking at her son, pressed a hand over her heart, as though to still a hurt, while in her eyes grew a look of yearning.

"My poor, poor boy!" she murmured over and over to herself.

And the girls, all unaware of the emotions they had awakened, drew the last sweet note to a lingering close and stood quiet for a moment while Betty's fingers rested on the keys. Then—

"That was very beautiful," said Mrs. Barnes, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact tone. "You girls sing wonderfully together."

"We ought to," said Betty, forcing a lightness she did not feel, for as usual she was the first to sense the tense quality in the atmosphere, "for we have certainly had practice enough. We used to sing for the soldier boys at the Hostess House almost every night."

"Yes, but it was sometimes very hard to make them sing," added Amy. "Often they didn't want to at first. But they always joined in toward the end, and the gloomiest of them went away with a smile on his lips."

"They could afford to laugh," said Joe Barnes bitterly. He had left the picture of his illustrious ancestor and had dropped down in his old position on the edge of the table, leg swinging idly. But his expression had changed. It was grim and hard.

Betty, looking at him, suddenly remembered, and she could see by the expressions on the faces of her chums that they also had awakened to the situation.

With horrible lack of tact, they had offended their kind host and hostess. That they had not done so deliberately, helped their self-condemnation not at all.

They had sung patriotic songs, they had spoken of their work at the Hostess House and of the soldier boys, while Joe Barnes, of military age and seemingly in perfect health, did not wear a uniform. Even though he were a slacker, it was terribly bad taste to tell him so in his own home, while accepting his, or his mother's, hospitality.

And something deep down in their hearts, intuition, perhaps, perhaps a sort of sixth sense born of their wide experience of boys of all ages, told them that he was not a slacker. There must be some reason, some real excuse for his behavior.

"Won't you sing some more?" asked their hostess in an attempt to relieve the situation, while she kept one eye anxiously on her son. "Surely you haven't finished."

"I'm afraid we have," said Betty, with a gay little laugh, "for the very good reason that we don't know any more songs to sing."

"And we want to hear some more real music," added Mollie, gamely following her lead. "That is, if you are not tired."

"Oh, no, music never tires us," returned Mrs. Barnes, adding, with a little entreating glance at her son: "Will you put on another record, dear—something light and merry this time?"

"How about some dance music?" queried Joe pleasantly. He was very much ashamed of his weakness and ill temper, and was determined to make up for it. "That's about the lightest and merriest we have."

The girls assented eagerly, and in a few minutes the unpleasant episode was forgotten—or apparently forgotten. At least, for the time being it was relegated to the background, and it was not till some time later that Joe unexpectedly broached it to Betty.

The drenching downpour had changed to a sort of dismal drizzle and Mrs. Ford, upon remarking this fact had made the suggestion that they get into the machines again and try to make Bensington. But Mrs. Barnes had so promptly and emphatically negatived this that there was really no room left for argument.

"Why, even with dry roads it would take you two hours or more to get there, for at all times the road is bad between here and Bensington, but such a thing is simply out of the question with roads that are two feet deep in mud. No, you must stay for the night. I have plenty of room and am more than delighted to have you. No, please don't object, for I will not hear of your doing otherwise."

And so it had been settled, much to everybody's satisfaction.

However, Betty was very much surprised when, in the midst of a beautiful dance with Joe Barnes—for Joe was a rather wonderful dancer—the latter whirled her off toward a window seat in one corner of the room and placed her, a little breathless, upon it.

"Well," she said, that unconquerable imp of mischief dancing in her eyes, "have you any adequate excuse to offer for the spoiling of an exceptionally good dance?"

"Is it spoiled?" he asked reproachfully, as he sank down beside her. "I thought perhaps I was improving—the occasion."

She made a little face at him, incidentally showing all her dimples.

"I suppose, if I were a coquette," she said, flushing a little under the very open admiration of his eyes, "which I am not—"

"I'm not so sure," he murmured but she pretended not to hear the interruption.

"I should deny that you had spoiled the dance. As it is," she flashed him a pretty smile that robbed her words of all sting, "I'm telling you the truth."

"And I," he countered, "am telling you the truth when I say that if it were possible to talk with you and dance at the same time, I should not have brought you here. As it is, I choose the greater of the two blessings."

"It must be very important—this that you have to say to me," replied Betty, adding demurely: "Perhaps if you would tell me all about it, we could dance again."

"In other words, 'get the agony over'," said Joe, with a grimace. He waited a moment, while the girls, who had danced to the end of the record, turned it over, put in a new needle and started off all over again.

"I don't know whether it will seem important to you or not," he said at last, turning slowly toward her. "But what I have to tell you is just about the most important thing in life to me."

The tone as well as the words sobered Betty, and she turned to him earnestly.

"I shall be very glad to hear it then," she said simply.

"I—you—it's rather hard to begin," he stammered, then straightened up and faced her frankly.

"The truth is, I can't help knowing that you wondered when you first saw me and am wondering now—as any one has a right to wonder these days when they see a fellow like me in civilian clothes—"

Betty started and the color rushed to her face.

"No, I haven't—" she began, then stopped confused, remembering that she had been wondering just that thing only a few minutes, yes, only a minute before. "I mean I thought—"

"Yes, it's easy to guess what you thought," he interrupted, misinterpreting her sentence while the bitter look crept once more into his eyes. "It's easy enough to guess what everybody thinks. But," he straightened his shoulders and threw back his head, "I don't think anybody will have a right to think that very much longer. You see," he added, turning to her again and speaking more calmly, "I tried to enlist at the beginning of the war, but they told me there was something wrong here," he touched his chest, "with my lungs."

Betty gave an involuntary exclamation of pity.

"The doctor said it was just beginning," he went on slowly, "and he said—he was a good old scout, that doctor—that if I got out of the city where I could get fresh air, eggs, and milk—you know, the same old stuff—that I might succeed in curing myself up in a hurry and get in the game in time to bring in my share of helmets after all."

"Oh, so that's why you and your mother are away out here!" cried Betty eagerly, laying an impulsive little hand on his. "And you are well, aren't you? Why, you must be! You look the very picture of health."

Joe gulped a little, looked at the friendly little hand on his, tried to speak once or twice and failed, then—

"I feel just fine," he said, striving to make his voice sound natural. "I never cough any more, and I've got the appetite of a wolf—you saw how I ate to-night—" a faint smile lighted his eyes and found an answering one in Betty's. "Yet, I've been holding off for more than three weeks for fear—just for fear—everything isn't all right. You see, they've made a coward of me. I'm afraid of being refused twice."

"Oh, but you won't be!" cried Betty, with honest conviction in her voice. "I'm not much of a doctor, although I've met so many of them at Camp Liberty and heard them talk so much about different diseases that I feel I ought at least to qualify as an assistant," she paused to smile at herself and he thought he had never seen anything so pretty in his life, "and I would say that whatever your trouble has been, it is cured now. I'm sure of it."

"Hold on, hold on," he entreated a little huskily. "If I could only believe that—"

"Say, you two over there," Mollie's voice broke in upon them gayly, "we've been trying hard to be polite and not interrupt, but the clock has just struck twelve and we have a long ride before us to-morrow—or rather, to-day!"

Betty replied laughingly, but before she could rejoin the others, Joe had whispered another question.

"You really meant what you said?" he asked.

"With all my heart," she answered earnestly.



CHAPTER XII

NEARLY AN ACCIDENT

"Look at the sun! Look at the sun!" cried Betty, sitting up in bed and gazing joyfully out at the sun-drenched landscape. "Girls, for goodness sake, wake up. How can you sleep, Grace?"

Grace groaned and opened one eye.

"House afire?" she asked sleepily.

"Of course not, Silly. But the world is."

Betty was evidently in high spirits, thought Grace, as she rolled over and regarded her critically.

"What do you mean—'the world is'?" she inquired grumpily, managing with great difficulty, to open the other eye. "Can't you talk sense?"

"Not on a morning like this," retorted Betty, running to the window and thrusting her head far out into the balmy air. "Look, Lazybones, the roads are pretty nearly dry and we couldn't ask for a more wonderful day."

"What time is it?" queried Grace, without enthusiasm. She was always unenthusiastic before breakfast in the morning, especially if she happened to get to bed rather late the night before.

"Half-past six," replied Betty, turning from the window and beginning hurriedly to gather her things together. "And we all agreed last night to get up at six. I wonder if I'm the only one stirring."

As if in answer to her question, there came a soft tap on the door and their hostess' voice speaking to them.

"Breakfast is almost ready," she said. "I had it prepared early especially for you."

"That was dear of you," replied Betty, adding with the greatest of optimism, considering that three of them were not yet out of bed: "We'll be down in ten minutes."

Although the ten minutes stretched into fifteen, it is a tribute to Betty's excellent generalship that the dressing of the other three girls was managed in that time.

But perhaps the aroma of bacon floating temptingly up to them had something to do with it after all, for they all four boasted youthfully unimpaired appetites.

However that may be, the fact remains that in fifteen minutes from the time Mrs. Barnes stopped at the door, four very pretty and very hungry young girls gathered in the dining room, ready and eager for the day's adventure. Mrs. Ford was already there.

Joe was there too, looking even more bronzed and attractive in the morning light, and Betty, glancing at him, could scarcely believe that what the boy had told her the night before had not been a dream. That splendid specimen of young manhood refused the right to serve his country because he had lung trouble! She could not even bring herself to think that other word, that horrible word, consumption.

But there was one thing certain—she had not been mistaken in her judgment of the night before. He might once have been the victim of disease, but he surely was not now.

Perhaps something of what she was thinking was reflected in her eyes as she looked at him, for he returned the glance with so much admiration in his own that she hastily looked away and became absorbed in the bacon on her plate.

It was a very merry breakfast and a very good one, and when the time came at last for taking leave of their lovely hostess, they found themselves unexpectedly reluctant to do so.

"I wish you were coming with us," said Mrs. Ford, after the lady had waved aside her thanks for the good time they had had. "I am sure you would enjoy the trip almost as much as we would enjoy having you with us."

"I wish it were possible for me to go," Mrs. Barnes replied rather wistfully, as they started down the steps to the waiting automobiles. "It is rather lonesome out here," then, catching a glance from her son, who was trying to carry three handbags at once, she added hastily: "But of course I love it and would miss it awfully. Joe, be careful, dear, you nearly dropped that bag in the dirt."

"I always thought I'd make good in the juggling profession," replied Joe ruefully, as he skillfully recovered the bag in question, "but I guess I was mistaken. Where do these go, Miss Billette—anywhere?" he asked, turning to Mollie.

"Yes, just throw them in," replied Mollie, carelessly, absorbed in testing out her engine. "Only leave room for Mrs. Ford, that's all."

Then, as Amy stopped to speak to Grace, Joe escorted Betty to her little racer and helped her into the driver's seat, though little help Betty needed or asked of anyone.

"It's rather a rough deal, isn't it?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" inquired Betty, surprised.

"Fate introduces us one minute, then snatches you away in the next, before I've had time for more than a word with you."

"Why, I remember several words we've had together," laughed Betty as she settled herself more comfortably in her seat. "Is there anything particular you want to say to me?"

Joe started to speak, evidently thought better of it, and looked up at her soberly.

"I've already told you more than I ever expected to tell any one," he said, and she stretched out an eager, sympathetic little hand to him.

"I know, and I have felt very proud of that confidence," she said earnestly.

"Then you will let me write to you and tell you how things are with me?"

"Oh, I should be so glad!" she said, and there was no doubting her sincerity.

He had no more than time to flash her a grateful glance when Grace came up and put an end to the conversation.

Amid expressions of friendship on both sides and laughing farewells, the two cars slid backwards along the drive and out on to the road. Then with a purring of engines, the little racer leaped ahead with Mollie in close pursuit. They were off once more.

It was as Betty had said. The long clear night and the bright morning sunshine had done much toward drying the roads and though they were still rather sticky and slippery, the girls had no difficulty in keeping up a good rate of speed.

"This is something like," cried Grace, as she stretched both arms above her head and breathed deep of the balmy air. "I could be completely happy if it weren't for one thing."

Betty had no need to ask what that one thing was, and at mention of it her thought turned involuntarily to Allen. Was he safe or had he too—she shuddered at the thought.

"Wasn't it strange?" she said, seeking to change the conversation and the trend of her own thoughts at the same time, "that Joe Barnes proved to be Mrs. Barnes' son?" It was not at all what she had intended to say, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Grace turn and look at her curiously.

"No, I can't see that it's so very strange," Grace said dryly. "At least I have seen stranger things."

"Well, you know what I mean," retorted Betty, still absently. "He is awfully nice, isn't he?"

"That's what he seemed to think of you," returned Grace slyly.

"Of course he did! Why shouldn't he?" challenged Betty, coming out of her abstraction and smiling gayly. "I like me, myself."

"That's the worst of it," sighed Grace, turning for consolation to her inevitable box of chocolates. "No matter how awful you are, we have to love you just the same. Look out, Betty," as the car took a curve on three wheels. "Goodness! you're getting to be a more expert skidder than Mollie."

"Thanks," returned Betty, executing a bow whose grace was somewhat impaired by the proximity of the steering wheel. "Willst hand me a candy, Gracie, honey? Thanks. That's a good girl!"

For a long time after that they were quiet, enjoying the swift motion, the warm wind upon their faces, the fragrance of flowers and of moist sweet earth flung to them from the depths of the woodland.

Before they knew it, they had reached the outskirts of Bensington, then Bensington itself, and were speeding through the queer little town without a thought of stopping when a warning signal from Mollie's horn brought them to an abrupt stop. Betty jumped out and ran back.

"We'll need some provisions," Mollie called to her. "Unless you and Grace think we can reach the next town by noon."

"That's what we planned to do," Betty answered. "Grace and I thought it would save time not to stop here—and we haven't any time to waste, you know."

"All right," Mrs. Ford decided. "Perhaps it will be just as well, for we shall have to put on all speed in order to reach Bluff Point before night."

So Betty raced back to her machine and in a moment more they were off again, fairly eating up the miles. As the roads grew dryer and dryer beneath the scorching heat of the sun they made even better time until a little past twelve o'clock they entered the little village of Hill Crest.

The place boasted nothing so magnificent as a hotel, but they managed to find a little bake shop where the rosy-cheeked country woman who worked there made them up some delicious sandwiches, supplied them with tempting rolls and cake, and, wonder of wonders, set upon the table a pitcher of fresh milk.

When they had finished this rural but eminently satisfying repast, they hurried over to the one big general store to buy a few supplies that they would need that night. It was necessary to lay in only a limited amount, as Grace's aunt Mary had thoughtfully left her cottage well stocked and had informed them that eggs, chickens and vegetables of all kinds could be had fresh from the farmers round about.

Then they were off again, eyes upon that ribbon of road in front, intent upon reaching their destination before nightfall.

It was not till about four o'clock that they met with their first setback.

Betty had just rounded a turn in the road, horn honking for all it was worth, when she found herself almost on top of a huge farm wagon.

She yelled to the driver and put on her brakes hard, hoping desperately that Mollie would not run into her from behind. Grace shrieked and covered her face with her hands.

It was a narrow escape, for when the car had finally stopped there was not more than about an inch between it and the wagon in front. Luckily Mollie had been warned by the noise of the horn, and had stopped her machine just around the turn of the road. She and Mrs. Ford and Amy came running to see what the matter was.

Meanwhile Betty had recovered herself and was smiling apologetically up at the frightened driver. His horses, startled by the noise and shouting had tried to bolt, and he had had all he could do to hold them in. The result was a slightly heated condition on the part of his temper.

"I'm sorry," Betty was saying, her voice still tremulous from the sudden fright she had received. "I thought—"

"Yes, an' I thought too," he interrupted, in a gruff, rude tone that whipped the color to her face. "It would be a heap better if some folks'd think before they done things. Durned old gasoline wagons."

And, still muttering, the angry man turned and whipped up his team while the girls stared after him dumbly.



CHAPTER XIII

OUTWITTING A CRANK

"Old grouch," cried Mollie, shaking a vindictive little fist after the departing farmer. "If it hadn't been that you would have killed yourself too, Betty, I almost wish you had hit him."

"Well, I don't," said Grace ruefully. "Nobody ever thinks of poor me."

"I guess we had better be a little more careful in the future," said Mrs. Ford, a worried line between her brows. "Better to be a little longer reaching Bluff Point than to endanger our lives and perhaps the lives of others."

"It almost looks as if we shouldn't have any choice," said Mollie, and they looked at her in surprise.

"Well, we can't hope to pass that wagon," she explained, indicating the vehicle that was now some hundred feet in front and was waddling along at a snail's pace. "There isn't room, with the ditch on one side and the drop on the other."

"It will be easy enough if he moves to one side of the road," suggested Amy.

"He'll move over if we toot at him," added Grace.

But Mollie shook her head doubtfully.

"I'm not so sure," she said. "It would be just like him to try to get even with us by blocking the road."

"Get even with us?" repeated Betty indignantly. "I might just as well say I want to get even with him for being in the road when I wanted to pass. How ridiculous."

"Of course it's ridiculous. That's probably the reason he would think of it," insisted Mollie. "I know these farmers," she added, nodding darkly.

They laughed at her, and Betty cried gayly: "Well, we won't get anywhere by standing here in the road. I move we follow the old fellow and see what he's up to. And if he gets too ridiculous," she added, as she climbed back into the car, "I know how I'll fix him."

"How?" they asked.

"I'll bump him," she responded ferociously, and amid more fun and laughter they climbed back into the cars and started on again.

"You know, even his back looks stubborn," remarked Grace, when, coming close to the wagon and tooting the horn vigorously, the driver refused to budge from the middle of the road. "I guess perhaps you will have to carry out your threat, Betty."

"Well, I declare if I won't," exclaimed the Little Captain, her cheeks flushing and her eyes blazing at the stubborn insolence of the man. "It would give me great pleasure to bump him clear down the side of the mountain."

"It's getting late, too," worried Grace. "Can't you do something, Betty?"

"Will you please suggest something?" cried Betty, exasperated. "There's nothing in the rules for driving a machine that covers this difficulty. I don't know what to do, unless— Did you bring the pistol?"

Grace started.

"Goodness! you're not going to kill him are you?"

"Not unless I have to," replied Betty, and at her expression, Grace laughed weakly.

"Yes, I brought the pistol," she said. "But it's down in the bottom of the bag that is underneath all the other bags in the tonneau of Mollie's car."

Betty groaned.

"And it isn't even loaded," added Grace, as an afterthought. "Mother said it made her feel safer to have it along since there aren't going to be any men with us, but she wouldn't have it loaded."

"What good is it then?" queried Betty.

"Just to scare people with."

"Well, that's what I want to do to that—man," cried Betty, trying to think of something bad enough to call the cranky farmer, who still urged his team along squarely in the middle of the road and refused to give an inch. "Only I'd like to scare him to death. My conscience wouldn't even hurt."

"It would be murder just the same," Grace suggested, with a little hysterical laugh, "whether you shot him or scared him to death."

Betty was silent for a minute or two, crawling along behind the wagon while her blood boiled and her anger surged. For Betty came from a race of fighting ancestors who were not in the habit of submitting to indignities.

"Grace, I've got to do something!" she burst out at last, gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles showed white. "It isn't so much the valuable time we're losing, but it's an absolute necessity to show that fellow where he—"

"'Where he gets off,'" Grace finished slangily. "I know dear, but how?"

Betty shook her head helplessly and just glared.

Then suddenly Grace uttered a little cry and sat up straight in her seat.

"I have it!" she cried. "I know what we can do."

"Tell me," demanded Betty.

"Why, I know this road pretty well," Grace explained, speaking quickly. "We're not much more than ten miles from Bluff Point."

"Yes, yes," cried Betty impatiently.

"Well, there is a short detour road that juts off from the main road just a little further on, and after running parallel to the road for half a mile or so, crosses it again."

"Yes," cried Betty again, beginning to understand the plot.

"So we'll take the detour," Grace finished triumphantly, "and come out, in front of the farmer."

"And then—" said Betty with a chuckle and a gleam in her eye.

"The rest will be up to us," finished Grace. "Shall we know what to do then?"

"I'll say we shall," chortled Betty, adding with a glance over her shoulder at Mollie's car that was creeping along some twenty feet behind them: "Of course the next thing will be to tell Mollie. Will you run back Grace?"

For once Grace did not object, and without waiting for Betty to stop the car, and indeed it was hardly necessary at the rate they were going, jumped out and ran back, waving an excited hand at Mollie.

Betty heard a whoop of delight from the rear, and in a minute Grace was back in her place.

"How far is it from here?" asked Betty, scanning the road ahead eagerly. "I hope," she added, as a horrid fear assailed her, "that he doesn't turn off on to the other road, too."

"Heavens, I hope not! Oh, there it is!" she cried a moment later, as a turn in the winding road brought the crossroads to view. "Now, if he only doesn't turn down it!"

Eagerly they watched and drew a sigh of relief as the driver jogged steadily on down the main road.

"Now's our chance," exulted Betty, as she changed gears with a challenging roar and slipped off merrily down the detour road.

Sullenly the driver watched them go and then with a shrug of his shoulders, turned once more to his team.

Gayly the two cars sped along the road, bearing four Outdoor Girls bent upon revenge. The going was rough and bumpy, far worse than the main road, but the girls never noticed it.

"That was one time Grace had a good idea," Mollie was exulting as they flew along. "I never thought she was particularly brilliant before, but I have changed my mind." Then catching Mrs. Ford's eye, she added with a little laugh: "You see that's the way Grace and I talk about each other. Only," plaintively, "she says much worse things about me!"

"It will be fun," cried Amy, her eyes shining with anticipation, "to get in front of him and give that old crank a taste of his own medicine."

"He certainly deserves it," agreed Mrs. Ford, for she was as indignant as the girls at the man's insolence. "Didn't Grace say something about pretending we were stalled?"

"She did," cried Mollie gleefully. "And as luck, I mean bad luck, will have it, the mean old engine will choose the very center of the road to do it's stalling in. Bless it's little old heart," and even Mrs. Ford chuckled with her.

As Grace had said, the detour was not over half a mile long, and they soon came out on the main road again. Then they backed the cars several hundred feet down the road so as to effectually block all passage.

Betty tooted gleefully to Mollie, and Mollie tooted gleefully back again. Then they jumped from the machines and met in the middle of the road for a consultation.

"He will be coming in sight any minute now," Betty explained hurriedly, "so we must decide on some definite plan of action."

"That's easy," said Mollie. "One of us will get down underneath the machine and pretend to be tinkering—"

"Goodness, that lets me out," said Grace in dismay. "I wouldn't get down in the dirt for fifty idiotic wagon drivers."

"Well, nobody's asking you to," cried Mollie impatiently. "I fully intend to put on my overalls and do it myself."

"Better hurry up," cried Amy, who had been glancing uneasily down the road. "He may come along any minute now and we don't want him to catch us here."

So amid much hilarity and giggling Mollie got into the begrimed overalls and proceeded to wriggle her small self beneath the car.

"I hope he hurries," she cried in a muffled voice. "It isn't exactly what you might call comfortable down here. Betty, get off my foot," as Grace wickedly stepped on her toes.

"Just hear her," cried Betty plaintively. "Everything just naturally gets blamed on me."

"Well, if you didn't, who did?" queried Mollie fiercely. "Tell me her name—"

"Betty, Betty, don't give me away," pleaded Grace, at which the girls laughed while a satisfied chuckle came from under the car.

"I knew I'd find the guilty one," Mollie was beginning when Betty cut her short with a warning cry.

"He's coming," she said, adding, as she vainly tried to straighten the corners of her mischievous mouth: "And please remember, girls, this is a very solemn occasion!"



CHAPTER XIV

BLUFF POINT AT LAST

Very anxious the Outdoor Girls looked as the grouchy old farmer came toward them. Mollie was making all sorts of noises under the car, apparently tinkering with its mechanism, while the girls kept up a running fire of questions.

"What is the matter, Mollie?"

"Can't you find the trouble?"

"Better let me get under and take a look."

"If we don't get started pretty soon, we'll not get to Bluff Point before dark."

These and other remarks like them met the suspicious ears of the driver as he jerked his team to a standstill.

"Hey, what's the matter with you?" he hailed them. "Have you got to stand right in the middle of the road? Can't you move over some?"

At this Mollie wriggled out from under the car and stood up, facing him. Her face was flushed from restrained mirth, but it might well have been the flush of indignation.

"If we could don't you suppose we would?" she queried, rather incoherently. "Do you think I'm doing this for fun?" Then she abruptly disappeared from sight again. The abruptness was caused by the terrible fear that if she stood looking at that sour old visage another moment she would have to spoil everything by laughing.

As for the other girls, they were slowly turning purple in an effort to maintain the solemnity demanded by the occasion. A strange noise from beneath the car, promptly followed by a choked cough, didn't help them any, and they were relieved when their victim turned his suspicious gaze from them to the shallow ditch at the side of the road which was still muddy from the rain of the night before. The only hope he had of getting around them was to drive through this mud.

Without a word or a glance in their direction, he whipped up his team and started for the ditch. This was something the girls had not foreseen, and they were of no mind to let him get ahead of them again.

Grace and Amy flashed a distress signal to Betty, who stooped over Mollie's feet, the feet being all that could be seen of her, and cried with a peculiar inflection:

"I think you must have found the trouble by this time, Mollie, haven't you?"

Mollie took the hint and scrambled hurriedly to her feet.

"I think so," she said, then as her eyes swiftly took in the situation—the grim old man already struggling through the ditch intent on getting ahead of them—she jumped to her seat and started the engine. "All right," she cried gayly. "Come on, girls, jump in."

The girls jumped in with alacrity and Betty and Grace ran to the car in front. Then while the man whipped up his horses and called to them in terms far from gentle, the two cars sprang forward and were off down the road.

They turned once, to find the man urging his team to the road and shaking his fist after the "gasoline wagons." The girls waved to him merrily, before the turn in the road shut him from sight.

"I guess that will teach him a lesson," said Grace, settling back comfortably.

"Shouldn't wonder," agreed Betty absently, adding with a rueful little smile. "It was great fun, of course, but I hope we shan't meet many more of his kind, or we'll never get to Bluff Point."

"We're almost there now," said Grace. "All this part of the country is almost as familiar to me as Deepdale. When I was a little kiddie, I used almost to live with Aunt Mary."

"It's wonderful how little children love the woods and brooks and all wild things," mused Betty, adding, as the picture of Dodo and Paul, hiding in the machines and begging to be taken along, came back to her: "I almost wish we could have brought the twins with us. They would have so loved it."

"And we would have spent all our time trying to keep them from falling into the ocean," added Grace dryly. "Besides," she added, "I don't believe Mrs. Billette would have let them come. They are such little mischiefs, and she is always afraid something will happen to them."

"Yes, and they're good company for her," agreed Betty thoughtfully; "especially when Mollie is away."

After a few minutes of silence Grace suddenly clutched Betty's arm, making the Little Captain jump.

"Betty," cried the former excitedly, "we're almost there. Just around that curve—"

"Well, you needn't scare me to death," protested Betty, taking one hand from the wheel to rub the arm Grace had clutched.

"But I love it so," Grace cried, standing up only to be jerked back into her seat as Betty swung round the curve. "It's such a wonderful place!"

"Is that it up on the hill?"

"Yes," answered Grace, standing up in earnest now. "Turn up the drive—it leads to the garage at the back. And, Betty, the house stands on a little bluff looking out over the ocean. Do you hear it—the ocean I mean, not the house, Silly!"

The road that they had traveled from Deepdale to Bluff Point had led across country, Deepdale being in the interior, so that the girls had scarcely realized how close they were coming to the coast.

Now, as Betty stopped the car at the back of the quaint little cottage, that sound of romance and mystery, the soft lapping of water with the deeper undertone of waves against rock came up to her and she threw back her head with a little bubbling laugh.

"I don't wonder you love it, Gracie dear," she said. "I do already. It's glorious."

They jumped out and ran back to meet Mollie's car, which was puffing like an old man up the steep grade.

"The ocean! The ocean!" cried Betty ecstatically, as she opened the doors and the girls tumbled out. "Do you smell it? Do you hear it? Oh, girls, hurry up, I can't wait to feel it!"

"Goodness, are you going to commit suicide?" cried Mollie. "If that's what you want, I don't see why you bothered to come away up here."

"Mother, Mother, give me the key, quick," demanded Grace, as they ran around the side of the house and Betty made a face at Mollie. "You haven't forgotten it, have you?"

"No, I tied it on a ribbon around my neck," said Mrs. Ford, with a smile. "I had no intention of forgetting it. Here it is."

"Thank you."

Grace fitted the key in the lock and opened the door, but when she turned, expecting to find the girls at her back, she found that they had deserted her.

They were standing, gazing out over a gleaming white stretch of sand to the shimmering water beyond, absolutely oblivious to everything but the beauty of the scene.

The bluff on which they stood sloped gently down to the beach below. Once down there, the girls knew they would feel as though they were isolated from all the rest of the world, for the beach was in the form of a semi-circle, surrounded on three sides by rocky bluffs and blocked off in front by the ocean.

"How beautiful!" breathed Betty, as Grace stole up and joined them. "We've seen a great many wonderful views, but I never saw one to equal this. Just look at the reflection of the sun out there."

"Blood red," murmured Mollie. "That looks like a hot day to-morrow."

"All the more excuse for taking a swim," put in Amy, adding longingly: "I wish it weren't too late now."

"I'm afraid it is," said Mrs. Ford, seizing her opportunity. "We still have to put the cars away and get our provisions and cook supper—"

"Who said 'supper'?" Mollie demanded hungrily. "Mrs. Ford," she added, as they started for the house, "won't you please make Betty make some biscuits?"

"But you make as good biscuits as I do," protested Betty.

"No, I don't, Darling," denied Mollie, putting an arm about her chum. "And, anyway," she added convincingly, "I can eat more when I don't have to make them!"

The girls were almost as pleased with the interior of the house as they had been with its surroundings. There were odd little passages and unexpected window seats such as Betty had dreamed of having in her own little home some day.

The thought brought back the picture of Allen as he had gone away, gallant, hopeful, brave—oh, so brave—and involuntarily she uttered a little sigh.

"Please don't do that," said Grace, as they entered the room they were to have together. "I'm trying my best not to be as gloomy as I feel. But if you begin to sigh, I'll just have to give up and spoil the party."

"I won't," said Betty, trying a little smile before the mirror and doing it pretty successfully. "I didn't mean to that time, only, I was—just thinking."

"I know," said Grace a little petulantly, as she pulled off her hat and threw it on the bed. "It seems to me that's all I'm ever doing—'just thinking.' If I could only really do something! Some time I'll scream aloud!"

"Well, don't you think we're all pretty much in the same fix?" suggested Betty gently, coming over and putting an arm about her.

"I suppose so," she answered, eyes fixed moodily on the floor. "Only the rest of you have only one to worry about, while I—" she stopped, flushed, and began letting down her thick hair. "If I could only cry!"

"I imagine that might help us all," said Betty wistfully, adding, with a touch of her old gayety: "Perhaps I can arrange it after supper."

"What?" asked Grace.

"A cry party," she answered, and the absurdity of it made them both laugh.

In spite of the shadow hanging over them, dinner that night was a great success. Everybody pitched in, and, having acquired ravenous appetites on their long ride, did the cooking in record time, and of course everything tasted ambrosial.

After dinner they wandered out on the veranda, which was almost as big as the rest of the house put together. It was a wonderful night, with the moon so bright that it shed a magic silver radiance over everything while the lapping of the water came softly up to them.

Suddenly Mollie's hand slipped into Betty's where they stood together looking out.

"On such a night as this," breathed Mollie, scarcely above a whisper, "there should be nothing but peace in the world."

"Should be—yes," agreed Betty, a little bitterly. "But things are not always as they should be!"



CHAPTER XV

THE TELEGRAM

The morning dawned gloriously bright, and at the first ray of the sun the girls were up and dressed and ready for the fun of the day.

"I don't know what I'll do if our trunks don't come," worried Amy, as she took a rather creased white skirt and waist from her suitcase. "I brought only one change and a bathing suit."

"Well, as long as you brought the bathing suit, it's all right," returned Mollie, sticking one last pin in her hair. "I intend to live in mine to-day."

"And, anyway, we can't possibly expect the trunks till this afternoon," put in Grace; "so I don't see any use in worrying about them now."

"If they don't come to-day, either Mollie or I will go down to the station and see about them," offered Betty, who was looking as sweet and fresh as the morning itself. "We'll probably have to go down and get them anyway, since we expressed them through by train and came by motor ourselves."

"Oh, well, who cares," cried Mollie, stretching her arms above her head and breathing deep of the salt-laden air. "When we get down on that wonderful beach, that looks too good to be true, we'll be away from all the rest of the world and we won't need any clothes but a bathing suit."

"Mother's up," cried Grace, as they stepped out into the hall and smelled the welcome aroma of coffee. "I thought I heard somebody go downstairs a little while ago."

"But we shouldn't have let her get the breakfast," cried Betty. "We brought her up here for a rest, not to wait on us."

"She probably didn't sleep very well," said Grace, thinking of Will. "It really isn't any wonder."

However, Mrs. Ford greeted the girls with a bright smile when they entered the kitchen, and when they remonstrated with her for getting up so early she merely laughed at them.

"Why, I haven't cooked for so long, it's just fun for me," she said lightly, but Grace's loving eyes saw how pale she looked and how sad her eyes were when she was not smiling.

"Game little mother," she whispered to herself.

However, after they had cleared the remains of a remarkably good breakfast away, they asked Mrs. Ford to put on her own bathing suit and take a dip with them.

After a minute's hesitation she agreed, and they ran upstairs eagerly to get ready. They all had black suits, and all but Grace wore snug-fitting rubber caps, designed more for use than looks. Grace wore a rakish little Scottish cap affair that was immensely becoming but not at all comfortable to swim in.

"How do I look?" she demanded complacently, when she turned from a prolonged survey of herself in the mirror and pirouetted slowly before them.

"Beautiful, but foolish," Mollie commented succinctly.

"Do you really expect to swim in it, dear?" asked Amy mildly.

"The effect would be altogether stunning," suggested Betty judicially, her head on one side, "if you cocked it just a little further over one eye so as to obscure the sight completely."

There was a ripple of laughter.

"Oh, you're all jealous," remarked Grace, not at all disturbed as she turned back to the mirror once more to pull a curl a little more fetchingly over her ear. "I might have known you would be."

"Goodness, anybody would think she was at Palm Beach or some other show place," cried Mollie, pulling her own plain little cap a trifle lower over her ears. "If you expect an audience, Gracie, I'm afraid you will be disappointed."

"Here I am, trying to give you something good to look at—"

But they would hear no more and hustled her with scant ceremony away from the mirror and out of the door.

"Come on!" cried Betty, taking the stairs two at a time. "Let's see who gets to the water first. I'm betting nine to one on myself."

"Goodness, she's as conceited as you are, Gracie," gasped Mollie, following hard on Betty's footsteps. "Here's my chance to take some of it out of her!"

Grace and Amy, following at not quite such breakneck speed, came out on the porch in time to see two slender, black-clad figures with vivid red and green caps scrambling down the side of the bluff that led to the beach.

As they started after them Mrs. Ford joined them and they ran together to the edge of the bluff. The slope was not quite so gentle as they had thought on the night before, and Mollie and Betty were puffing considerably when they reached the bottom—which they did at almost the same minute.

Then, fleet-footed, they sped across the sand toward the inviting water beyond, while Mrs. Ford, Grace, and Amy clambered down the bluff in their turn.

At the bottom they turned, saw Betty and Mollie reach the water's edge at the same instant—or so it seemed to them—and dash into the green depths. A moment more and the two black figures were lost to sight and only two vivid caps bobbed on the surface of the water.

"Do you suppose it's quite safe?" asked Mrs. Ford. "I wish the girls hadn't been in such a hurry."

"Oh you needn't worry about them," Grace assured her. "Betty and Mollie are regular fish in the water, and you know there aren't any mean currents around here. The beach slopes gradually down so that they can't get caught in water holes either, so don't worry, Mother," and she slipped an affectionate hand into her mother's and received an answering smile in return.

And, oh, how good that water did feel!

As they waded into it up to their waists, Mollie and Betty came swimming back, shaking the water from their eyes and cleaving the big combers with long, powerful strokes.

"Well, who won?" Amy challenged them, as they came within shouting distance.

"Tell the truth," added Grace.

"Both of us," yelled Mollie.

"Or neither," Betty answered, getting to her feet and walking the rest of the way in toward them. "We couldn't have done better team work if we had tried. Oh, isn't it glorious?"

"We don't know yet—we're not even all wet," returned Mollie, adding, as a great comber came rushing toward them: "Come on, Gracie, here's a good one. Let's get under it."

And "get under it" they did, cleaving the water prettily, and in another minute were up on the other side of the big wave. They shook the water from their eyes and struck out merrily.

"Don't go too far," Mrs. Ford called after them, and two bare gleaming arms waved back at her.

The hours that followed were just one long delight, and the girls looked surprised and a little abused when Mrs. Ford reluctantly called them in.

"Why, it can't be more than eleven," protested Grace.

"And we haven't seen the water for, oh, ages," added Mollie.

"Please, can't we have half an hour more?" Amy added.

Mrs. Ford looked smilingly from one to the other and then at Betty.

"Well, haven't you any petition to make?" she asked of the latter.

"I was thinking," said Betty squinting up at the sun, "that Grace was wrong when she said it wasn't more than eleven. It seems to me to be after twelve."

"It is," said Mrs. Ford firmly. "Quarter past."

"Well, let's go!" cried Betty, starting toward the bluff. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving to death."

"But we'll want to swim again after lunch, won't we?" protested Mollie.

"Of course."

"Well, then," she argued reasonably, "we don't want to change our clothes just for lunch, and we can't very well go up to the house in dripping bathing suits."

The girls groaned.

"Then we'll have to wait for lunch until we've sat here for hours and dried off," wailed Grace.

"And she hasn't even a box of chocolates!" Betty mocked her. "It is a desperate case, Grace."

With another groan Grace sank into the soft, warm sand while the others followed suit, looking so mournful that Mrs. Ford was moved to take pity on them.

"I dried off long ago," she said, adding, as they looked at her hopefully: "I tell you what I'll do. I'll go up and open a couple of cans of tongue and make some sandwiches and bring down the cake we bought yesterday. And we can have some milk to drink, for I had the boy leave a couple of extra quarts this morning. How will that do?"

"Do!" the girls echoed, while Grace hugged her mother with vigor. The eyes of the girls followed her gratefully as Mrs. Ford started off on her work of rescue—at least, that is the way the hungry girls regarded it.

"You know, I have a better appetite than I've had in weeks," announced Mollie, as she dug her toes into the warm sand. "I haven't been eating much lately."

"I hadn't noticed it," commented Grace dryly.

"Well, mother did," returned Mollie spiritedly. "She said she was glad I was going away because she thought the change would do me good. I really should have stayed at home, I suppose, and helped mother take care of the twins," she added thoughtfully. "I never saw two children with such an absolute genius for getting into mischief. But when they're caught, they're so cunning and dear and say such quaint things that it is almost impossible to get angry with them."

"They're adorable," agreed Betty, while all the girls smiled fondly at thought of the twins.

"Just the same," remarked Grace, "although I love them, I'm glad I'm not their sister, for I'd never be able to eat a candy in comfort," and the girls laughed at her.

"It seems so wonderful and peaceful here," said Amy, after a short pause, "and we seem so awfully far away from the rest of the world. It almost makes one believe that the war 'over there' is a dream—"

"Or a nightmare," interpolated Mollie.

"Well, it isn't," said Grace, adding, as she dug her toes more deeply into the yielding sand: "And if we don't hear more news of Will pretty soon, I'll just die, that's all. I can't stand it!"

"There's your mother," cried Betty suddenly, glad of an excuse to change the subject. "I think she's calling us, too. Come on, let's go."

Nothing loath, they got to their feet, shook the sand from their suits, and hurried to the bluff where Mrs. Ford stood awaiting them.

As they clambered up toward her they noticed that she looked excited and was holding a yellow envelope in her hand.

"The trunks have come," she said, as they ran up to her. "A big lumbering red-haired fellow brought them from the station a few minutes ago. He also brought this," indicating the envelope in her hand.

"What is it?" they cried, a strange premonition of evil tightening about their hearts.

"A telegram for Mollie!"

Mollie turned a little pale under her tan and took the yellow envelope gingerly, as though it had been poisoned, or contained some T. N. T. explosive.

"Who on earth—" she began, then interrupted herself, and with trembling fingers tore the envelope open. The girls watched her, wide-eyed and tense.

"It's from mother," she cried, then crushed the paper in her hands and looked around at the sympathetic faces with eyes grown dark with fear. "Girls," she said, "I—I'm afraid to read it—I—"



CHAPTER XVI

THE SHADOW OF DISASTER

Betty put a steadying arm about Mollie and asked gently:

"Would it make it any easier if I were to read it, dear?"

"No, oh, no!" cried Mollie, then smoothed out the crushed paper and read the telegram through while her face grew whiter and her lips closed in a tense line. With a queer little sound in her throat she turned away and handed it to Betty.

"Read it," she commanded in a choked voice.

Mrs. Ford put an arm about Mollie while Betty read aloud and the girls crowded closer.

It was a brief, paralyzing message the telegram contained.

"Twins are gone. Were not home last night, and am wild with anxiety. No need your coming home. Am doing everything possible to find them. MOTHER."

"The twins!" gasped Amy.

"Gone!" added Grace, stupefied. "Oh, Betty, are you sure you read it aright?"

For answer, Betty handed her the telegram and turned to comfort Mollie, who was sobbing bitterly.

"I knew I shouldn't have gone away," she was saying over and over again. "I knew I should have stayed at home."

"But your staying at home probably wouldn't have made any difference," argued Betty soothingly.

"And by this time they may have been found, anyway," added Mrs. Ford, gently leading Mollie toward the house, Betty at her side, while Grace and Amy followed, mute with sympathy.

"Yes; or by this time they may be dead!" sobbed Mollie, refusing to be comforted. "They must have met with some accident or they wouldn't have stayed away all n-night."

"Maybe they ran away," suggested Grace, trying hard to think of something cheering to say. "They've done it before, you know."

"Yes," agreed Mollie, sinking into a porch chair and searching desperately for a handkerchief in her pocketless bathing suit. "But they always came home before night. I know it must be something awfully serious to keep them away over night."

Mrs. Ford was very much worried and disturbed, but she nevertheless managed a bright smile.

"As you say, they probably ran away," she said. "Only this time they have wandered too far and haven't been able to find their way back. But if your mother has notified the police, as she surely has by this time, they are sure to be found. And now," she added, rising briskly and making for the door, "since everything seems a good deal worse than it is on an empty stomach, I'm going to give you some lunch and we'll decide what to do afterward."

Left alone, the girls gazed helplessly at each other. Mollie had stopped sobbing and was staring moodily out at the ocean, her eyes and nose swollen with weeping.

"I'll have to go home, of course," she said suddenly, breaking a silence filled with unhappy thoughts. "I don't know that I'll be any good, but I can at least comfort mother. I'm sorry," she gave them a wistful, apologetic little glance that went straight to their hearts and brought the tears to their eyes, "to break up the party."

"You darling," cried Betty, trying to laugh and not making a very great success of it, "do you think we care a rap about our old party? Only," she added thoughtfully, "as you say yourself, I don't see that you can do very much good by going home."

"I could comfort mother," repeated Mollie, in a flat tone, as though she were repeating a lesson.

"But she said not to come," suggested Grace. "She said she was doing everything possible—"

"I know," interrupted Mollie, wearily. "Of course she would say not to come. And I suppose," she added, dabbing impatiently at her eyes, "all I'd do would be to weep anyway, and make things about ten times worse."

"Do you want your lunch inside or out here?" Mrs. Ford asked from the doorway and the girls jumped to their feet.

"Here we are, letting you do all the work again," cried Betty self-reproachfully. "I guess we'd rather have it out here, but we'll bring it out ourselves. Please go over there, get into the swing, and don't stir until we say you may." Betty had a pretty manner, half of deference, half of camaraderie, with older people that made them love her. Mrs. Ford patted her cheek with a little smile and obeyed her command while the three girls ran into the kitchen to bring out the sandwiches and cake that she had already prepared.

And all the time Mollie sat motionless, staring out over the ocean, apparently unconscious of everything that was going on around her.

"Little Dodo and Paul," she said over and over to herself. "What has happened to them? Oh, I must go home, I must!"

"Come to your lunch," called Betty.

After lunch Mollie began to take a less gloomy view of the situation and hope, which in youth can never long be forced into the background, began to revive.

"In the first place," Betty argued, as she began to clear away the dishes and Amy rose to help her, "it couldn't have been an accident, or your mother would have read about it in the papers. The children are old enough to tell their names and where they live."

"I know," said Mollie, while the troublesome tears welled to her eyes again. "But it's possible they may have been unconscious, and then they wouldn't be able to tell anything."

"But there would have been at least an announcement describing the children," Amy argued in support of Betty.

"And, anyway, pretty nearly everybody in Deepdale knows the twins," Grace added.

"Well, then, there are only two or three things left that might have happened," said Mollie, her lips quivering. "It's barely possible they may have wandered off into the woods and gotten lost. In that case somebody will have to hurry up and find them or they will just stay there and s-starve! And that's almost worse than being run over."

"Well, with everybody in Deepdale, civilians as well as police, searching for them," said Betty confidently, "I don't think there is very much chance of their starving to death. If that's the solution, I shouldn't wonder but that they are safe at home now with everybody rejoicing."

Mollie's face brightened a little at this picture, but almost immediately clouded over again.

"But we don't know that," she said. "And until we do, I'm not going to let myself get too happy."

"I wonder," she said suddenly, after the girls had cleared away the lunch and had perched themselves on the porch railing, "just what I ought to do first. Send a telegram to mother, I suppose," answering her own question.

"Yes, I think I would," said Betty, adding, as Mollie got up with characteristic impulsiveness and started for the house: "Do you mind telling us what you are going to say in it—about going home, I mean?"

Mollie paused uncertainly.

"I—I don't just know," she admitted. "One minute I think there's no question but what I ought to go, and the next, I wonder if I wouldn't only be in the way."

"There's another thing to consider," Mrs. Ford put in. "It is almost a certainty that the children will be found in a day or two, perhaps are found already, and in that case you would have all your trip for nothing. I don't like to advise—"

"Oh, please do," Mollie begged, adding with a pathetic little smile: "I feel so awfully lonesome, trying to decide everything all by myself."

"You poor little girl," said the woman tenderly, then fearing lest sympathy would only make the girl feel worse, added hurriedly: "In that case I should most strongly advise that you wait a day or two at least and give things a chance to straighten out. At the end of that time, if they haven't been found and you still think you ought to go, we'll pack up everything and go along with you, of course."

"That's what I'll do then," agreed Mollie, relieved to have the question settled for her. "And now," she added, making for the door once more, "I'm going to get into my street things and wiz down to that station in record time. Who wants to come with me?"

It seemed everybody did, and in a very short time the girls had changed from their bathing suits to their street clothes and were ready for the dash to the station, which was about two miles from their house.

They all climbed into Mollie's car, and the big machine started slowly backward down the steep incline.

"Better hold on," Mollie warned them. "I've never done quite so steep a hill as this backward, and the old boy may balk. Take your time, old man," addressing the car, as it showed a tendency to pick up speed too rapidly. "Of course we're in a hurry, but we don't want to land on our ears. That's the way—gently now. All right—we're off!" as they reached the foot of the hill in safety and swung around into the road. "Now let's see how long it will take you to reach that station."

As a matter of fact, it took scarcely any time at all, for the demon of speed seemed to have taken possession of Mollie, and she drove so recklessly that even the girls, who were used to her daring, were startled.

Yet something about the young driver's straight little back and tightly compressed lips kept them from protesting.

However, the wild ride came to an end without accident, and the girls tumbled out of the machine and on to the station platform. They looked about them, but the only person in sight was an unpromising looking person with a bald head—though he could not have been over thirty-five—beaked nose, and small red-rimmed eyes.

This decidedly unattractive individual lounged against the door of the waiting room and eyed the girls with insolent admiration.

"Anything I can do for you?" he asked, as he saw that they hesitated. "Always willing to oblige the ladies," he added.

The girls exchanged a glance, then Betty approached the lounger who had the grace to straighten up as she addressed him.

"We want to send a telegram," she explained coldly. "We understood we could send one from here."

"Sure! That's me," he responded with alacrity. "Right this way, ladies."

The girls followed him reluctantly into a little square booth-like place, and Mollie scribbled a telegram on the blank he gave her. Then they hurried out to the machine again. A little way down the road Amy turned and looked back. The fellow had resumed his lounging position and was looking after them with his little red-rimmed eyes.

"Ugh! wasn't he awful?" said Betty, as Mollie rounded a turn in the road on two wheels. "I'm glad we don't have to see him often, he'd give me the nightmare."

But Mollie did not answer. Her mind was once more on the twins, and she was repeating over and over the same old question.

"What has happened—what has happened? What could have happened?"

"Betty," she said aloud, so suddenly that Betty started, "there's just one thing we didn't think of as being a solution. It's strange, too, for it is the most probable solution of all."

"What?" asked Betty anxiously.

"Suppose—" said Mollie, her voice so low that Betty had to bend forward to catch the words. "Suppose they have been kidnapped!"



CHAPTER XVII

JOE BARNES AGAIN

"Well, we've got to do something. There's no use sitting around looking at each other!"

The girls started and looked reproachfully at Mollie.

It was several days after the telegram had come which had so upset them and their plans, and they were sitting dejectedly on the sand at the foot of the bluff trying to read. The attempt had proved a failure, however, and one after another the books had dropped to their laps while they stared disconsolately out over the water.

"What would you suggest?" asked Grace listlessly, in response to Mollie's statement.

"Can't we go in swimming again?" asked Amy mildly.

"No!" Mollie was very positive. "The boy will be coming with the provisions and letters in a little while, and there may be a telegram or something from mother. If there isn't pretty soon, I'll go mad."

"Let's take a walk then," suggested Betty.

But again Mollie would have none of it.

"Too warm," she said.

"Well, I thought you were the one who wanted to do something," said Grace, getting up and shaking the sand from her dress. "I guess the trouble is," she added, "that you don't know what you want."

"Yes I do," said Mollie, while the tears rose to her eyes and she shook them away impatiently. "Only the one thing I want more than anything else I can't get."

"Maybe you forget," said Grace, while her own voice trembled a little, "that I'm very nearly in the same fix."

"No, we don't," cried Betty quickly. "But the only way we can hope to bear the horrible things that are happening to us is to get busy at something and try to occupy our minds."

"It's all very well for you to talk," Mollie retorted, in her nervous state saying something she never would have thought of saying under normal conditions, "but nothing terrible has happened to you yet. Wait till it does. Then maybe it won't be so easy to get your mind off it."

The thoughtless speech stung, and Betty turned away to hide the hurt in her eyes.

"Perhaps you're right," she said quietly. "Nothing very terrible has happened to me yet, personally. But perhaps you forget that we girls always share each other's troubles—"

But Mollie would not let her finish. She was down on her knees beside her chum, penitent arms about her shoulders and was pouring out an apology.

"I ought to be tarred and feathered," she cried breathlessly. "I don't know what made me say such a thing, Honey."

"I know," said Betty gently, "and that's why it didn't go very deep—what you said."

"You're a darling!" cried Mollie. She gave the Little Captain another bear's hug, then sat down in the sand again with her arms clasped about her knees. "It's this everlasting uncertainty and the feeling of helplessness that gets on one's nerves so. I always did hate to wait for anything—especially with my imagination."

"What's that got to do with it?" asked Amy, surprised.

"Why, it—the imagination, I mean—just goes running around in circles, thinking up all the horrible things that might have happened until I almost go crazy. If I only didn't have to think!"

"You never used to have any trouble that way," said Grace, with a weak attempt at a joke that ended in dismal failure.

"Isn't that the boy with the mail?" asked Betty after a minute, as the rumble of an antiquated vehicle and a masculine voice addressing in no uncertain tones a pair of invisible mules came to their ears. "Perhaps he's bringing good news to us. Come on, we'll meet him half way."

Relieved at the prospect of action, the girls sprang to their feet, dusted off the clinging sand, and scrambled up the bluff. A minute more and they were running down the hill pell mell toward the oncoming team.

They had scarcely reached the bottom of the hill when the long-eared and long-suffering animals rounded a turn in the road and ambled slowly toward them.

The driver, the same gauky, red-headed country lad who had brought them their trunks, drew rein as the fleet-footed girls reached him and swept off his crownless hat with a gallantry that left nothing to be desired.

"I'm bringing your provisions," he began, adding loquaciously, for he loved to talk and seldom got the opportunity: "Sorry I couldn't get 'em to you yesterday, but Abe up to the store took sick and he says to me, 'Jake,' he says, 'guess mebbe you'll have to be storekeeper an' delivery boy both to-day. Shake a leg,' he says, 'an' I might mebbe give you a dollar extry. You never can't tell,' he says. He's that generous like, Abe is," the boy shook his head sadly at the thought of Abe's generosity, "that he'd give a whole chicken to a kid dyin' of hunger, pervided he knowed the chicken had the pip."

The girls chuckled at this last sentence, uttered with a sort of ferocious sarcasm, even though they had been standing on one foot with impatience during the rest of his long speech.

Now, seeing that he was about to begin again, Betty cut in quickly.

"It didn't bother us a bit, you're not coming yesterday," she said, adding, as she leaned forward eagerly: "What we do want to know is—did you bring any mail?"

"Sure," he said, good-naturedly, reaching behind him for a small package of letters which Betty took eagerly. "An' there was a telegram too, came yesterday—"