initial commit of ebook 20324HEADmain

1 files changed, 7196 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/20324.txt b/20324.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f84ee5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/20324.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7196 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point, by Laura
+Lee Hope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point
+       Or a Wreck and a Rescue
+
+
+Author: Laura Lee Hope
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2007  [eBook #20324]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, J. P. W. Fraser, Emmy, and
+the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net/c/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 20324-h.htm or 20324-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/3/2/20324/20324-h/20324-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/3/2/20324/20324-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+
+Or
+
+A Wreck and a Rescue
+
+by
+
+LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale," "The
+Moving Picture Girls," "The Bobbsey Twins,"
+"Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue," "Six
+Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's," Etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Grosset & Dunlap,
+Publishers
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+
+
+THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES
+
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA
+          THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS
+
+
+THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
+
+(Twelve Titles)
+
+
+THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
+
+(Eight Titles)
+
+
+SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES
+
+(Five Titles)
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Copyright, 1920, By
+Grosset & Dunlap
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+          CHAPTER                                PAGE
+
+              I TO THE FRONT                       1
+
+             II BAD NEWS                          11
+
+            III MAKING PLANS                      17
+
+             IV GRACE SURPRISES HER CHUMS         27
+
+              V A PROBLEM SOLVED                  37
+
+             VI LIFE AND DEATH                    47
+
+            VII THE RACE                          56
+
+           VIII RED RAGS                          65
+
+             IX THUNDER AND MUD                   75
+
+              X THE KNIGHT OF THE WAYSIDE         85
+
+             XI MYSTERY                           95
+
+            XII NEARLY AN ACCIDENT               104
+
+           XIII OUTWITTING A CRANK               114
+
+            XIV BLUFF POINT AT LAST              123
+
+             XV THE TELEGRAM                     132
+
+            XVI THE SHADOW OF DISASTER           142
+
+           XVII JOE BARNES AGAIN                 152
+
+          XVIII SERIOUSLY WOUNDED                162
+
+            XIX BETTY CONFESSES                  170
+
+             XX MISSING                          180
+
+            XXI A NARROW ESCAPE                  187
+
+           XXII DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN         197
+
+          XXIII THE SHADOW LIFTS                 207
+
+           XXIV HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS            217
+
+            XXV JOY                              227
+
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+TO THE FRONT
+
+
+"I know it's utterly foolish and unreasonable," sighed Amy Blackford,
+laying down the novel she had been reading and looking wistfully out of
+the window, "but I simply can't help it."
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mollie Billette, raising her eyes reluctantly
+from a book she was devouring and looking vaguely at Amy's profile. "Did
+you say something?"
+
+"No, she only spoke," drawled Grace Ford, extricating herself from a
+mass of bright-colored cushions on the divan, preparatory to joining in
+the conversation. "I ask you, Mollie, did you ever know Amy to say
+anything important?"
+
+"Why yes, I have," said Mollie unexpectedly. "In fact, she is about the
+only one of us Outdoor Girls who ever does say anything
+important--except Betty, perhaps."
+
+Amy withdrew her gaze from the landscape and looked at the speaker with
+a twinkle in her eyes.
+
+"What will you have, Mollie?" she asked whimsically. "When you become
+complimentary, you are apt to rouse my suspicions."
+
+"Well, whatever you were going to say, please say it, and let me get
+back to my book," returned Mollie, ignoring the imputation. "I was in
+the most interesting part--"
+
+"Why, I'm just plain homesick," said Amy, adding quickly, as the girls
+looked at her in surprise. "For Camp Liberty and the Hostess House, you
+know. I miss the work and the long hours of entertaining and cheering
+people up. I feel," she looked around at them as though finding it hard
+to explain just what she meant, "sort of--lost."
+
+The three chums, Mollie Billette, Grace Ford, and Amy Blackford were
+gathered in the comfortable library of Betty Nelson's home--Betty being
+the fourth of the merry quartette, dubbed the "Outdoor Girls" by the
+people of Deepdale, because of their love of the open and of outdoor
+sports.
+
+The girls, as my old readers will doubtless remember, had helped
+establish a Hostess House at Camp Liberty, and since then had given all
+their strength and time and youthful enthusiasm to the great work of
+cheering our young fighters, entertaining their loved ones, and, in the
+end, sending them with fresh courage and happy memories to the "other
+side" for the great adventure.
+
+And now the girls, completely worn out in their loving service to
+others, had been sent, much against their will, home to Deepdale for a
+rest that they sorely needed.
+
+To-day they had gathered in Betty's house to discuss the rather hazy
+plans for their brief vacation. And Amy had simply voiced what was in
+the thoughts of all the girls. They were, undeniably and heartily,
+homesick for Camp Liberty and their work at the Hostess House.
+
+"Lost?" Mollie repeated Amy's expression thoughtfully. "Yes, I guess
+that would pretty well describe the feeling I've had for the last few
+days. Sort of restless and aimless--wondering what to do next."
+
+"Goodness!" cried Grace whimsically, stretching her arms above her head
+and smothering a yawn, "this is terrible, you know. If we don't look
+out, we'll be forgetting how to enjoy ourselves."
+
+"That would be queer, wouldn't it?" agreed Mollie, with a chuckle as she
+started to resume her reading. "Especially for the Outdoor Girls, who
+used to know how to enjoy themselves remarkably well."
+
+A brief silence followed, broken only by the rustle of paper as one of
+the girls turned a page. Then, so suddenly that Mollie jumped nervously
+and Grace almost upset a box of chocolates at her elbow, Amy threw down
+her book and sprang to her feet.
+
+"I can't stand it another minute!" she exclaimed desperately. "Girls, I
+must get out and do something--this loafing is getting on my nerves."
+
+"Goodness, the child's mad," declared Mollie, looking at her chum with a
+mixture of amusement and sympathy in her eyes. "What do you want to do,
+Amy, start a fight, or set the town on fire? Whatever it is, I'm for
+you, as Roy would say."
+
+"Oh, I guess I must be crazy," said Amy, subsiding and seeming a little
+ashamed of her outburst. "Only, after so much band music and parades and
+bugle calls--everything in Deepdale seems so quiet."
+
+"Well, if all you want is noise, we'll easily fix that," said Mollie
+briskly, running to the piano and gathering in Grace and Amy on the way.
+"Sing," she commanded, "and I'll make as much noise as I can on the
+piano."
+
+Half laughing, half protesting, the girls obeyed while Mollie
+conscientiously made good her threat with the piano, and it was into
+this uproar that Betty Nelson stepped a moment later.
+
+"Have mercy!" she screamed above the noise, both hands clapped over her
+ears while she laughed at them. "I thought they had turned the house
+into a lunatic asylum or something."
+
+The music, if such it can be called, stopped so suddenly that Betty's
+last words rang out with absurd distinctness.
+
+"Or something," Mollie mimicked, whirling around and catching the
+newcomer in a bear's embrace. "Come over to the couch, Betty Nelson, and
+explain yourself. Where have you been and why did you keep us waiting?"
+
+Laughingly the Little Captain, as she was often called by the girls
+because of her talent for leadership, permitted herself to be dragged
+over to the couch by the impulsive Mollie, while Amy and Grace seated
+themselves on the arms.
+
+"What would you?" protested Betty, looking from one accusing face to
+another. "I said I would meet you here at two-thirty, and it is only
+quarter past now."
+
+"Only quarter past!" exclaimed Amy.
+
+"Oh, is that all?" asked Mollie, in astonishment, adding, as Betty
+lifted her wrist watch for inspection: "Goodness, I thought we had been
+waiting ages."
+
+"I'm glad you wanted to see me so much," chuckled the Little Captain,
+adding, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes: "I imagine you would
+have been still more impatient if you had known--" she paused wickedly
+and just looked at them.
+
+"Don't tease, Betty! What is it?" they implored in chorus, fairly
+pouncing upon her, while Grace added, eagerly:
+
+"Is it possible you have anything really interesting to tell us?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if you would think so," Betty teased, adding quickly
+to forestall the outburst she saw was coming, "It really isn't anything
+at all--only--I met the postman on my way--"
+
+"Betty!" they cried, unable to contain their impatience another moment.
+"You have letters! Letters from our soldier boys!"
+
+"How did you guess it?" said Betty, her eyes dancing as she brought from
+a convenient pocket three--yes, three--fat letters, each containing the
+longed-for foreign postmark.
+
+"How much will you give me?" teased Betty, holding the precious missives
+behind her back.
+
+"Not one other word, Betty Nelson!" they cried, and after a merry but
+brief struggle the letters were seized and delivered to their rightful
+owners.
+
+"Now I wonder," drawled Grace with a twinkle, as she hastily tore open
+her envelope, "who could possibly be writing to us from the other side?"
+
+"Now I wonder," chuckled Betty, as she happily drew from the convenient
+pocket the last, but in her estimation decidedly not the least, fat
+letter and proceeded to devour its contents without delay.
+
+And indeed the Outdoor Girls had little reason to wonder who their
+correspondents might be, for as regularly as clockwork those precious
+letters with the strange foreign postmarks were delivered to their eager
+hands.
+
+There were other letters with that foreign postmark, too, for in
+addition to their work at the Hostess House, the girls had faithfully
+kept up a large correspondence with the brave boys who had already
+crossed the water and were waiting impatiently for their chance "at the
+Huns."
+
+But the four special letters were from their closest friends--boys who
+had lived in Deepdale before the war and were now in France preparing
+for the last stage of their journey.
+
+Allen Washburn, on his way to make a great name for himself in the law
+before the war put a temporary check upon his ambitions, had been in
+love with the Little Captain for--oh, yes, ever since he could remember,
+while Betty--but Betty would never really admit anything, not even to
+herself.
+
+Then there was Will Ford, Grace Ford's brother, who was not only devoted
+to his pretty sister, but, in spite of Amy's flushed protestations to
+the contrary, to Amy Blackford, also--although in quite a different
+manner!
+
+Frank Haley was a high school chum of Will's, who from the time of his
+first meeting with Mollie Billette had seemed inclined to become her
+shadow, to the latter's secret gratification and outward indifference.
+
+The last of the quartette was Roy Anderson, one of the Deepdale boys,
+who was chiefly distinguished by his very open admiration for Grace.
+
+The boys had shared in many of the adventures of the Outdoor Girls, and
+of course had been among the very first to volunteer to help "lick the
+Boche" as they slangily but ardently put it. The girls had gloried in
+their patriotism, and it was their assignment to Camp Liberty that had
+first given Betty the idea of working in the Hostess House there.
+
+They had been very happy, fired as they were by enthusiastic patriotism,
+until the fateful day had come when the boys had entrained for
+Philadelphia and from there to the Great Adventure. Then for the first
+time the girls had had the real and terrible meaning of war brought home
+to them. And the boys, so merry and care-free when they had first
+entered the service, had seemed suddenly older, more important, more
+manly, only the fire of enthusiasm in their eyes showing their
+indomitable youth.
+
+Several months had passed since that day of mingled tears and pride and
+heartache, and the girls had had time to get used to the separation a
+little--a very little. And now Betty had brought them the letters they
+were always hungry for, anxiously eager, yet always, at the very back of
+their hearts, a little haunting fear of what they might contain.
+
+For several minutes they sat engrossed while occasionally one of them
+read a funny or characteristic extract over which they laughed happily.
+
+"Listen to this," chuckled Mollie, while the girls looked up
+expectantly. "Frank says that Roy is getting terribly fat in spite of
+all the exercise--"
+
+"Horrors!" interjected Grace.
+
+"And when he, Frank, ventured to remonstrate with him the other day and
+advised him to cut down on his chow, Roy said: 'Nothing doing! I've got
+a definite end in view, old man. This khaki outfit has acquired so much
+terra firma it's beginning to stand alone, but if I get so fat I can't
+wear it they'll have to give me another one--see?'"
+
+The girls laughed, but there was just a shade of wistfulness in their
+laughter, for they knew that the boys were only skirting the outer edge
+of the hardships they would be called upon to encounter later on.
+
+Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry of dismay.
+
+"Oh, girls," she cried when they looked up at her fearfully, "it's come!
+What we've been dreading so long! The boys have been ordered to the
+front!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BAD NEWS
+
+
+The girls stared wide-eyed at Betty while slowly the color drained from
+their faces. It was true they had been dreading just this news for a
+long, long time, yet now that it had come they felt strangely quiet and
+numb. They had much the same feeling as one who had received a stunning
+blow. Until the paralysis had passed there could be no pain. That would
+come later.
+
+"How do you know?" asked Mollie at last, in a voice that sounded strange
+even to herself. "Frank hasn't mentioned it."
+
+"He will probably, toward the end," Betty explained, while slowly her
+heart contracted and the tears welled to her eyes. "Allen didn't--not
+till the last sentence. It's only a line, but th-that's enough. He says
+not to be alarmed if his letters are delayed--it may be hard to get them
+through."
+
+"They are going to the front," Amy repeated dazedly, as if she found it
+hard to really believe. "When--did he say when, Betty?"
+
+"No, he didn't," said Betty slowly. "But you know Allen. He wouldn't
+have said anything about it if the time hadn't been pretty close at
+hand."
+
+"Why," cried Grace, catching her breath as though the thought had just
+occurred to her, "they may be in the front line trenches now! They may
+be--they may be--"
+
+And while the girls gazed at her in tragic silence, imagining terrible,
+unbelievable things, a moment will be taken to sketch briefly for the
+benefit of new readers the various exciting or amusing adventures which
+had befallen the Outdoor Girls in the days before the grim shadow of war
+had spread itself over the land.
+
+In the first volume of the series, entitled "The Outdoor Girls of
+Deepdale," the girls had formed a camping and tramping club and had
+tramped for miles over the country, meeting with many interesting
+adventures on the way.
+
+After this, one good time had followed hard on the heels of another,
+first at Rainbow Lake, then at a winter camp where they had novel and
+interesting experience on skates and ice-boats.
+
+At Ocean View some time later the Outdoor Girls had cleared up a mystery
+centering about a strange box they had found in the sand. Then had
+followed that splendid summer at Pine Island, when the girls had
+accidentally discovered a gypsy cave and had succeeded not only in
+rounding up the band of gypsies but in recovering several valuable
+articles that had been stolen from them. The four boys who were now
+facing the enemy in France had shared in their fun that summer, pitching
+camp near the bungalow of the girls.
+
+Their next adventure found the girls and boys again at Pine Island, but
+under greatly altered circumstances. America had just entered the great
+war, and the four boys had responded eagerly to the bugle call. Later
+they were sent to Camp Liberty for training, to which the girls soon
+followed them to work in the Hostess House.
+
+Will Ford, the brother of Grace, had caused the girls, and especially
+his sister, anxiety and uneasiness because of his failure to enlist with
+the other boys. In the end he justified himself, however, by delivering
+a German spy to justice and enlisting in the service of his country
+immediately afterward. The girls also recovered some valuable jewelry
+that the spy had stolen from them.
+
+Then in the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor Girls
+at the Hostess House," the girls had befriended an old woman who had
+been knocked down by an unscrupulous motorcyclist. They later learned
+the secret tragedy in the life of their little old lady.
+
+Now the girls had come home to Deepdale for a much needed rest, only to
+be confronted with the terrible, though, naturally, expected, news that
+the boys had been ordered to the front.
+
+"Yes they may be, probably are, facing death at this minute," said
+Mollie slowly, finishing the broken sentence. "Perhaps at the very
+minute we were playing and singing and enjoying ourselves--"
+
+"Mollie, don't!" cried Amy brokenly. "I don't feel as if I could ever
+enjoy myself again."
+
+"Well, we've got to, whether we can or not," said Betty, striving to
+control her quivering lips and tilting her little chin at a brave angle.
+"We can't just lie down at the very first shot, you know."
+
+"You talk as if we were on the firing line," said Grace hysterically.
+
+"I suppose in a way we are," returned the Little Captain slowly, wishing
+desperately that those troublesome tears would stay where they
+belonged--her eyes were so misty she could hardly see Grace! "Only ours
+is a harder kind of battle, because it's made up mostly of waiting and
+working without any of the thrill and excitement of the real fight to
+help us. But I'd like to know," and there was a little ring of pride and
+renewed courage in her voice, "what the real fighters would do without
+us anyway. We're just as much soldiers as they are, and if we don't do
+our share, they can't do theirs."
+
+"Of course you are right, Betty dear, you always are!" cried Mollie,
+taking heart and even smiling a little. "We can't do anybody good by
+moping."
+
+"No," added Grace with a philosophy unusual in her. "That's why we have
+the hardest share, I guess--because we have to keep gay and bright, no
+matter how we feel."
+
+"And we still have our work at the Hostess House," Amy reminded them.
+"Maybe," she added, a little wistfully, "if we work hard enough we'll be
+able to forget--"
+
+"What's all this about working and forgetting?" cried Mrs. Nelson,
+coming gayly into the room. "I thought you had come home for a
+vacation."
+
+The girls explained, and Mrs. Nelson looked pityingly at their grave
+young faces.
+
+"So that is it," she was beginning, when Mollie sprang to her feet with
+a cry. She was staring at the paper that Mrs. Nelson had carelessly
+thrown on the table.
+
+"What is it?" they cried, as she snatched it up and read the glaring
+headlines.
+
+"The Hostess House!" gasped Mollie. "Gone! Burnt up! Read this!"
+
+Dazedly the girls obeyed, the big type seeming to strike them in the
+face as they read:
+
+"Great Fire at Camp Liberty! Hostess House and Several Barracks
+Buildings Burned to the Ground!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MAKING PLANS
+
+
+"I can't seem to get used to it," sighed Mollie several days later, as
+she ran up the steps of her porch and opened the screen door for the
+girls. "To think that no matter how much we want to go back to the
+Hostess House--"
+
+"There is no Hostess House to go back to," finished Grace, sinking down
+in a luxurious porch swing and plumping the cushion behind her back.
+Grace always had a gift for finding the soft places. "It is rather
+discouraging."
+
+"Just as we were going to work hard and forget how unhappy we were,
+too," added Amy plaintively.
+
+"Goodness, but we're not going to be unhappy," put in Betty, rocking
+vigorously. "I thought we decided that three days ago."
+
+"I know. But when we think--"
+
+"But we musn't think," Betty interrupted quickly, adding with a little
+twinkle: "About being unhappy, that is. All we have to do is just hold
+on to the belief that the boys are coming back a year from now, maybe
+less--coming back without a hair less than they had when they went
+away."
+
+"We didn't count 'em," said Mollie drolly. "The hairs, that is, so how
+can we tell?"
+
+"Isn't she funny?" drawled Grace, catching the pillow Mollie threw at
+her and depositing it calmly behind her back. "Thanks, old dear," she
+said. "I just needed another one."
+
+"I thought we came to talk over the plans for our vacation," Amy put in
+mildly, adding with a little laugh: "We have to take one now whether we
+want it or not."
+
+"But we haven't the slightest idea what we're going to do," protested
+Grace. "I guess we'd just better stay at home and do nothing."
+
+"My, aren't you encouraging?" cried Mollie, looking up indignantly from
+the pair of socks she was knitting. "You might at least suggest
+something."
+
+"Ooh, there you are!"
+
+They turned suddenly to see a mischievous little face peeping at them
+from around the corner of the porch.
+
+"Dodo, you little wretch, come here," cried Mollie, trying to look
+severe and failing utterly.
+
+"Now what mischief have you been up to?"
+
+"No," protested Dodo, shaking her curly head vigorously, as she
+reluctantly abandoned her vantage point and came slowly toward Mollie.
+"No mischief 'tall. Me an' Paul jus' playin'."
+
+This was Dora, nicknamed Dodo, and Paul, Mollie Billette's small brother
+and sister, who were nearly always getting into some sort of mischief
+from the time they stepped their little feet out of bed in the morning
+till the time they slipped the same little feet, tired out with getting
+into trouble, into bed at night.
+
+"You darling!" cried Betty, catching the little figure to her and
+administering a bear's hug. "You're terribly bad, but we can't help
+loving you."
+
+"Uh-uh," denied Dodo, wriggling free of Betty's embrace and looking at
+her earnestly. "Me's never bad--only Paul."
+
+"Ooh, Dodo Billette!" cried Paul, bursting in upon them from no one
+could quite tell where. "You's a big story teller!"
+
+"You's the big 'tory teller," cried Dodo, coming sturdily to the rescue
+of her reputation. "You just go 'way. Mol--lie, oh, Mollie, make him go
+'way!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mollie, half amused and half vexed as she put aside
+her knitting and took Dodo on her lap. "I thought you and Paul promised
+to play with the bunnies all the afternoon and not bother sister. Can't
+you see she has company?"
+
+"Yes," smiled the little girl, reaching up to pat Mollie's cheek
+ingratiatingly. "Me an' Paul got tired playin' wiv bunnies an' came to
+see you. We want," she added succinctly, "tandies!"
+
+"Well, you won't get any, not this time," said Mollie definitely, trying
+not to smile, while the other girls were not even trying. It was always
+hard not to laugh at the twins, naughty as they often were.
+
+"Why?" demanded Dodo severely.
+
+"Never mind why," returned Mollie, putting the little girl down and
+taking up her knitting again. "Now run off, both of you, we want to
+talk."
+
+"But we want tandies," repeated Dodo, looking surprised that Mollie had
+not understood the first time. "Dive Paul an' me tandies--lots of
+tandies--an' we'll go 'long. Shan't we, Paul? Ooh--" the question ended
+in an anguished wail as Dora's eyes rested on her faithless twin.
+
+The latter had extracted Grace's half-filled candy box from under a
+cushion where she had hastily hidden it at the first threat of invasion
+by the insatiable twins and was at the moment busily engaged in
+devouring its contents. Grace had been too busy watching Dodo to notice
+him.
+
+"Ooh, you bad boy! You bad boy!" wailed the little girl, making a dash
+for Paul, who deftly evaded her and took refuge behind Betty's chair,
+"Div me dos tandies--dive 'em to me."
+
+"Can't," mumbled Paul, his mouth full, adding by way of explanation a
+convincing: "All gone."
+
+"Paul Billette, come here this minute," commanded Mollie sternly, while
+Betty and Amy tried hard to check their rising mirth and Grace looked
+bereft. "Come here I say."
+
+"Make Dodo go 'way then," bargained Paul, adding in an explanatory tone:
+"Last time she pulled my hair."
+
+"An' me's goin' do it 'dain," declared Dodo vengefully, when Betty
+reached over suddenly and pulled the little girl into her lap.
+
+"Stay here a minute, Honey," she coaxed, and as Dodo tried vainly to
+wriggle loose added: "Sister wants to speak to Paul."
+
+"An' I," said Dodo soberly, "want to pull his hair."
+
+Again the girls had to strangle their mirth while Mollie reiterated her
+command to Paul. The latter, after regarding the wriggling Dodo for a
+minute uncertainly, reluctantly left his refuge and stood before Mollie,
+head hanging.
+
+"I'se sorry," he said in a small voice, trying to forestall the
+scolding he knew was coming. "Me never do it any more!"
+
+"That," said Mollie sternly, though the corners of her mouth twitched
+and there was a twinkle in her eye, "is just exactly what you say every
+time you're a bad naughty boy. Now, just to make you remember how
+naughty you were, you shan't have another piece of candy for a whole
+week."
+
+Paul's protest was drowned in a wail from Dora.
+
+"But me wants some tandies," she cried. "Me didn't take any."
+
+"She would, if Paul hadn't seem them first," murmured Grace, but Mollie
+shot her a warning glance.
+
+"No," she said, "and just for being such a good girl, sister's going to
+give you six big chocolates all for yourself."
+
+Dodo gave a shout of glee and disengaging herself with one last frantic
+wriggle from Betty's embrace, precipitated herself upon Mollie like a
+young cyclone.
+
+"Ooh dive 'em to me, dive 'em to me quick," she demanded, then as Mollie
+made good her promise the little girl turned upon the erring Paul a look
+of conscious virtue and said gravely; "If you were a dood boy I would
+div you one, but now me's goin' eat 'em up, every one till dey's all
+gone."
+
+Then she took to her heels, scurrying down the steps and around the
+corner of the house with Paul in hot pursuit.
+
+"Dodo," they heard him crying plaintively, "I'll let you play wiv my
+best bunny if you will div me one candy, just one--"
+
+"I wouldn't give much for his chances," chuckled Mollie, adding with a
+sigh that was a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "Aren't they
+perfectly terrible? There isn't a minute of the day when they're not in
+some mischief."
+
+"No, they're adorable," cried Betty fondly. "I wouldn't give two cents
+for children that didn't get into mischief all the time."
+
+"I don't care so much about the mischief," said Grace, eyeing her empty
+chocolate box ruefully, "if they would only leave my candies alone."
+
+"Never mind, Gracie," replied Mollie, laughing at her, "you shall have a
+whole box of mine, so you shall."
+
+"Fine," agreed Grace, adding with a chuckle as Mollie handed over the
+almost full box: "Since my candies were more than half gone, I don't
+call it such a bad bargain at that."
+
+"I'll say it wasn't," dimpled Betty.
+
+"Just the same," said Mollie, after a little pause, "even though the
+twins are a great deal of trouble, Mother said she just wouldn't have
+known what to do without them--especially after I went to Camp
+Liberty--the house would have been so frightfully dull."
+
+"I should think so," said Grace, adding suddenly, as though she had
+thought of it for the first time: "Why she would have been all alone,
+wouldn't she? How awful!" For Mollie had no father, he having died
+several years before.
+
+"And the other day she said the strangest thing," Mollie continued,
+suddenly earnest. "You know how she adores Paul. Well, I caught her
+looking at him with the most wistful expression, and when I asked her
+what the matter was she looked up at me and I saw there were tears in
+her eyes.
+
+"'It's Paul,' she said softly. 'Of course I'm thankful he is so little
+that I can keep him safe at home with me, but sometimes when I think of
+my dear country and the terrible wrongs she has suffered, I almost wish
+that my little son were old enough to bring retribution upon those
+hideous Germans. Sometimes I feel cheated--yes, you needn't stare--that
+I have not a son "over there".'"
+
+"Oh, Mollie!" cried the Little Captain softly, "what a wonderful thing
+to say. And yet I think she would die if anything happened to either of
+the twins."
+
+"That's just it," said Mollie, her eyes glowing with pride. "Loving them
+as she does, she almost wishes it were possible to make the supreme
+sacrifice for her country."
+
+"It was that spirit," said Grace thoughtfully, "that won the battle of
+the Marne."
+
+For a long time after that the girls worked quietly, each busy with her
+own thoughts. It was Amy who finally broke the silence.
+
+"And here we are," she said plaintively, "letting another whole
+afternoon slip by without deciding what we are going to do on our
+vacation. Can't somebody suggest something?"
+
+"I have already suggested half a dozen things, only to be laughed to
+scorn," said Mollie, adding decidedly: "I'm through."
+
+"And nothing I can say seems to meet with approval," added Betty
+plaintively.
+
+"Well," said Grace, stretching herself, sitting up in the swing, and
+looking important, "nobody asks me whether I have anything to suggest,"
+adding as they turned a battery of surprised and eager glances her way:
+"I don't know whether I can be persuaded to tell you now or not."
+
+"Tell us!" they cried, piling into the swing till the supporting ropes
+creaked with the strain.
+
+"Can't we bribe you with candy?" pleaded Amy.
+
+"No. I just made an advantageous trade in that article, you will
+remember," was the answer.
+
+"Anyway, we don't bribe, we command," put in Betty. "Grace, we refuse to
+be trifled with. What have you to suggest? Out with it!"
+
+"You'd better hurry," added Mollie, raising her knitting needle
+threateningly, "before I spit thee like a pig!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GRACE SURPRISES HER CHUMS
+
+
+"I'm not a pig," cried Grace, striving to look dignified, which is a
+rather difficult procedure when one is being hugged by three pairs of
+arms at once. "I don't care how many times you spit me, whatever that
+is, Mollie, but you shan't call me a pig."
+
+"Of course she shan't," said Betty soothingly. "If she does it again,
+we'll try our hand at this spitting business--"
+
+"Goodness, sounds like a cat fight," chuckled Grace, but Mollie
+unceremoniously shook her into attention.
+
+"Grace, behave and tell us," she ordered.
+
+"What?" asked Grace aggravatingly, but added hastily as Mollie again
+raised the knitting needle at a threatening angle: "All right, if you'll
+just give me space enough to breathe I'll do any little thing you ask."
+
+With that the three jumped from the swing so suddenly that Grace, the
+only occupant left, bounced into the air and landed with a thump on the
+cushions.
+
+They laughed and drew up three chairs in a semi-circle in front of her
+to make escape impossible. Then three pairs of merry eyes focused
+commandingly upon her.
+
+"I didn't know it myself till last night," she said in response to the
+tacit order. "Then it was patriotic Aunt Mary who proposed it."
+
+"Proposed what?" they cried.
+
+"Well, that's what I'm going to tell you if you give me half a chance.
+She said she felt as if she owed something to us girls for having stood
+so loyally behind Uncle Sam, and had decided to offer us her cottage at
+Bluff Point to use as long as we wanted it."
+
+"Bluff Point!" cried Betty, while her eyes began to sparkle. "Why Grace!
+isn't that the place you were telling us about--"
+
+"Where the quaint little house stands on a bluff--" added Amy eagerly.
+
+"Overlooking a sparkling white beach that leads down to the ocean?" went
+on Betty.
+
+"The very same," nodded Grace, and they heaved a sigh of pure excitement
+and happiness.
+
+"Isn't it wonderful," cried Mollie joyfully, "how somebody is always
+doing something to make us happy?"
+
+"Yes, but when I said that to Aunt Mary last night she smiled and looked
+wise--you know how sweet she is--and said that that was the way
+happiness always came to us--by helping others to be happy."
+
+"But we haven't done anything to make anybody happy--particularly that
+is," said Mollie wondering.
+
+"I said that too," nodded Grace. "But she only went on smiling, and I
+realized she must have meant our work at the Hostess House."
+
+"It's strange how everybody persists in calling it work and giving us so
+much credit when it was all such fun," said Betty. "But girls," she
+added, laughing breathlessly, "the great fact is that we are going to
+have another adventure in the open. The very thought of it makes me want
+to roll in the buttercups."
+
+"Goodness, there's one open in the back meadow," suggested Mollie. "You
+can roll in it, if you want to."
+
+"Well, I don't--I want a whole patch of them!" cried Betty, while the
+rest laughed at Mollie's picture. "My, I feel younger already."
+
+"Well of course you need to," drawled Grace, adding with a fond glance
+at the glowing Little Captain: "You look so terribly like a dried-up
+ancient, dear."
+
+"But when shall we start?" cried Mollie, coming back to the
+all-absorbing topic at hand. "Goodness, I'd like to throw a few clothes
+in a suitcase and start right away--quick--this minute--I can't wait!"
+
+"Do you think it's catching?" asked Grace, anxiously.
+
+"From the way I feel I should say it was already caught," twinkled
+Betty, adding eagerly: "How long do you suppose we will have to wait,
+Grace? Did your Aunt Mary say when we could have the cottage?"
+
+"As soon as we want it," replied Grace, looking surprised. "Didn't I
+tell you?"
+
+"No you didn't," mimicked Mollie, adding as she sprang to her feet
+impatiently: "I'd like to know what we're waiting for anyway! Why don't
+we get started?"
+
+"Now I know she's crazy," cried Betty, seizing her chum and pulling her
+down upon the arm of her chair. "Why we haven't decided anything yet."
+
+"What is there to decide?" cried Mollie, trying to be patient and
+looking like a martyr.
+
+"Why we don't even know how we're going to get there yet," explained
+Betty soothingly.
+
+"In the automobile, of course," cried Mollie, jumping up again.
+
+"Oh, can we?" cried Grace, forgetting to be languid and bouncing eagerly
+in the swing. "Mollie, that would be wonderful."
+
+"Why of course we'll go in the car!" it was Mollie's turn to look
+surprised. "What did you think we were going to do--walk?"
+
+"There are railroads, you know," Grace reminded her, relapsing into
+irony. "And as to walking--well, we did that too before you got your
+car, Mollie."
+
+"Yes, and got sore feet," added Mollie.
+
+"Well, now that we've decided not to go on the railroad or walk," Amy
+broke in unexpectedly, "I really don't see what we are waiting for."
+
+"My goodness, there's another lunatic," cried Grace, looking
+despairingly at the Little Captain, whose eyes twinkled merrily. "What
+do you expect us to do--go just as we are?"
+
+"No, but we can throw some things into a suitcase--"
+
+"How long do you suppose it will take us to get there?" asked the Little
+Captain, coming to Grace's rescue.
+
+"Why, even in Mollie's car it will take two days," said Grace, turning
+to Betty with the relief of one who at last had a sane person to reckon
+with. "Mollie and Amy evidently expect to make it in a couple of
+hours."
+
+"Oh well, I didn't know it was so far away," murmured Mollie, somewhat
+taken aback. "Of course, then, we can't go until to-morrow."
+
+The girls laughed merrily, and Betty hugged her.
+
+"We might," chuckled the latter, "even be forced to wait till day after
+to-morrow."
+
+"I won't do it!" cried Mollie, jumping up again. "There's no reason in
+the world why we can't start to-morrow."
+
+"But, Mollie dear," insisted Betty mildly, "we haven't even asked our
+folks whether we may go or not--"
+
+"As if we didn't know what they will say," broke in Mollie, but Betty
+went on without heeding her.
+
+"And we must have a chaperone, you know."
+
+"Oh, I suppose so," sighed Mollie sinking down in her chair resignedly,
+"but it's horribly tiresome. I want to go now."
+
+"You sound like Dodo with her candies," remarked Grace, amiably helping
+herself to a luscious milk chocolate filled with nuts. "Have one,
+Mollie--it may make you feel better."
+
+"It won't, but I will," said Mollie rather enigmatically, reaching out a
+hand for the proffered sweet. "Thank you, dear."
+
+"But whom shall we have for a chaperone?" cried Amy impatiently. "I'm
+almost as bad as Mollie--I can hardly wait till to-morrow."
+
+"Why," said Grace, nibbling daintily, "I thought maybe you girls
+wouldn't mind if I asked mother to go with us."
+
+"Mind!" echoed Betty, while the others looked at her in surprise. "Why
+of course we'd love to have her! You know that. But I never imagined she
+would care to go, she is so interested in Red Cross work and her
+clubs--"
+
+"That's just it," said Grace, sitting up quickly. "She's entirely worn
+out with work and worry about Will, and I thought a little vacation with
+us girls would help her out wonderfully. I'm not sure she will go--I
+haven't asked her yet."
+
+"Well, let's," cried Betty impulsively, jumping to her feet. "She simply
+can't refuse if we all ask her at once."
+
+"Now you're saying something!" cried Mollie fervently, albeit slangily,
+as she flung her arm about the Little Captain and dragged her down the
+steps. "Action is what we need--action, and plenty of it."
+
+The girls fairly ran the short distance from Mollie's home to Grace's,
+and the people they met on the way, greeted them heartily, musing as he
+or she turned to go on: "There's probably something interesting in the
+air--the Outdoor Girls always look like that when they have some new
+adventure in tow." For Deepdale was very proud and fond of its Outdoor
+Girls.
+
+Mrs. Ford was just coming down the stairs dressed to go out when the
+quartette burst in upon her. She did look very tired and worn, as Grace
+had said, but the smile that lighted her face at sight of the girls made
+her appear ten years younger.
+
+"Mother," said Grace, taking one of her mother's carefully gloved hands
+in her own and leading her gently but firmly into the library, "we have
+something very important to say to you."
+
+"Will it take long?" queried Mrs. Ford, smiling at the other girls over
+her shoulder. "Because, if it will, I'm very much afraid I can't wait.
+I'm a little late now."
+
+"That," said Grace decidedly, as her mother sank into a chair and the
+other girls grouped themselves about her, "is exactly what we have come
+to talk about. We think you need a little vacation."
+
+"Vacation!" cried the lady, half rising from her chair. "Why, my dear!
+how can I take a vacation when my hands are so full of work now that I
+am--"
+
+"You don't have to take it," Grace interrupted argumentatively, "we'll
+just give it to you."
+
+Mrs. Ford laughed helplessly and regarded the eager young faces with
+amusement.
+
+"Out with it, girls," she commanded. "I know you are plotting some
+terrible thing. What do you intend to do, kidnap me?"
+
+"No, we're keeping that for a last resort," returned Betty, and Mrs.
+Ford laughed outright at the confession.
+
+"We want," explained Grace, speaking fast for fear of being interrupted,
+"to have you go with us to Bluff Point. We need a chaperone, you know."
+
+"I've no doubt of it," retorted her mother, laughing, adding, with
+another anxious glance at the clock: "But I'm afraid you will have to
+get someone else, Honey. If I were free, I should like nothing better,
+but you see how rushed I am--"
+
+"But you're terribly tired, Mother, you know you are," said Grace with
+unusual gentleness, adding diplomatically: "What good will you be to the
+Red Cross or to anyone else, I'd like to know, if you let yourself get
+sick?"
+
+"But I'm not sick," protested her mother, then added with a sudden
+longing as the wild solitude of Bluff Point rose before her eyes
+suggesting utter peace and quiet, a chance to rest tired nerves and
+gather strength for the last great drive:
+
+"You're right, I am tired, terribly tired," and the lines of weariness
+returning to her face. "I'd love it, girls, but there's my work!"
+
+It took the girls about five minutes of the hardest work they had ever
+done in their lives. But they did what they had set out to do. At the
+end of that time Mrs. Ford consented to start with them whenever they
+were ready.
+
+"Day after to-morrow?" asked Mollie, her eyes shining.
+
+"I don't know why not," said Mrs. Ford, then sprang to her feet with a
+cry of dismay. "Girls, I completely forgot to telephone the Red Cross.
+What will they think of me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A PROBLEM SOLVED
+
+
+"I wish," said Mollie, sitting back to view approvingly the shining
+black hood of her car, "that we had another machine. I'm afraid by the
+time we've packed our bags and things into the tonneau we'll find it
+rather crowded. And for such a long trip we ought to have plenty of
+room."
+
+"That's what I was thinking," agreed Amy, rubbing a bit of nickel to a
+gleaming polish, for the girls had gathered at Mollie's to help her put
+the car in shape for the anticipated trip to Bluff Point. And they had
+gone to their work with a will, rubbing and polishing the big machine as
+they would have groomed a well-loved horse. "We will have our trunks
+sent, of course, but we shall have to take our nighties and combs and
+brushes and such things. We might put 'em on the roof," she added
+hopefully.
+
+"Yes, and we might wear 'em," said Grace scornfully. "That is a
+brilliant idea."
+
+"Well, I have one worth two of that," said Betty, trying not to look
+mysterious.
+
+"Betty, are you going to spring anything on us?" cried Mollie, while the
+other two paused with dust cloths uplifted.
+
+"Not if you don't want me to," returned the Little Captain demurely.
+
+"Betty, dear, I love you so," crooned Mollie, running around the car and
+putting a rather oily hand about Betty's waist. "You wouldn't want such
+an ardent admirer to drop dead at your feet, would you, now?"
+
+"It would have the charm of novelty," chuckled Betty, only to add
+quickly as Mollie made a threatening gesture: "No, please don't kill me
+yet. Come over here on the steps and I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"Yes, yes, go on," they cried, obediently ranging themselves on the
+steps of the back porch and fixing eager eyes upon her.
+
+"Shoot!" Mollie commanded inelegantly.
+
+"Well," said Betty speaking slowly to add to the effect of her
+announcement, "I have a car!"
+
+"A car!" they echoed, and Grace added: "Now I know she's crazy!"
+
+"When?" demanded Mollie, her eyes round and black, as they always were
+under excitement.
+
+"If you mean, when did I get it," answered Betty, enjoying their
+surprise to the full, "I might tell you that up to six o'clock last
+evening I had no more idea of owning a car than you did. However, at
+six-fifteen, I owned it," and her eyes danced with the pride of
+ownership.
+
+Then the girls fell upon her, all demanding explanation of the miracle,
+till she raised her hand pleadingly.
+
+"Give me a chance," she begged. "How can I tell you anything when you're
+making such a noise?"
+
+The girls seemed impressed with the common sense of this. At any rate,
+they stopped talking for the space of a half a minute.
+
+"It was last night at dinner," explained Betty hurriedly, seizing her
+opportunity. "Dad came in a little late, and as he sat down he
+laughingly asked us how we would like a racing car in the family."
+
+"A racing car!" they echoed.
+
+"Of course we thought he was joking," continued Betty, "but when we
+found he was very much in earnest of course we went wild with
+excitement."
+
+"I should think so," breathed Amy.
+
+"But, Betty darling, how--" Mollie was beginning when Betty cut her
+short by hurrying on with her story.
+
+"That's what we wanted to know, of course," she said. "It seems that one
+of Dad's clients owed him a good deal of money, and although he, the
+client, that is, had plenty of money, it was all tied up in such a way
+that he couldn't get hold of it right away, so he offered to give Dad
+his almost new racing car in exchange. And," here Betty came to the most
+wonderful part of her story, "since mother doesn't care for that type of
+car--he gave it to me!"
+
+"Betty, how mar-ve-lous!" breathed Mollie, while Amy and Grace just
+stared.
+
+"Can we see it? Have you got it at home?" asked Amy, after a few minutes
+during which the girls had been getting used to the wonderful idea of
+Betty with a machine, and a racing machine at that.
+
+"Oh, Betty, lead us to it," added Mollie yearningly.
+
+"I don't know whether it's come yet or not," explained the Little
+Captain, as the girls threw aside dust rags and gingham aprons
+preparatory to a concerted rush upon the new acquisition. "That's why I
+didn't tell you about it sooner. I was going to surprise you by taking
+you to it," she added, as they set off at a walk that was almost a run
+for the pretty Nelson house; "but when Mollie spoke about another car I
+just couldn't hold back any longer. Oh dear, I hope it has come!"
+
+"Won't it be fun?" cried Mollie joyfully, executing a little
+irrepressible skip in her delight. "You can run it, Betty, of course,
+and take Grace or Amy with you while our car comes behind--"
+
+"With the luggage," finished Betty wickedly.
+
+"Well you needn't be so conceited," retorted Mollie, her nose in the
+air, while Betty looked innocent.
+
+"Wasn't that what you were going to say?" she inquired.
+
+However, there was no time for more conversation, for at that moment
+they turned a corner, bringing Betty's house to sight, and what should
+be going up the drive at that particular and ecstatic moment but the
+graceful, low-bodied racer itself!
+
+With a shout the girls rushed forward. They overtook the driver as he
+slowed to a stop, and fairly danced with impatience while the man pushed
+up his goggles, took off his hat, wiped his perspiring forehead, and
+slowly turned to smile at them.
+
+"This is where Mr. Nelson lives, isn't it?" he asked. "Mr. Todd asked me
+to bring the car around--"
+
+"Yes, yes, we know all about it," interrupted Betty, then added with a
+smile, as the man looked surprised: "I suppose you think I'm terribly
+impatient, but, you see, the car is mine, and I can't wait to try it
+out."
+
+The man whistled and descended with alacrity. The girls noticed rather
+absentmindedly that he was a rather good looking young fellow, probably
+one of the young men from Mr. Todd's office who had volunteered to run
+this errand for him.
+
+"Well, I don't blame you a bit for being in a hurry," he said heartily,
+eyeing the beautiful lines of the car with approval. "She sure is a
+great little machine! You are Miss Nelson, I suppose?" he added, turning
+to Betty. "You see," with evident embarrassment, "I promised to deliver
+the car in person to Mr. Nelson--"
+
+"Here he is, so there ought to be no difficulty about that," said a
+jovial voice, and they turned to find Mr. Nelson himself coming toward
+them. "Good afternoon, Mr. Jameson. How do you like my new acquisition?
+A beauty is it not?"
+
+"I say so!" agreed the young fellow, and after a few moments of general
+conversation, Mr. Nelson led him off toward the house, leaving the girls
+to themselves. And that, as Mollie afterward remarked, "was just the
+most beautiful thing he could have done!"
+
+Before they had turned the corner of the house, Betty had clambered in
+behind the steering wheel and was bidding the girls follow.
+
+In their excitement they all tried to climb in, forgetting that a car
+designed to seat two people cannot by any stretch of imagination
+accommodate four. Then suddenly realizing what an absurd picture they
+must be making, they began to laugh.
+
+"Well, now what are we going to do?" wailed Mollie. "We can't all go at
+once."
+
+"Of course you can," cried Betty busily examining her treasure, touching
+a lever here, a button there, with loving fingers. "What, may I ask, is
+the matter with the running boards?"
+
+"Betty, you don't mean--"
+
+"Yes, I do," firmly.
+
+"But we can't--"
+
+"Well, then I'll have to take one at a time," decided Betty, tooting the
+horn experimentally. "Come on--who goes first?"
+
+"Oh, come on, we'll all go," cried Mollie dancing with impatience. "You
+get in beside Betty, Grace, since you're afraid of the running board,
+and Amy and I'll hang on somewhere. Come on, Amy. Be a sport, old girl."
+
+Amy wavered for a moment, but the challenge was too much for her, and
+she nodded her head in assent.
+
+"Thank goodness I can only die once," was her cheerful comment.
+
+So Grace climbed in beside the Little Captain, while Amy and Mollie
+scrambled up on the running boards and clung to the sides of the car.
+Then Betty tooted the horn triumphantly and began slowly to back down
+the drive.
+
+"I don't know about this," she remarked, as the car made rather
+zigzagging work of it. "I've driven mostly on a straight road, you know,
+and I'm not very expert, even if I do know all about a motor boat."
+
+"So we see," commented Mollie wickedly, as Betty nearly backed into a
+flower bed at one side of the drive.
+
+"Don't you think we'd better get off?" asked Amy. "Till you turn into
+the road, anyway, Betty?" she added.
+
+"Don't you dare," cried Betty, giving the wheel a nervous little twist
+that caused Amy to groan and clutch the side of the car tighter. "If you
+make me stop now, I'll never get started again. There!" as the car slid
+into the roadway, hesitated a moment, then without a jar or a jerk,
+glided swiftly along the smooth road, gathering headway as it went. "Now
+we're all right."
+
+"That was pretty work, Betty," complimented Mollie, who, as an old and
+experienced driver, felt capable of pronouncing judgment. "Now let's see
+what this little car will do."
+
+"Not too fast," begged Amy, as Betty slid into high gear. "Remember
+we're not used to this kind of traveling, and we're apt to find
+ourselves sitting in the road if you're not careful."
+
+"Have you chosen your spot?" asked Betty, her eyes twinkling.
+
+"Just the same, it might have been a good idea to have brought some
+cushions along," said Mollie ruefully. "We might have strapped them on
+and used them the way you do life savers--in case of emergency."
+
+"My, you must be having a wonderful time," drawled Grace. "Have some
+candy Mollie--it may help your courage."
+
+"My courage doesn't need any help, thank you," snapped Mollie, adding
+wickedly: "Just for that we ought to make you ride out here."
+
+"Goodness, don't!" cried Betty, as she swung the car around a corner and
+started once more toward home. "The punishment wouldn't fit the crime,
+Mollie. Besides, we'll be back in a few minutes. Girls, she runs like a
+dream!"
+
+"She's a wonder," agreed Mollie. "I guess there's just about no limit to
+the speed she's capable of."
+
+"Do you want me to let her out?" queried Betty wickedly, but both Amy
+and Mollie protested vehemently.
+
+"Some other time," said Mollie, "when we're not hanging on by our
+eyelids!"
+
+A few minutes more, and they were again turning into the Nelson drive,
+which, by the way, Betty took much more expertly this time. As the car
+slowed, Amy and Mollie dropped off and Amy opened the door for Lady
+Grace, who descended slowly.
+
+"Well, how do you like it?" cried Betty, jumping out in her turn and
+regarding her new possession with shining eyes. "Do you think she'll
+do?"
+
+"Do!" they cried, and Mollie added, patting the smooth side of the car
+with admiring fingers:
+
+"She's a wonder, Betty--as Roy would say, 'a perfect pippin.' Good-bye,"
+she added suddenly, starting down the drive.
+
+"Where are you going?" cried Betty, as they looked after her surprised.
+
+"Home," she answered, adding with a chuckle: "I've got to finish
+cleaning my old car. It's poor old nose must be terribly out of joint."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LIFE AND DEATH
+
+
+The next morning Betty awoke to the sound of the telephone ringing
+imperatively in the hall. She got up, dragged the instrument from its
+stand and spoke drowsily into the receiver.
+
+"Hello--who--why, Grace, how did you happen to wake up?--Why, Grace,
+what is the matter, dear?--You have heard what?--Will is wounded?--Oh,
+Honey, how awful! Is it serious?--Never mind, don't try to tell me about
+it now. I'll get dressed just as fast as I can and come right over--Yes,
+yes, in about five minutes."
+
+Mechanically Betty replaced the receiver on the hook and hurried back
+into her room. Then swiftly she began to dress.
+
+Will! Dear old Will was wounded! That had been about all she had been
+able to gather from Grace's sobbing message--but that was enough. He was
+the first of the boys to fall out there in the trenches, and who knew
+but what Allen might be the next!
+
+And here only yesterday they had been so happy, as happy as they could
+be with that shadow always hanging over them. This was the day, too--the
+incongruous thought struck Betty as she hastily pulled on her
+clothing--the day they had set for their trip to Bluff Point. Well, of
+course, it was all off now. Who wanted to go anyway?
+
+These thoughts and many more raced through Betty's head as she put the
+finishing touches to her toilet and crushed a garden hat on her pretty
+soft hair. She was a very attractive picture as she ran down the stairs,
+but she neither knew it nor cared.
+
+"Why, Betty dear, what is the meaning of the hat?" her mother inquired,
+smiling as her young daughter burst into the dining room. "You don't
+need it to eat breakfast in, you know. Who called on the 'phone?"
+
+"I'm not going to eat breakfast, at least not right away. But there, of
+course, you don't know," answering her mother's look of surprise. "Grace
+called up and, oh, Mother, poor Will has been wounded! I don't want to
+c-cry," her chin quivered and she turned away for a moment to get
+control of the lump in her throat.
+
+"I know, dear," said her mother, putting an understanding arm about her,
+"and so I'm not going to offer very much sympathy--just now. Were you
+going over to see Grace, poor child?"
+
+Betty squeezed her mother's hand gratefully and nodded.
+
+"I'll be back in a little while," she said finally, getting the better
+of that annoying lump. "I just want to find out all about it and give
+Grace my sympathy."
+
+And the Little Captain found poor Grace in need of all the sympathy she
+could possibly give her. She was sitting in the darkest corner of the
+library, all crumpled up in a big chair, her eyes red with weeping and a
+damp ball of handkerchief clutched tightly in one hand.
+
+At sight of Betty running toward her, she began to sob again, the tears
+running down her face unnoticed.
+
+"Betty, Betty, I knew you'd come," she cried, as Betty knelt beside her
+and put two loving arms about her. "I'm so m-miserable I just don't want
+to live at all."
+
+"But, Honey, it isn't nearly as bad as it might be," said Betty, trying
+to sooth while wanting desperately to know herself just how bad it was.
+"You said he was only wounded, didn't you?"
+
+"That's what the telegram said," Grace answered, wiping her eyes
+drearily. "But how do we know but what he may be dead by this time?"
+
+"We don't know, of course," returned Betty, recovering a little of her
+optimism while she unostentatiously handed Grace a fresh handkerchief,
+"but the chances are against it."
+
+"But perhaps they said he was just wounded to l-let us down easy," cried
+Grace, evidently convinced that there was no bright side to look upon.
+
+"The Government doesn't do that; it hasn't time," argued Betty. "It
+always lets you know the worst at once."
+
+A gleam of hope came into Grace's eyes.
+
+"Then you think there's a chance?" she queried, sitting up straight and
+beginning to look a little more interested in life. "Do you think he may
+get well?"
+
+"Why, of course," said Betty, adding reasonably: "If you would tell me
+just what the telegram said, I'd have more to go on."
+
+"That's all it said--what I told you," replied Grace, relaxing wearily.
+"Just said that he was wounded--nothing more. Dad is writing to
+Washington to try to get more news. Of course, he has a great deal of
+influence, being a lawyer with a good many friends in Washington, and he
+may be able to find out something. I don't know."
+
+"Here come Mollie and Amy," said Betty, glancing through the window. "I
+guess," she added thoughtfully, "Amy probably feels pretty bad too."
+
+"But she's not his sister," cried Grace, with a sudden flare-up of
+jealousy that made Betty smile in spite of her heartache. She could not
+help wondering how Grace would have taken it if it had been Roy instead
+of Will who had been wounded.
+
+But Grace's little fit of jealousy did not last long at sight of Amy's
+drawn, white face and the traces of tears in her eyes. Instead, she
+opened her arms to this other girl who was not Will's sister, yet loved
+him too, and for a moment they cried on each others shoulders.
+
+Meanwhile Betty and Mollie wandered over to the window and stood looking
+thoughtfully out upon the lawn and not seeing any of it.
+
+"Goodness!" said Mollie after a moment, shrugging her shoulders a little
+impatiently, "of course, it's terrible to have Will wounded, and I can
+imagine Grace being all cut up about it, but she--and Amy too--act as if
+he were dead."
+
+"I know," said Betty softly, then added, looking a little quizzically at
+Mollie; "But you know I don't blame them so much when I try putting
+myself in their place. Of course we love Will, but suppose it had been
+Allen, for instance, or Frank."
+
+Mollie started and uttered a little cry of protest.
+
+"Oh, but that would be different," she said weakly, then catching
+Betty's eye, added soberly: "I see what you mean, of course. I suppose
+I would act just the same, under different circumstances."
+
+However, having had their cry out and feeling better and much more
+cheerful in consequence, Grace and Amy called to them and they crossed
+the room quickly.
+
+"We've decided," said Amy then, "that, since we can't find out any more
+until Mr. Ford hears from Washington, we might as well make the best of
+it."
+
+"And we want to talk about our trip," Grace added.
+
+"Our trip?" echoed Mollie. "Why I thought of course we would give that
+up."
+
+"I did too," explained Grace. "But when I spoke of it to Dad, he said we
+were to do nothing of the kind. He said we couldn't do poor Will"--in
+spite of all her resolution her voice broke on the name--"any good by
+staying at home and moping, and that he would let us know as soon as he
+had any authentic word from Washington. And he insists on mother's going
+too."
+
+And so it happened that a few hours later a very sober group of Outdoor
+Girls started on what should have been a joyful trip, with heavy hearts
+and gloomy foreboding. Even the new racer did not serve to liven the
+party.
+
+The only time they laughed was when they found Dodo and Paul, the
+incorrigible twins, hidden away under some raincoats in Mollie's car.
+
+"Oh, but we want to go 'long," Dodo protested vehemently when
+discovered.
+
+"We just got to go 'long," Paul had added.
+
+"No, you mustn't 'got to,'" Mollie contradicted them, while the others
+looked on amused. "Come, Dodo, honey, be a good girl for sister and come
+down. You too, Paul. We're in an awful hurry."
+
+"But we not goin' to come down," Dodo insisted.
+
+"'Less," Paul added diplomatically, "we get tandies."
+
+"Lots of tandies," Dodo supplemented.
+
+"Here, take these," Grace offered, holding out a box of sweets which,
+despite all her trouble, she had not forgotten.
+
+"Don't give them the box--just take out a few," Mollie suggested, but
+Grace insisted, while her face clouded again.
+
+"I don't want them, anyway. I don't know why I took them. Habit, I
+suppose."
+
+However, hope and optimism did not consent to be kept long in the
+background on such a day as this when the sun shone its brightest and
+the birds sang their hardest and the very wind seemed to be whispering
+of happier times to come.
+
+"Well," sighed Amy at last, for she and Mrs. Ford were riding in
+Mollie's car, while Grace was with Betty in the racer, "it's plain to be
+seen that nature at least doesn't know that anything horrible or cruel
+is happening 'over there.' I don't think I ever saw a more wonderful
+day."
+
+"Maybe it is a good omen," said Mollie, quick to seize her opportunity.
+"I feel it in my bones that it won't be long before we will hear good
+news of Will--and you know my prophetic bones never lie."
+
+"I don't know anything of the sort," protested Amy, although the remark
+brought a reluctant smile to her lips. "I've known those same prophetic
+bones to slip up before this."
+
+"Which reminds me," Mollie cried, apropos of nothing in particular,
+"that if we don't put on more speed we'll not reach our destination
+before dark. I wonder why Betty doesn't hurry," for Betty and Grace in
+the speedy little racer were taking the lead.
+
+She signaled the latter with three long and three short toots of the
+horn. A moment later the racer slowed down and Betty turned around to
+see what was wanted.
+
+"You're too slow," cried Mollie. "If you don't go a little faster, we'll
+have to run over you."
+
+"Oh-ho, look who's talking!" gibed the Little Captain, adding wickedly:
+"We were afraid to speed up for fear of leaving you too far behind."
+
+"Now I know we'll have to run over you," cried Mollie fiercely. "Toot,
+toot--out of my way!"
+
+But Betty evidently had no intention of getting out of anybody's way,
+for with a challenging blast of her horn she put the little car at high
+and it sprang forward gleefully.
+
+Behind her, Mollie's car, like a big cat after a mouse, gave exultant
+chase, fairly eating up the road. And yet Betty maintained the distance
+between them--even drew away a little.
+
+"Goodness," cried Mollie suddenly, her eyes sparkling, "I may be
+mistaken, but I think she wants a race!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE RACE
+
+
+Then began some fun that was novel and exciting even to the Outdoor
+Girls, who thought they had tried just about every sport there was.
+
+Mollie bent her straight little back over the steering wheel, gave her
+more power and the big car fairly flew ahead, lessening perceptibly the
+distance between it and the racer.
+
+However, Betty, looking behind, seemed not in the least concerned. On
+the contrary, she waved her hand joyously as she recognized Mollie had
+taken her challenge. Then she too bent over the wheel with her eyes
+glued to the flying ribbon of road ahead.
+
+"Betty, Betty, stop it!" cried Grace, holding frantically to her hat and
+the side of the car. "Suppose we should m-meet somebody--a wagon or a
+m-machine."
+
+"So much the worse for it," retorted Betty gayly. "You keep your eye on
+Mollie, Gracie dear, and tell me whether she's gaining--that's a good
+girl."
+
+"If you think I'm going to help you break our necks--" Grace sputtered,
+but Betty cut her short.
+
+"Well, if you don't I will have to look for myself," she said, adding
+maliciously: "And then we will have a smash-up!"
+
+Grace groaned and looked behind her.
+
+"They're gaining," she cried, and then all at once the spirit of the
+thing caught her--the contest of speed was getting into her blood. "Oh,
+Betty, don't let 'em," she almost screamed, above the noise of the motor
+and the rushing wind. "They're not more than fifty feet behind now!"
+
+Betty gave her a swift look, smiled to herself, and once more fixed her
+dancing eyes on the road ahead.
+
+"All right," she crowed. "Just watch me run away from them. I wouldn't
+have had the heart," she added with a chuckle, "if Mollie hadn't brought
+it all on herself."
+
+"But they're still gaining," insisted Grace nervously, trying to look
+behind, ahead, keep her seat, hat, and dignity all at the same time.
+"Look, Betty, they're only about thirty feet behind!"
+
+"That's near enough," Betty decided, and leaning over suddenly, did
+something to the car that Grace never quite understood. Anyway, it had
+the desired effect. The little racer fairly leapt forward and, like a
+horse that has been given his head for the first time, took the bit
+between its teeth and bolted.
+
+Behind them Mollie looked her amazement. She was getting every bit of
+speed out of her machine of which it was capable, and then, just as
+victory was within sight, Betty was doing an inconceivable, unbelievable
+thing--she was winning the race!
+
+Mrs. Ford and Amy had been enjoying the race tremendously, but now they
+leaned forward in surprise.
+
+"Goodness, she's beating us," cried Amy.
+
+"No!" snapped Mollie sarcastically. "Who would have supposed it?"
+
+"Perhaps it is because Betty's car is so much lighter," suggested Mrs.
+Ford consolingly. "We have all the luggage and wraps, too."
+
+"Oh, that wouldn't make so much difference," denied Mollie, who was too
+good a sportsman to make excuses for herself. "Betty's racer has the
+speed, that's all."
+
+"Well, they're just about out of sight now," said Amy, leaning back
+resignedly. "I only hope Betty doesn't run into anything and have a
+smash-up. She hasn't driven a car as much as you, Mollie."
+
+"Oh, Betty'll take care of herself," said Mollie, though she was
+slightly mollified by this tribute to her superior experience, if not
+superior speed. "I guess," she added, after a moment's reflection, "I'd
+better sell this old car and get a racer too."
+
+Mrs. Ford laughed softly, the first time she had laughed or thought of
+laughing since receiving the news of Will's being wounded.
+
+"Don't go back on an old friend for its first offence, Mollie," she
+chided, adding diplomatically: "A racing car is just fine for speed, but
+I think your automobile is much more sociable and comfy."
+
+"Well, I'm glad there's something nice about it," said Mollie, for she
+had not yet recovered from her surprise and chagrin. "I hope," she
+added, as a sudden thought struck her, "that Betty doesn't get too far
+ahead. I don't know this part of the country very well and Betty has the
+map."
+
+"That will be the next thing," said Amy, with a sigh, and Mollie looked
+at her sharply.
+
+"What?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, that we'll get lost," Amy explained. "Wasn't that what you meant?"
+
+"Oh, I hope not," said Mrs. Ford, a little anxiously. "Perhaps we'll be
+able to see them when we round this curve, Mollie."
+
+But they rounded several curves, and still no sign of Betty's car. Then
+happened what Mollie had secretly been fearing would happen. They came
+to a crossroads and a sudden stop at one and the same moment.
+
+"Now, what?" queried Amy, in the tone of resignation that never failed
+to rub Mollie the wrong way. "Something the matter with the engine?"
+
+"No, the engine's all right," snapped Mollie, adding, irritably: "But
+everything else is all wrong."
+
+"What, for instance?" queried Mrs. Ford soothingly. She knew that the
+first defeat Mollie had ever experienced would be bound to rankle and
+was prepared to make allowances. "If the engine is all right, why don't
+we go on?"
+
+"Which way?" queried Mollie, spreading out her arms with a hopeless
+gesture. "There are two roads, one looks as good as the other, and we
+haven't the slightest idea in the world which to take."
+
+"Oh!" gasped Amy.
+
+Mrs. Ford gave a low whistle as she saw the fix they were in.
+
+"Then if Betty doesn't realize our predicament and come back pretty
+soon, we'll either have to stay here indefinitely, or go back the way we
+came, is that it?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Mollie, adding truthfully and more than a little
+anxiously: "Only I'm not quite sure I know just how we came. As I said,
+this is unfamiliar country to me."
+
+Amy groaned.
+
+"Then we shall be lost for fair," she said. "Oh, why did Betty do such a
+foolish thing?"
+
+Mollie was about to retort when a cloud of dust in the distance and a
+faint chug-chug made her swallow her words.
+
+"What's that?" she cried. "It sounds like a motor. I wonder--"
+
+"Yes, it is!" cried Amy, straining her eyes to see through the cloud of
+dust. "It's only a little car, and it's coming at about ninety miles an
+hour."
+
+At this reference to Betty's speed, Mollie winced a little but gave a
+relieved sigh nevertheless. For by this time the car was near enough to
+be identified beyond doubt. It was a racer, and there was a girl at the
+wheel.
+
+A few moments later Betty herself, with a grin, hailed them.
+
+"Hello," she cried, adding as the car slowed to a standstill: "This time
+the joke's on us. We were so busy running away from you that we took the
+wrong road. This one ends about two miles up in somebody's farm."
+
+"It's lucky something stopped you," said Mollie dryly, adding as she
+cocked one eye at the sun: "Well, let's be getting along. We'll have to
+hurry and make up for lost time."
+
+"Do you still want to get ahead of us?" asked Betty, as a moment later
+she swung her car into the right road. "Because if you do--"
+
+"Go on," cried Mollie, exasperated, yet beginning to laugh, for after
+all Mollie was a good loser. "Some way or other I'll get even with you,
+Betty Nelson. Meanwhile hustle!"
+
+And Betty hustled, with Mollie keeping just far enough behind to avoid
+the cloud of dust the little car threw up. For an hour more the motors
+purred rhythmically, eating up mile after mile, until finally the girls
+were compelled by ravenous and healthy appetites to stop for lunch.
+
+They had brought two big hampers, packed full with sandwiches, fruit and
+cake and also something to drink, and after the long ride in the open
+the very thought of these delicacies brought, as Grace said, "the tears
+of longing to their eyes."
+
+As Mrs. Ford handed one of the baskets over the seat to Mollie in front,
+Betty and Grace tumbled out of their car and came running toward them.
+
+"Are you going to get out and eat, in romantic fashion, by the wayside?"
+queried Grace, eyeing a pile of sandwiches hungrily. "Or are you going
+to sit in state in the car and let us occupy the running board?"
+
+"We'll give you one of the hampers," offered Mrs. Ford, but Mollie
+gasped in dismay.
+
+"Oh, please don't," she begged. "Don't you see--there are only two of
+them to our three. And you want to give them half the lunch!"
+
+They laughed at her, and Betty offered a solution.
+
+"Far be it from us to rob you, Honey," she said soothingly. "We'll sit
+right here on this rock--"
+
+"Oh, goodness! who cares where we sit as long as we get something,"
+groaned Grace. "Mollie, I'm dying."
+
+"Well as long as you die out there it's all right," retorted Mollie
+unfeelingly. Nevertheless, she handed the sufferer a ham sandwich and a
+hard boiled egg, which the latter came as near to grabbing as her good
+breeding would permit.
+
+However, when they had finished the lunch, burned up what odds and ends
+remained, and had once more started on their way, they found that the
+shadow of unhappiness which the excitement of the race had almost
+banished, was returning again.
+
+In front with Betty, Grace sighed so dolefully that the Little Captain
+looked at her inquiringly, an action which almost brought about a
+collision with a tree by the wayside.
+
+"Betty, what are you doing?"
+
+"Trying to kill us," replied Betty serenely. "And if you give any more
+sighs like that, I'll do it."
+
+"I didn't know I sighed," said Grace gloomily. "But it wouldn't be any
+wonder if I did. I feel as if I were made up of them--sighs, I mean."
+
+Betty was silent a moment, then she asked suddenly:
+
+"When does your father expect to hear from Washington?"
+
+"Not before the end of the week, anyway. And by that time," Grace paused
+to control the trembling of her lips, "nobody knows what may have
+happened. For all we know Will may be--dead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RED RAGS
+
+
+"Well, we've been making pretty good speed for the last three hours,"
+said Mollie, taking first one hand, then the other, from the steering
+wheel and stretching her cramped fingers experimentally. "Now if nothing
+else happens--"
+
+The sound of an explosion cut short the rest of the sentence, and she
+put on the brakes, at the same time tooting a signal to Betty. The
+latter stopped her car and came running back to see what had happened.
+
+"Tire," said Mollie laconically, forestalling the inevitable questions.
+"I knew our luck had been too good to be true. Well," with the air of a
+martyr accepting the inevitable, "I suppose there's nothing to do but
+get busy and fix it, though, of course, this spoils our chances of
+getting to Bensington to-night," Bensington being the town midway
+between Deepdale and Bluff Point where they had planned to spend the
+night. It was also the only town for miles around that boasted a hotel.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Betty in reply to Mollie's gloomy prediction.
+"It won't be the first time we've accomplished the impossible."
+
+"But it will soon be dark."
+
+"Goodness! it won't be dark for hours and hours," Betty laughed at her.
+"And this oughtn't to take us more than half an hour at the longest.
+Come on now, let's get busy."
+
+Thus inspired, the girls "got busy," but they were tired with the long
+drive and everything seemed to go wrong. Their usually skillful fingers
+fumbled, the tire was "too big or too little or something," to quote
+Amy, and at the end of a quarter of an hour's useless struggle their
+tempers were worn to a frazzle and they were ready to cry.
+
+"Well, I never had anything act like that before," cried Mollie
+irritably. "I'd like to give the person that wrote about the 'depravity
+of inanimate things' a medal. The old tire's got a mean disposition,
+that's all."
+
+"Well, it isn't the only one," Grace was beginning, when Mollie turned
+and glared at her.
+
+"If you mean me--"
+
+"I meant all of us," Grace explained. "As long as we have been going
+together, this is the first time I can remember when all of us have been
+in the doleful dumps at once."
+
+This brought a reluctant smile even to Mollie's gloomy countenance, and
+Betty laughed merrily.
+
+"Perhaps it's just as well," said the Little Captain, adding with a
+chuckle: "It's the same way with onions--if everybody eats 'em, no one
+can notice the unpleasantness in the other fellow."
+
+This brought a real laugh, and Mollie said fondly:
+
+"I always knew you were a 'philosophiker,' Betty, dear. But," she added,
+vindictively kicking the tire that lay at her feet, "all the philosophy
+in the world won't put this tire on for us. And we can't very well get
+to Bensington on three wheels and a rim."
+
+"No!" cried Grace, sarcastically. "Who would have guessed it?"
+
+Mollie started to retort, but the threatened resumption of hostilities
+was cut short by the sound of a motor in the distance.
+
+"Hark!" cried Mollie, a dramatic hand raised to a listening ear. "Do I
+hear the approach of an angel?"
+
+"If you do, he has a pretty earthly means of transportation," laughed
+Betty. "To me, it sounds like a machine or a motorcycle."
+
+"How can you?" cried Mollie, still dramatically poised. "It is an angel,
+I tell you, come to help us out of our predicament."
+
+"It is a motorcycle," cried Amy excitedly. "The engine is making too
+much noise for an automobile."
+
+"Well," suggested Mrs. Ford quietly, "whoever it is, I think it might be
+a good idea to get out of the middle of the road."
+
+"But if we do," Grace protested, "he'll go right past us."
+
+"And if we don't we'll get run over," added Mrs. Ford.
+
+The girls looked at each other helplessly.
+
+"I tell you," cried Betty suddenly, her eyes sparkling with a new idea.
+"Give me that old red rag we use for a duster, Mollie, and I'll go and
+signal your angel."
+
+"Betty, you'll do no such thing," cried Amy, shocked, while Mollie dug
+under the seat for the improvised signal flag. "Think of signaling a
+strange man!"
+
+"But you forget he's an angel in disguise," laughed Betty, snatching the
+dust cloth Mollie held out to her. "Anyway," she added, over her
+shoulder, "desperate cases require desperate remedies," and was off
+round the turn of the road.
+
+There wasn't much time to spare either, for when she had clambered up on
+a rock by the side of the road, the motorcyclist was only a few hundred
+feet away.
+
+At the unexpected sight of a red rag wildly waved by a very graceful
+little figure in a gray traveling suit, he looked surprised but promptly
+put on his brakes. He leapt from his machine and came running toward her
+while Betty descended from her perch just in time to meet him at the
+foot of the rock.
+
+"Is there anything the matter?" he asked, in a nice voice that Betty
+immediately liked. In fact, she liked nearly everything about him, from
+his sunburned face and merry blue eyes to his trim leather boots and
+puttees. So she gave him a friendly little smile that showed all her
+dimples, much to his secret admiration.
+
+"Why, yes, there is," she answered, adding with a chuckle: "If there
+hadn't been, I shouldn't have been perched on that old rock, waving a
+ridiculous red dust rag!"
+
+Then, as they made their way around the turn in the road toward the car
+where Mrs. Ford and the girls were waiting for them, she explained the
+situation, adding with another smile: "You see, I had to stop you some
+way, so I chose the very first method I could think of."
+
+"It certainly was effective," he answered, smiling.
+
+Then after mutual introductions, by which the girls learned that their
+new friend's name was Joe Barnes and that he had been on his way to
+Deeming, a village about five miles away when Betty's red flag had
+brought him to so sudden a stop, the youth went to work with a will at
+the tire while the girls alternately watched him and helped by handing
+him the tools he needed.
+
+In what seemed no time at all to the girls he had finished his task and
+had pulled out a handkerchief and was wiping his begrimed hands with it.
+
+"My, you did do that in a hurry!" sighed Mollie, patting the new tire
+happily. "You did in fifteen minutes what five of us couldn't do in half
+an hour."
+
+"You were probably tired," he answered, glancing at the car, which gave
+unmistakable evidence of the many miles they had come that day. "Are
+you, have you--" he hesitated, evidently not knowing whether his
+question would be taken in good part or not. "Are you going very much
+farther?"
+
+"Only about a hundred miles," laughed Betty, then added in answer to his
+startled glance: "Not to-night, though. We are just going as far as
+Bensington."
+
+"But Bensington is about fifteen miles away," he protested, adding as he
+glanced up at a lowering gray cloud overhead: "And if I know anything
+about weather signs, you will have to use some speed to get there before
+the storm."
+
+"The storm!" they cried simultaneously, following his glance, while
+Mollie added petulantly:
+
+"Goodness, haven't we had enough troubles for one day without getting a
+drenching into the bargain?"
+
+"But we haven't got the drenching yet," Mrs. Ford reminded her, adding,
+with a cordial smile as she held out her hand to Joe Barnes: "We don't
+know how to thank you Mr. Barnes, for taking all this trouble for us."
+
+"Please don't," he begged, flashing his nice smile upon them. "I am only
+too glad to have been of assistance. And now, if I might suggest--"
+
+Another glance at the ominous cloud which had grown bigger and blacker
+even in these few minutes, sent the girls scrambling unceremoniously to
+their seats while Joe Barnes lifted his hat and stood waiting for them
+to start. Once his eyes rested upon Betty, and there was so much
+undisguised admiration in them that she flushed prettily and threw in
+the clutch with a jerk that was not at all skillful.
+
+"Good-bye," they called, and "good-bye," he answered, as the two cars
+sprang forward in a cloud of dust. Not until they were out of sight did
+Joe Barnes turn away and retrace his steps toward his deserted
+motorcycle.
+
+"Joe, my boy," he communed with himself, shaking his head over the
+memory of Betty's dimples, "that little Miss Nelson is one girl in a
+million. I wonder now," slowly mounting his machine and looking
+reflectively at the road in front of it, "why I didn't ask if I might
+call." Then the absurdity of the idea made him laugh at himself. "What
+nonsense to think of taking advantage of an accident--Where was it they
+said they were stopping for the night? Oh, yes, Bensington. Well, he
+might go there and take a chance on seeing them--her. Fate might even be
+kind to him and burst some more tires!" Then he laughed at himself again
+and started his motor.
+
+Meanwhile Grace, who had noticed Joe Barnes' expressive glance in
+Betty's direction and the latter's subsequent confusion, commented upon
+the coincidence.
+
+"Goodness, Betty," she drawled lightly, "I always knew you were a heart
+breaker, but I never saw you make a conquest in so short a time. Half an
+hour and--poof--it's all over but the shouting."
+
+Betty gave an annoyed little laugh.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Gracie," she commanded adding reflectively as she
+skillfully avoided a rock in the road: "He was awfully nice looking
+though, and pleasant."
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"But I couldn't help wondering," Betty went on, as though talking to
+herself, "why he was here at all when his country needs him."
+
+"Um--yes, that was rather strange," mused Grace. "One isn't used to
+seeing a young, good-looking and apparently healthy boy on this side of
+the water these days, unless he's in khaki. I wonder if our knight by
+the wayside is by any chance one of those insects we term--"
+
+"Slackers?" finished Betty, adding in quick defense: "No, I'm quite sure
+he isn't that kind. You know we have had a good chance to study both
+types, and he doesn't look like a slacker."
+
+"Granted," agreed Grace, adding with a quick change of mood: "Just the
+same, it makes me feel desperate to see any young fellow running at his
+own free will about the country, evidently enjoying life, while our boys
+are giving up everything--"
+
+"But, if Joe Barnes isn't a slacker," Betty reminded her gently, "he is
+probably passionately envying our boys the right to 'give up
+everything'."
+
+"Perhaps," replied Grace, eyes fixed moodily upon the flying landscape.
+"But when I think of Will--"
+
+For a long time there was silence. Then Betty gave a little start and
+regarded with disfavor a big drop that rested on the third finger of her
+right hand. She immediately resigned the guidance of the car to her left
+hand while she held up the right for Grace's inspection.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" queried the latter, who had been engrossed
+in her not too happy meditations.
+
+"Rain," cried Betty succinctly, adding with a whimsical little smile: "I
+don't know whether Joe Barnes is a slacker or not, but I do know he's a
+good prophet. We surely shall have to put on some speed if we want to
+reach Bensington before the storm!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THUNDER AND MUD
+
+
+"You don't mean it's raining!" cried Grace, holding out a hand to see
+for herself. "Oh, dear, and we have several miles to go before we even
+reach the outskirts of Bensington. What shall we do now?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Betty, while a worried frown wrinkled her
+pretty forehead. "I don't know just how far out we are. Oh, there's a
+signboard. What does it say, Gracie? You can read it better than I."
+
+"Ten miles to Bensington," Grace read, leaning far out of the car. "Oh
+Betty, we can't possibly make it! Listen to that!"
+
+"That" was an ominous rumble of thunder, and Betty's pretty forehead
+puckered still more.
+
+"Well, we can at least put the top up," she said practically. "That will
+keep the worst of it off anyway, and if we hurry we may have a chance of
+beating it yet."
+
+Betty brought the car to a stop, jumped out on the road with Grace at
+her heels, and waited for Mollie to come up. They had not long to wait
+for a moment later Mollie stopped her car with a grinding of brakes and
+came running up to her chums.
+
+"I was wondering how long you were going to ignore the warnings of
+nature," she said, with a little grimace. "That cloud has been growing
+with horrible rapidity for the last five minutes. What are your plans,
+Captain?" and she favored Betty with a true military salute.
+
+"I wish I had some," said the latter, cocking a still more anxious eye
+at the threatening cloud. "And all I've been able to think of so far is
+the very original idea of putting up the top."
+
+"And side curtains," supplemented Mollie, with a chuckle. "Strange as it
+may seem, even I have been favored with that inspiration."
+
+"Well, let's get busy," suggested Amy, with practical, though slangy,
+emphasis. "We're apt to get drowned while we stand here talking."
+
+It was easy to see by the way they went to work that the girls agreed
+with her. Even Mrs. Ford gave willing, though inexperienced, aid, and in
+a very short time they had lifted the tops, adjusted the side curtains
+and made all snug for the expected downpour.
+
+Nor did they have very much time to spare. While they had been working,
+the thunder had grown louder and more insistent and now the rain began
+to fall in earnest.
+
+"Duck!" cried Betty inelegantly, and they ran for shelter.
+
+"Well," said Betty, as she pressed the self-starter and the engine
+purred evenly, "it's bad, but it might be a good deal worse. We can't
+get wet unless it's an unusually heavy downpour."
+
+"Oh, it isn't getting wet that bothers me so much," said Grace, and
+Betty looked at her in surprise. "It's the roads," she added by way of
+explanation. "I've heard Aunt Mary say that they have terribly heavy
+storms in this part of the country, and sometimes in half an hour the
+roads get almost impassable. Many a machine has been known to sink three
+or four inches in mud, and sometimes they get in so deep they have to be
+hauled out."
+
+"What a cheerful prospect!" cried Betty, dismayed, adding, as the rain
+beat against the windshield in steady, driving sheets: "Especially as
+this storm bids fair to be a record breaker. Look how muddy the roads
+are already."
+
+"And we haven't passed more than two or three wagons all the way out,"
+wailed Grace. "And they didn't look strong enough to pull a toy machine
+out. Oh, Betty, look out!"
+
+The admonition was occasioned by a seemingly sudden wild desire on the
+part of the car to stand on two wheels while it waved the other two
+spinningly in the air.
+
+Betty, though undeniably frightened, succeeded in persuading the erring
+wheels to the muddy road again. Then she slackened her speed and began
+to laugh hysterically.
+
+"I don't see anything to laugh about," protested Grace, still breathless
+with apprehension.
+
+"Neither do I," admitted Betty, adding whimsically. "But I had either to
+laugh or cry, so I decided to laugh. After all, you must admit, it was a
+wonderful skid."
+
+"The best of its kind," admitted Grace dryly. "But please don't try it
+again, Honey, it has a wearing effect on my nerves!"
+
+They were silent for a while after that, while Betty regarded the
+increasingly muddy road ahead of her with anxious eyes. She had been
+forced to slacken her speed more and more until now they were barely
+crawling along.
+
+"I'm afraid we're in an awfully tight fix," she said at last. "We're
+just plowing through this mud, and if it's hard on us, what must it be
+for Mollie, whose car is twice as heavy as this. Look behind, will you,
+Gracie, and see how she's coming along?"
+
+"She is just coming, and that's all," reported Grace, after a prolonged
+scrutiny through the rain-glazed window. "Goodness, we've been out in
+storms before, but I never saw anything like this. And listen to that
+thunder--o-oh!"
+
+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."
+
+[Illustration: GRACE AND BETTY MADE A QUICK DASH FOR SHELTER. _The
+Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point._ _Page 83._]
+
+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--"
+
+"Yesterday!" Mollie interrupted with a groan. "And I'm just getting it
+to-day!"
+
+"But I was telling you," he started all over again patiently, "as how
+Abe took sick and says to me: 'Jake--'"
+
+"Yes, yes, we know," interrupted Mollie, reaching impatiently for the
+crumpled yellow envelope which he took from his pocket, smoothed out
+carefully, and handed to her with maddening deliberation. "Oh, if
+anything terrible has happened I'll never forgive myself for not going
+to the station yesterday!"
+
+"But it was raining so hard, and we expected the boy any minute." Amy
+thus tried to console her but it is doubtful if Mollie even heard her.
+She had torn open the envelope and was devouring the message whole while
+the girls looked at her anxiously.
+
+The red-headed orator, seeing that his presence was no longer in demand,
+clucked to his team and jogged off reluctantly. A telegram is rather a
+rarity in Bluff Point and they might have taken pity on a fellow and
+given him at least a hint of its contents. But there, he didn't want to
+know anyway--wouldn't if he could! Still, these out-landers were mighty
+mean, close-mouthed folks!
+
+"Nothing," said Mollie, in response to the unspoken question of the
+girls. "They haven't found a trace of either of them yet, but the police
+are confident that it is a case of kidnapping and that they will be able
+to round up the criminals in a short time. Poor little Dodo! Poor little
+Paul! If nothing worse happens to them they will be scared to death. Oh,
+if I could only get hold of those kidnappers I'd--I'd kill 'em!" She
+clenched her hands passionately and her lips shut in a straight, grim
+little line.
+
+"I guess we'd all be glad to," said mild little Amy, with a look in her
+eyes that showed she meant it.
+
+As they started back down the road Betty suddenly remembered the packet
+of letters in her hands. The excitement about the telegram had put them
+completely out of her mind.
+
+"To think I could forget letters!" she marveled, as she distributed them
+to their rightful owners. "Here's one for you, Amy, and two for you,
+Grace. One for Mrs. Ford and one for Mollie and--and--two for me--"
+
+She looked so surprised that they paused in the act of opening their own
+letters to look at her.
+
+"What's the matter?" Grace asked.
+
+"Why here's one addressed to me in a perfectly strange hand," she
+answered, turning the letter over and over in her hand. "I can't
+imagine--"
+
+"What's the postmark?" asked Amy.
+
+Betty looked and then colored prettily as she realized who her unknown
+correspondent was.
+
+"Why--why," she stammered, amazed at her own confusion, "it's sent from
+Bensington, but--"
+
+"Bensington!" Grace echoed, then her eyes twinkled as the truth came to
+her. "So it's as bad as that, is it?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," said Betty, trying to look dignified and
+failing utterly, while Mollie and Amy continued to stare their
+amazement. They had forgotten completely that night spent under the
+hospitable roof of Mrs. Barnes, and even her son's engaging personality
+had faded from their minds. There had been so many things to think about
+and worry about. So now they both said together:
+
+"What in the world are you two talking of?"
+
+"Do you mean to say you really don't know?" queried Grace in a superior
+tone. "Have you so soon forgotten our knight of the wayside, Joe
+Barnes?"
+
+"Joe Barnes," they repeated weakly, then turned their astonished gaze on
+Betty.
+
+"Well, I can't help it," retorted Betty, feeling vaguely the need of
+defense. "I didn't ask him to."
+
+"But how did he get your address?" asked Mollie, still staring. "Who
+gave it to him?"
+
+"I told him where we were going," cried Betty desperately, driven into a
+corner. "But I had no idea he was going to write to me until--until--"
+hesitating as a picture of Joe Barnes, standing beside her car and
+asking if he might tell her "how things were with him" came vividly
+before her eyes.
+
+"Yes. Until?" they baited her, forgetting for a moment the dark shadows
+hanging over them in the fun of this unexpected discovery.
+
+"Until the morning we came away," Betty answered, seeing that she could
+not get away from these pitiless inquisitors until she had satisfied
+their curiosity.
+
+"Did he ask to write to you then?" probed Mollie relentlessly.
+
+"I don't see what right--" Betty was beginning spiritedly when she
+caught Mollie's eye and ended in a little helpless laugh. "I suppose
+I'll have to tell you all about it or you'll turn a simple little
+molehill into a mountain."
+
+"Quite right," said Grace cheerfully, and even Betty had to laugh at
+her.
+
+"Make a clean breast of it," ordered Mollie.
+
+"But there really isn't anything to make a clean breast of," protested
+Betty. "He simply asked me if he might write and tell me how he--how
+he--"
+
+"How he what?" they queried.
+
+"But I don't know whether I ought to tell you about that or not." Betty
+was really in earnest. "You see, what he told me was sort of in
+confidence."
+
+"In confidence!" repeated Grace, adding wickedly: "Now we know it's a
+serious case."
+
+"Nonsense," said Betty, almost crossly. "He simply said he hadn't been
+allowed to get into the army because of ill health, but now that he
+felt well again he was going to try once more. It was that he wanted to
+write and tell me about. And because I was really interested, I said he
+might. That's all."
+
+"How romantic!" cried Mollie irrepressibly. "For goodness sake, hurry up
+and read it, Betty, and relieve our curiosity."
+
+"I'll read it," said Betty firmly, "when I get good and ready, and not
+one minute before!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SERIOUSLY WOUNDED
+
+
+They walked the rest of the distance to the house in absorbed silence,
+reading as they went. Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry of
+amazement.
+
+"I thought this was for me," she said, holding up a letter. "But it
+isn't. It's for your mother, Grace. I don't see how I could have made
+such a mistake!"
+
+But Grace only heard the first part of Betty's speech. The last of it
+passed right over her head.
+
+"A letter for mother?" she cried. "Oh, give it to me, Betty. It may be
+from dad. Oh, it is! It is!" she exclaimed, as she saw her father's
+familiar writing. "He must have heard about Will. Mother! Mother--" she
+broke away from the girls and took the porch steps two at a time, waving
+the letter wildly as she went.
+
+"Oh, if it's only good news, if it's only good news!" Betty found
+herself saying over and over again as she, with Mollie, followed Grace
+into the house.
+
+They found Mrs. Ford in the living room, pale and trembling a little,
+holding the envelope in her hand as though she dared not open it. Grace
+had collapsed in a chair and was gazing up at her mother with such
+agonized pleading in her eyes that the girls could not look at her.
+
+Then very slowly Mrs. Ford tore open the envelope. At the same moment
+the girls seemed to sense that they might be in some manner intruding,
+and with one accord they moved over to the window and stood looking out.
+
+After a wait that seemed interminable they heard Grace say in a
+strained, far-away little voice:
+
+"Mother, what is it? Can't you tell me? I think I'll die if I have to
+wait any longer."
+
+"Read it," they heard Mrs. Ford say in a choked voice, as a rustle of
+paper told that she had handed the letter to Grace. "I can't tell you
+dear. Oh, my boy, my boy!" And she sank down in a chair and covered her
+face with her hands.
+
+The girls turned from the window and started to leave the room, for they
+felt that the moment was too sacred for even them who were so intensely
+interested, to share.
+
+Just as they reached the door they paused, arrested by a cry from
+Grace.
+
+"Seriously wounded!" she read in a muffled voice. "Oh, Mother, for all
+we know, that may mean Will is--dead!"
+
+They were startled by a muffled sob, and turned in time to see Amy rush
+from the room. Poor little Amy! In the excitement and grief of the
+moment they had forgotten that she might also be affected by this news
+of Will!
+
+Betty and Mollie ran upstairs after her, leaving Grace and her mother
+together.
+
+"And I was so hoping," said Betty as she closed the door softly and
+Mollie flung herself on the bed, "that it would be good news."
+
+"Yes," said Mollie, staring moodily out the window, "it does seem that
+everything terrible that can happen to us is happening all at once. I
+wonder what's next."
+
+"There isn't going to be any next," said Betty, but in her heart she was
+not so sure. Almost everyone in the world was suffering, one way or
+another, and it was only to be expected that they would get their full
+share.
+
+And as she thought of Allen a hot wave of fear went over her, leaving
+her faint and sick. Out there in the very thickest of the fight, it
+would be a miracle if he should be saved to come back to her.
+
+But he must come back, he _must_ come back, her heart cried over and
+over again. Hadn't he said he would? And Allen always kept his word.
+
+Then she shook herself, and with an effort brought her wandering thought
+back to this new trouble--or rather, confirmation of an old one.
+
+From the time Mrs. Ford had received the telegram telling of Will's
+wound, they had hoped against hope that it had been a mistake, or that
+at least, the wound had not been serious.
+
+But this new report from Washington seemed to put an end to that hope,
+and there was nothing to do but to face the terrible reality. Will was
+seriously wounded in some hospital in France, and, as Grace had said,
+that might mean that even now he was in a critical condition, perhaps,
+for all they knew, he had died out there away from all his dear ones and
+the friends that loved him.
+
+"I don't suppose there is any use acting as though he were dead
+already," said Mollie, breaking in upon her unhappy reverie. "There have
+been several thousand wounded soldiers over there who have recovered."
+
+"Yes, only to be sent back again to the firing line and have it done all
+over," said Betty bitterly, for, for a time at least, her staunch
+optimism had deserted her and she was ready to see the blackest side of
+everything.
+
+"Yes, it does seem that once a soldier has gone down to the very gates
+of death, he should be exempted," sighed Mollie, adding dispiritedly:
+"But I suppose if they made that a rule they wouldn't have any armies
+left after awhile."
+
+"And the boys themselves don't want to be exempted," said Betty, feeling
+a little thrill of pride in spite of her heartache. "Their one biggest
+reason for getting well is to be able to get another 'whack at the
+Hun.'"
+
+"Shall we go and see if we can cheer up Amy?" she asked after an
+interval filled with gloomy meditation. "She is so brave and quiet about
+everything that you never have a chance to guess how hard she is taking
+her trouble. Poor girl!"
+
+"I do feel awfully sorry for her," agreed Mollie, shifting unhappily,
+"but I must say I don't feel very capable of cheering anybody up myself.
+I never felt so horribly discouraged in my life."
+
+"Well, it doesn't do any good to think about it," said Betty. "Maybe if
+we try to make poor Amy feel better we'll help ourselves at the same
+time."
+
+"I suppose it won't do any harm to try," agreed Mollie, rising wearily.
+"But I wish somebody would lend me a smile for a little while till I get
+mine back again. I might be able to play the role of merry little
+sunshine better."
+
+She gave Betty a wry little smile, and arm in arm they started down the
+hall to Amy's room.
+
+The found the door shut, and tapped lightly upon it. When there was no
+response they rapped again, then tried the knob and found the door was
+locked.
+
+"Whatever in the world--" Mollie was beginning apprehensively, when a
+plaintive voice in the room behind the closed door interrupted her.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"It's we, Dear--Mollie and Betty," answered Betty quickly. "Can't you
+let us in?"
+
+"I--I'd rather not," replied the voice falteringly. "I'm all right, and
+I'll be out in a minute. Please don't worry about me. You ought to be
+used to my making a goose of myself by this time." This last accompanied
+by a pitiful little attempt at a laugh.
+
+"All right, Honey," Betty spoke sympathetically, for she had often seen
+the time when even her best friend would have been in the way. "We only
+wanted to help, that's all. When you want us we'll be in my room."
+
+Amy murmured something in reply, and they slipped back again into the
+other room and closed the door.
+
+"I guess she feels it even worse than we thought she did," said Mollie
+pityingly. "When Amy cries she is pretty well cut up."
+
+"Well, I guess all we can do now is just sit still and wait till
+somebody wants us," said Betty, sitting down irresolutely and folding
+her hands. It was this last action that reminded her of the letter from
+Joe Barnes which she had not yet read. Although she had been holding it
+in her hand all the while, she had completely forgotten there was such a
+person as the writer.
+
+At her exclamation Mollie looked up rather listlessly.
+
+"That's so," she said. "You never did find out whether or not Joe Barnes
+had been accepted. Tell me about it. I'd welcome a diversion--a cyclone
+or a tidal wave or anything--if it would only get my mind off our
+troubles."
+
+"I'll guarantee it would be effective," returned Betty absently, as she
+took up the closely written pages. "It would be like burning yourself to
+make you forget you have a toothache."
+
+There was silence for a long while, broken only by the sound of the
+waves breaking on the shore and the crackling of the paper as Betty
+turned page after page.
+
+It was a long letter, filled with youthful enthusiasm. In it the youth
+spoke his pleasure in meeting her and his hope that she would not only
+answer this letter but would allow him to write to her often.
+
+But over and above all the great fact stood out that he had been
+accepted! The doctors had looked him over and declared him fit in every
+respect to serve his country.
+
+As Betty read the last glowing sentence a sob broke from her and she
+buried her head in her arms. Mollie went over to her quickly.
+
+"What is it?" she asked anxiously, putting an arm about the Little
+Captain. "You haven't had bad news too, have you, Betty?"
+
+"N-no," sobbed Betty, raising eyes that were shining through her tears.
+"I just love them so--all those splendid boys that are so crazy to give
+their lives for their country, that my heart gets too full sometimes,
+that's all."
+
+"Then I take it that Joe Barnes has been accepted," Mollie rather stated
+than asked.
+
+"Yes," said Betty, feeling for a handkerchief. "And he is simply wild
+with joy, Mollie," she added, while the color flooded her face. "The
+Germans simply can't last long with that spirit against them. It makes
+our boys indomitable!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BETTY CONFESSES
+
+
+Betty woke up the next morning with a sense of deadly depression
+weighing her down. For a few moments she lay staring up at the ceiling
+trying to collect her thoughts. Then the events of the day before came
+back to her and she frowned unhappily.
+
+The whereabouts of poor little Dodo and Paul was still a mystery, and
+Will Ford, whom she had come to regard almost as a brother, was terribly
+wounded somewhere in France. She probably would never see him again.
+
+And there was Allen too, to worry about every minute of the day and
+night. She had not heard from him in--oh, ages. Yes, it must be every
+bit of two weeks since she had read his last letter. For all she knew,
+he might be worse off than poor Will.
+
+"Oh, well," she sighed, and, turning on her side, looked out of the
+window.
+
+There was no relief there from the gloom of her thoughts, for the sky
+was leaden and overcast, looking as if it, too, were mourning for the
+troubles of the world, and the surf beat loud and threateningly on the
+shore.
+
+"Guess it's going to rain and make things still more cheerful," she
+said, and at the sound Grace opened heavy eyes and turned over
+restlessly.
+
+"What are you mumbling about?" she asked sleepily, closing her eyes
+again and sighing a little.
+
+"Nothing but the weather," replied Betty, adding, with unusual
+gentleness: "It's early, so you can turn over and get forty winks."
+
+"What has happened to you?" asked Grace, opening her eyes again in
+surprise at this unheard of advice. Then as the full force of her
+trouble came home to her she turned over noisily and burrowed her head
+into the pillow.
+
+"Guess I will," she said in a muffled voice. "Don't any one dare wake me
+up till they have some good news to tell me. I'm going to be another Rip
+Van Winkle."
+
+"Goodness, I hope it won't be that long before we have any good news,"
+said Betty, trying to speak lightly. This would never do, she thought.
+They simply had to find some way out of this terrible slough of
+despondency before it mastered them completely.
+
+"I'm going to get up," she announced briskly, jumping out of bed. "I've
+got to find something to keep me busy till that good news of ours feels
+like coming along. I'm getting absolutely morbid just sitting around and
+thinking."
+
+"Well, what is there to do?" asked Grace, rolling over and regarding her
+listlessly.
+
+"There's the house to be put in order," Betty pointed out, recovering a
+little of her old spirits, now that she had decided on a definite plan
+of action. "And we never have really unpacked our trunks because Mollie
+has been undecided about staying."
+
+"Yes, I know. And my clothes are a perfect wreck. I haven't a thing to
+put on that doesn't look as if it had been through the wars," Grace
+agreed. "Not that it really matters," she added indifferently.
+
+"Of course it makes a difference," returned Betty sharply. She was
+determined to rouse Grace out of her lethargy, no matter what means she
+had to take. "Don't you know that when you are dressed neatly and
+becomingly everything seems brighter and more hopeful? And, anyway," she
+added, watching Grace out of the corner of her eye, "it isn't like you
+to be careless about your dress."
+
+"Well, it isn't like me either to go moping around as if I had one foot
+in the grave and the other was slipping," retorted Grace, with a spirit
+that showed the experiment had worked. "I don't think it's nice for you
+to make remarks like that when you know how I'm feeling and the excuse I
+have."
+
+"Nobody has any excuse for giving up and acting as if everything were
+lost when it isn't," said Betty decidedly. "If our soldiers did that the
+first time they had to retreat, how long do you suppose our army would
+last?"
+
+"But Will isn't your brother," insisted Grace stubbornly. "If he were,
+maybe you would feel differently."
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"No he isn't my brother," returned Betty, knowing she was going to hurt
+her friend but believing that the result would justify the means. "But
+if he were I would try to behave so that when he came back he would have
+a right to be proud of me."
+
+"Betty Nelson!" Grace sprang out of bed with her eyes blazing, "do you
+know what you are saying? Do you mean that if Will should come back, he
+wouldn't be proud of me?"
+
+"Not if you keep on taking your trouble lying down," said Betty,
+sticking gamely to her guns, though she was a little frightened at the
+success of her experiment.
+
+"I may," she thought to herself, "have done not wisely, but too well."
+
+However, after one outraged and enraged stare at Betty, Grace pointedly
+turned her back and began hastily to pull on her clothes. She finished
+dressing before Betty, and without a word left the room.
+
+"Now you have done it, Betty, my dear," said Betty making a little face
+at her pretty reflection in the mirror. "I shouldn't wonder if Grace
+would never speak to you again. Poor Gracie, perhaps I shouldn't have
+said what I did, but I simply had to start something."
+
+On her way downstairs she tapped at Mollie's door and found that she and
+Amy were both up and dressing.
+
+"Come in," called Mollie; "I need your help. Amy's eyes are so swollen,"
+she explained, as Betty obeyed, "that she can't see to do me up. Just
+the middle one, Betty. That's a dear."
+
+As Betty obligingly did the "middle one" she stole a glance at Amy, who
+was absently doing up her hair without looking in the mirror.
+
+"Look out!" she cried suddenly, making both the girls jump. "You nearly
+stuck that hairpin in your eye, Amy," she explained, as they looked at
+her reproachfully, "and that isn't the place for it you know."
+
+Amy smiled a crooked little smile and put the unruly hairpin in the
+right place.
+
+"I'm apt to do anything to-day," she said, with a sigh that seemed to
+come from her toes. "If any of you want to live, you had just better
+keep out of my way, that's all."
+
+"Isn't it just wonderful weather?" said Mollie sarcastically, gazing out
+at the leaden landscape. "Just the kind of a day to put the J into Joy."
+
+"If something doesn't happen pretty soon," put in Amy, with another deep
+sigh, "I'll just naturally pass away. I wonder," she added, looking
+really interested in the subject, "if anybody ever did die of the
+blues."
+
+"I don't believe so--but there's always hope," said Betty dryly, adding
+with sudden spirit; "Now look here, girls, something's got to be done
+about this. We really will make ourselves sick if we don't try to look
+on the hopeful side of things. It won't do anybody, least of all,
+ourselves, any good to sit here and mope all day. We've just got to
+fight against depression and cheer up."
+
+"That's all very well for you, Betty," Amy voiced almost the same
+sentiment as Grace had only a few moments ago, "but you are the only one
+of us who hasn't been hurt personally. Suppose it were Allen. Would you
+feel the same way then--about cheering up and taking it bravely?"
+
+Betty flushed angrily, at the same time feeling a wild desire to go away
+and cry.
+
+"I hope I would," she said steadily. "And if I didn't, I would surely
+feel ashamed of myself. It isn't," she paused at the door and looked
+back at them, "as though Will or the twins were dead. We have hope in
+both cases, so I don't see any use of giving up. You talk," she choked
+back a sob, "as though I didn't sympathize, as if I were an outsider
+just because nothing has happened to--Allen--yet--" her voice choked in
+a real sob this time and she fled from the room.
+
+The girls gazed after her unhappily.
+
+"Did you ever!" gasped Mollie.
+
+"I didn't mean to make her feel bad. Betty, of all people!" said Amy,
+conscience stricken. "And of course she's right about our trying to
+cheer up. Only, I don't want to, someway."
+
+"Betty's a darling," said Mollie thoughtfully. "But of course she can't
+quite realize how badly we feel. If it were her little brother and
+sister, now--"
+
+And so gradually Betty came to feel herself more or less of an outsider
+with these girls who were so close to her. And it was all because they
+misunderstood her effort to cheer them up and thought she could not
+feel for them because nothing terrible had happened to her yet.
+
+"I'll show them," she told herself fiercely, "if anything should happen
+to Allen--" But she shivered and turned away shudderingly from the
+thought. Allen--if only she could see him for five minutes--just five
+minutes--
+
+Some way the days dragged through until a week passed, then part of
+another. Still there had been no clue to the whereabouts of the twins,
+nor any further news of Will.
+
+"And this is the wonderful vacation we planned!" said Grace with a wry
+smile, breaking one of the long silences that had become common with the
+Outdoor Girls these days.
+
+They were, as usual, sitting on the sand and trying to occupy their
+minds with sewing or reading, yet always with an eye to the road in
+readiness to rush to their red-headed combination of delivery boy and
+postman whenever he saw fit to put in an appearance.
+
+Betty opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. She had
+learned that any suggestion she might make would be wrongly interpreted
+by the girls who were engrossed in their own troubles, and so she had
+wisely decided to say nothing.
+
+"I haven't heard from Frank for ever so long," said Mollie, as if the
+fact had just occurred to her. "I wonder if anything can have happened
+to him?"
+
+"I didn't see any name we knew in the casualty list last night,"
+ventured Betty.
+
+"Betty, is that what you read so carefully every night?" asked Mollie,
+wide-eyed. "Oh, I don't see how you ever have the courage!" as Betty
+nodded. "If I saw the name of anybody I--I--cared for in that dreadful
+list, I don't know what I'd do."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," returned the Little Captain, while a wistful light
+grew in her eyes and her lips quivered. "When I don't find--what I'm
+afraid to find--I feel like a criminal who has been reprieved, and it
+gives me courage to face another day."
+
+Then suddenly the girls saw Betty in her true light. Why, she was
+suffering too! Think of her reading that awful list every night with
+fear in her heart! And in the light of this revelation, her brave
+efforts to cheer them seemed suddenly heroic.
+
+"Betty dear," Mollie moved over toward her friend and put an arm about
+her. "Do you care that much?"
+
+A little sob of pent-up misery broke from Betty and she dropped her head
+on Mollie's shoulder.
+
+"Oh, so much!" she whispered brokenly.
+
+Then everybody cried a little and the girls called themselves all sorts
+of awful names for being "brutes" to their adored Little Captain, and
+when the storm cleared up everything seemed brighter and they could even
+smile a little.
+
+Then that night, when the little god of hope seemed about to take his
+accustomed place in the hearts of the Outdoor Girls, there came another
+blow, even more staggering than the ones that had gone before.
+
+As Betty was scanning the casualty list with terrified, yet eager, eyes,
+she gave a little cry, half gasp and half sob that brought the girls
+running to her.
+
+Her face was ashen pale, and she pointed with trembling finger to a name
+half-way down in the column.
+
+"Oh, girls, it's come--it's come! Allen! Allen! It can't be true!" and
+she dropped her head upon her arms, crumpling the paper in her hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+MISSING
+
+
+Mollie took the paper from Betty's unresisting hand, smoothed it out,
+traced her finger down the column and finally came to the name she
+sought.
+
+"Sergeant Allen Washburn," she read in a small, awed voice, while the
+other girls crowded close to look over her shoulder.
+
+"Dead?" queried Grace breathlessly.
+
+"No," Mollie shook her head. "He's among the missing."
+
+"That means," said Betty, lifting a face so still and white that it
+startled the girls, "that he is either dead or worse than dead. I would
+a thousand times rather he were dead than have him taken prisoner by the
+Germans."
+
+"But we don't know that he has been captured--"
+
+"That's what missing almost always means," insisted Betty, still in that
+strange, lifeless voice. "That," she added, as though speaking to
+herself, "was the column I always read first, because I was most afraid
+of it. I think," she got up unsteadily, and Mollie ran around to her,
+"that if you don't mind, I'll go upstairs a little while."
+
+She started for the door while the girls watched her dumbly, not knowing
+what to do or say. Then suddenly Grace ran after her.
+
+"Betty, darling!" she cried, her own grief forgotten in her pity for her
+chum, "let me come too, won't you? I don't suppose I'd be any good to
+you just now, but I'd do my best."
+
+"Let us all come, won't you, Dear?" begged Mollie, while Amy's eyes
+silently pleaded.
+
+But Betty only shook her head, smiling a pitiful little white smile, at
+them.
+
+"Not just now--please," she said. "After a while I'll--I'll call you."
+
+They watched her run upstairs and heard her door close quietly, oh, so
+quietly, behind her.
+
+Left behind, the girls looked at one another with wide frightened eyes.
+
+"Girls, she worries me," said Mollie, speaking in a whisper, almost as
+if there were death in the house. "She is so quiet and still. And when
+one knows Betty--"
+
+"If she could only cry a little," said Grace, speaking in the same tone.
+"It makes things so much worse when you keep them bottled up that way."
+
+"Betty's so proud and so brave," said Amy gently, as she sank into a
+chair and looked up, wide-eyed, at the other two. "Only this afternoon
+she let us see how terribly she cared."
+
+"And no wonder," said Grace, for there was real grief in her heart.
+"There never was a finer fellow than Allen. He made us all love him."
+
+"But there we go again, speaking as if he were dead," protested Mollie.
+"There is always hope, since his name is only among the missing."
+
+"Yes, of course; but it is generally as Betty said," returned Grace.
+"Nine-tenths of the men reported missing are either dead or have fallen
+into the hands of the Germans."
+
+Mollie shuddered.
+
+"Poor little Betty," she said. "The very thought of it is enough to
+drive her crazy."
+
+"If she would only let us comfort her," sighed Amy.
+
+"I--I really think that if she doesn't call us in a few minutes, we'd
+better go up anyway," said Grace nervously. "She looked so terribly
+queer and unlike herself that I'm worried to death. Hark! Did you hear
+something?"
+
+The girls listened, but all they could hear was the sighing of the wind
+about the house. Then, far off in the distance, came a soft rumble of
+thunder.
+
+"Oh, I hope it doesn't storm," cried Amy, shivering. "That would be
+about the last straw."
+
+And upstairs, in the room that Betty shared with Grace, grief and fear
+and horror stalked about unfettered and gazed upon the little figure on
+the bed.
+
+So still and white and rigid it was that the girls would have been still
+more frightened could they have seen it. For, propped on her elbows,
+with grim, set face supported by her clenched fists, Betty was gazing
+unseeingly out at the darkness beyond the square of window pane.
+
+"Somewhere he's out there," she kept saying over and over to herself.
+"If he's dead, there's the mud and grime--" she shuddered "--and blood
+too--rivers of it. But if he's captured--Oh, I can't think--I mustn't
+think--"
+
+And then she would begin all over again--
+
+"Allen is lying out there--" over and over again, till her brain whirled
+and her head ached and she felt faint and sick. Still she could not cry.
+
+Her heart was frozen--that was it. And how could one cry when one's
+heart was frozen? Oh, Allen! Allen! How could she go on living without
+him? If she could only cry--if she could only cry!
+
+What was that? Thunder. The artillery of heaven! Did they have war in
+heaven, she wondered. With a queer little laugh she got up and walked to
+the window.
+
+A flash of lightning greeted her, illumining the world outside, flashing
+into bold relief the familiar objects of the little room. She knelt down
+by the window, regardless of danger, and lifted her face to the rising
+wind.
+
+She welcomed the storm. It seemed, in some mysterious way, to quiet the
+tumult within her. She stretched out her arms to it and cried aloud her
+misery.
+
+"Allen, my Allen, you will come back to me, won't you, dear? You
+promised. Oh, Allen, if you're alive are you thinking of me now? Are you
+thinking of Betty?"
+
+A sharper clap of thunder seemed to answer her, and then quite suddenly
+the ice melted from about her heart. Her head went down upon her arms
+and great sobs shook her from head to foot.
+
+It was so the girls found her a few minutes later, and with cries of
+pity lifted her to her feet and half-led, half-carried her back to the
+bed.
+
+"We didn't know whether to come up or not," Mollie said hesitatingly.
+"But we thought maybe you would need us, Dear. If you would rather be
+alone--"
+
+But Betty shook her head and reached out an unsteady little hand which
+Mollie instantly took in her warm clasp.
+
+"No, I want you to stay," she said, trying desperately to choke back her
+sobs. "If some one will--just please--give me a--h-handkerchief."
+
+Amy slipped one into her hand, and Betty dabbed fiercely at the tears
+which still would come.
+
+"Don't try not to cry, Honey," whispered Mollie, putting an
+understanding arm about the Little Captain's shoulders and holding her
+close. "Tears are just the very best things in the world to help one
+through a crisis."
+
+"Yes," added Grace, gently smoothing the hair back from Betty's hot
+forehead, while Amy sprinkled some toilet water on a fresh handkerchief
+and slipped it unobtrusively into Betty's other hand, "we'll just sit
+here and wait till you're all through."
+
+"Then we're going to take you down and give you some hot tea and toast
+and love you a little," finished Amy.
+
+All of which loving sympathy very nearly caused a fresh outburst on
+Betty's part. However, she finally got the better of the storm within
+her and even managed a little smile for the benefit of the girls.
+
+Then she wiped away the last tear, sighed, and walked over to the
+window.
+
+"The storm didn't amount to much after all," she said, after a while,
+very quietly. "Perhaps," and her voice was very wistful, "it's a good
+omen. We'll all hope so, anyway."
+
+"Betty, Betty, you're so wonderful," cried Mollie adoringly. "I never
+saw any one so brave. You make me ashamed of myself."
+
+"Oh, but I'm not brave," denied Betty, turning back to them. "I'm not
+the least little bit brave. I--I went all to pieces a few minutes ago.
+But he isn't reported dead," she added, drawing herself up, while two
+defiant spots of color burned in her face. "And until he is, I'm going
+to hold on to the hope that he is coming back. Nobody can take that from
+me, anyway!"
+
+"Now, you're making me ashamed of myself," said Grace in a small voice,
+while the tears glistened in her eyes. "Here I've been imagining the
+very worst, while you-- Oh, Betty, forgive me, won't you, Dear?"
+
+Betty looked at her in real surprise.
+
+"I haven't anything to forgive," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A NARROW ESCAPE
+
+
+The next day dawned gloriously bright, and the girls chose to take it as
+a good omen. Following Betty's example, they stopped moping about and
+imagining the worst, and, although there was not a minute of the day
+when their hearts were not aching, they managed to smile when the others
+were looking and to speak hopefully of the future. Under Betty's gallant
+leadership, they had set up hope in their hearts and refused to give
+despair a foothold.
+
+"What do you say to a swim?" Mollie suggested, looking out over the
+sparkling white sand to the inviting water beyond. "We've only been in
+swimming twice since we've been here."
+
+"That is a terrible record for Outdoor Girls," Betty agreed. She was
+bustling busily about the cheerful kitchen making a tempting blueberry
+pie. There were circles under her eyes and she looked very pale for
+Betty, but her voice was bright and cheery.
+
+"Can't you stop making pies for a few minutes?" asked Mollie, turning
+to look at her. "It's too nice outdoors to waste time in cooking."
+
+"I imagine you wouldn't say that to-night," retorted Betty, fluting the
+edges of her pie crust. "I notice you generally like the results of my
+labor."
+
+"Who wouldn't?" returned Mollie. "I only know of one person who can make
+better pies."
+
+"And that's yourself, of course." Betty made a little face at her and
+slipped the pie into the oven. "Just for that you can have only one
+piece to-night!"
+
+"I don't care, if you'll only stop working and come along," insisted
+Mollie. "If I stay in the house much longer I'll start thinking
+again--and you know what that means."
+
+Betty gave her a quick side-glance, hastily dusted the flour from her
+hands and took off her apron.
+
+"I'm all ready," she announced. "Where are the other girls?"
+
+"In the living room, reading and eating candy--or at least Grace is
+doing the candy part. Amy has sworn off, you know."
+
+The girls agreed eagerly to the proposed swim, and in a few minutes had
+donned their suits and caps and pronounced themselves ready.
+
+"I ought to get a letter from mother to-day," said Mollie, as her feet
+sank in the soft sand. "She said yesterday that the detectives had
+picked up a clue and thought they were on the right trail at last."
+
+"Why didn't you tell us?" Betty demanded.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Mollie replied wearily. "I didn't think there was
+any use telling you until I had something really definite. You know the
+chief business of a detective is nosing out false clues," she finished
+scornfully.
+
+"Well, I know once we met a perfectly capable detective," remarked
+Betty. By this time they had reached the water and she put one toe into
+it experimentally.
+
+"Ouch--it's cold," she said.
+
+"When did we meet a capable detective?" queried Mollie, looking
+interested.
+
+"Just after we went to Camp Liberty when Will traced the German spy,"
+Betty reminded her. "Did you ever see prettier detective work in your
+life?"
+
+"Yes, it was splendid," Mollie admitted, but the reference proved to be
+an unfortunate one. It brought back vividly the picture of Will as he
+had been then, at the height of his triumph over the apprehension of the
+spy--in which the Outdoor Girls had also played an important part--and
+jubilant at the prospect of being able to join the colors at last and
+fight in the army of democracy.
+
+Try as they would, they could not enter into the fun as they would have
+done a few weeks before. They swam about languidly and found to their
+surprise that they became quickly and easily tired.
+
+"I never knew before how much influence mind has over matter," said
+Mollie, after they had come out on the beach again. "I declare, even my
+muscles feel depressed!"
+
+"As Outdoor Girls we're getting to be marvelous failures," remarked
+Grace, as she wrung the water from her skirt and plumped down in the
+sand. "I feel as weak as a rag."
+
+"I guess it isn't much use trying to enjoy ourselves," sighed Betty
+plaintively. "I've done my best, but all the time I feel as if I were
+just trying to kid myself, in the vulgar vernacular."
+
+"For goodness sake, don't you give up, Betty!" cried Grace, in alarm.
+"If you get discouraged, then I don't know what we shall do."
+
+"I'm not really discouraged--" Betty began, when a terrified cry cut her
+short and the girls sprang to their feet bewildered.
+
+"Where is it?" cried Mollie, but Betty caught her arm and pointed with
+shaking fingers to an orange-colored cap bobbing on the water several
+hundred feet from shore.
+
+"It's Amy!" she gasped. "Something must have happened. Come on, girls!
+Who's going with me?"
+
+Without waiting for an answer, she was off like a shot with Mollie and
+Grace close behind.
+
+They had not missed quiet little Amy, and if they had, would probably
+have thought she had gone for an unusually long swim. And now had come
+her frantic cry for help.
+
+"What is the matter?" Betty cried over and over to herself, as she put
+all her strength into the long, powerful strokes. Amy was a splendid
+swimmer, almost as good as Betty herself.
+
+For one terrible moment the thought of sharks dashed into Betty's mind
+and she shuddered. But the next minute reason reasserted itself and she
+realized that sharks had never been seen on this coast. Baby ones,
+perhaps, but not the man-eating variety.
+
+She raised her head from the water and gazed in the direction of the
+vivid cap. Yes, there it was! Thank heaven there was still time.
+
+"Amy! Amy!" she called, "I'm coming. Just hold on for a minute, Honey.
+I'm almost to you."
+
+No answer came back to her, and when she looked again for the cap she
+found to her horror that it was gone.
+
+"Oh," she moaned, "I'm too late. I'm too late. Oh, Amy, Amy, just
+another minute--just a little minute--" she redoubled her efforts and
+suddenly gave a shout of joy.
+
+There was the cap again, almost under her hand. In her frenzy of haste
+she had covered the distance with almost unbelievable speed.
+
+Her shout seemed to rouse Amy, who had been struggling feebly to keep
+her head above the water, and the girl turned a terror-stricken face to
+her.
+
+"Can you put a hand on my shoulder?" gasped Betty, beginning to feel the
+tremendous effort she had made. "Hang on to me, Honey, and we'll get out
+of this all right."
+
+Amy clutched her shoulder, and slowly the Little Captain turned about,
+saving her strength for the long swim back. She could not be too long
+about it either, she thought desperately. Amy was almost exhausted and
+had all she could do to keep her head above the water.
+
+It all depended on her, Betty. If she could get to shore, carrying the
+double weight before Amy's strength left her and she gave up altogether,
+all well and good. But if she could not--she groaned and set herself
+grimly to her task.
+
+She had covered about an eighth of the distance back when her heart
+leapt suddenly and she gave a sigh of relief. There were two other
+bobbing caps on the water coming rapidly nearer--and those two caps
+could belong to nobody but Mollie and Grace.
+
+[Illustration: TWO OTHER BOBBING CAPS WERE COMING RAPIDLY NEARER. _The
+Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point._ _Page 193._]
+
+That meant help--and, oh, she did need help! She was putting forth all
+her strength, but to her agonized fancy she was not going forward at
+all. Amy's almost dead weight dragging at her shoulder seemed a
+nightmare. Yet she dreaded beyond anything else to be relieved of the
+weight for that would mean--. She refused to put the awful thought into
+words, merely driving herself on more desperately. And all the time she
+was gasping out words of hope and courage to the poor girl she
+supported.
+
+Amy seemed beyond words, for she made no answer, merely clutching
+Betty's shoulder more tightly and holding on with a grimness born of
+terror.
+
+Then just as the gallant Little Captain felt her strength going and knew
+she could not hold out much longer, Mollie came abreast of her with
+Grace a few feet behind.
+
+Mollie shook the water from her eyes, gave one glance at Betty's face,
+then gave peremptory orders.
+
+"Give her to me, Betty," she directed. "I guess you're about all in.
+That's it, Amy; grasp my shoulder with your other hand. Get a good grip
+before you let go of Betty. That's the way. Now we're all right. Between
+us we'll have you in in a jiffy. All right, Betty? Do you need help
+yourself?"
+
+But Betty shook her head, her long steady strokes keeping her even with
+Mollie. In a moment Grace came up to them and directed Amy to put her
+free hand on her shoulder, and in this fashion they finally reached
+shallow water.
+
+They found that they were not a moment too soon, for as they got to
+their feet and stooped to lift Amy, they found that she had fainted.
+
+"Thank heaven that didn't happen out there," cried Betty, with a
+shuddering glance out over the treacherous water.
+
+Between them, fatigued though they were with the ordeal they had just
+gone through, they got Amy to the shore and began to work over her.
+
+It did not take very long to bring her back to consciousness, for Amy
+had a wonderful constitution and strong vitality. However, it seemed
+ages to the anxious girls who worked over her, and when at last she
+opened her eyes they were ready to cry with relief.
+
+"H-how do you feel?" asked Betty tremulously, for she was beginning to
+feel the reaction. "Are you all right?"
+
+"Don't try to get up," commanded Mollie, as Amy tried weakly to raise
+herself on her elbow.
+
+"Just lie still and you'll feel better in a minute," Grace added, while
+Amy looked from one to the other of them with wide, bewildered eyes.
+
+"What happened," she asked, then, as memory came sweeping back to her,
+she gave a little cry and covered her eyes with her hand.
+
+"Oh, girls," she cried, "I thought I was going to die!"
+
+"Yes, yes, we know," said Betty soothingly, as though she were talking
+to a little child, "but you're all right now, dear."
+
+"Don't try to tell us about it unless you want to," added Mollie.
+
+"I swam out farther than I meant to," Amy went on, as though they had
+not spoken. "And when I tried to get back I found that something was
+wrong with my right leg." She was shivering with exhaustion and the
+memory of the awful experience she had gone through, but when the girls
+tried to stop her she would not listen and hurried on feverishly.
+
+"It was a cramp I guess, and the harder I tried to get rid of it the
+worse it got till finally I got panic-stricken. I called to you girls,
+but you didn't seem to hear me. Then--" she paused, and the girls held
+their breath as she looked around at them. "Then--I went down. I came up
+again and called, and--and--I saw you, Betty. Oh, it was terrible!"
+
+"Then," cried Betty, her voice trembling, "when you went down that last
+time--"
+
+"I didn't go down," Amy contradicted her. "I struggled so hard that I
+succeeded in getting my head above water and--that was when you reached
+me--Betty--"
+
+"Thank Heaven," said Betty, with a little sob, "that I was there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN
+
+"Well," said Mollie, with a sigh, "I fancy there isn't very much use of
+our sitting around here in our bathing suits. I, for one, don't feel
+like swimming any more to-day."
+
+"Nor I," agreed Grace.
+
+"And I," said Amy, turning away with a shudder from the water where she
+had so closely come to death, "feel as if I never wanted to see the
+water again."
+
+"Oh, but you will get over that," Betty assured her quickly. "I don't
+blame you a bit for feeling that way now--I do myself--but after a while
+you will be just as crazy about it as ever."
+
+"I don't know," said Amy slowly. "When you have once come face to face
+with death like that, you are not anxious to do it again in a hurry."
+
+"But you have never had a cramp before," reasoned Mollie, "and you
+probably never will have one again."
+
+"But I am not sure of that," insisted Amy.
+
+"There's no reason why you can't be sure of it after a while," Betty
+pointed out. "You see, we girls are pretty well out of practice. It's a
+long time since we did any swimming to amount to anything, and our
+muscles are weak and flabby. Why, we all got tired out to-day twice as
+quickly as we ordinarily would."
+
+"And you tried to swim too far," added Mollie. "That's the reason your
+poor old muscles protested."
+
+"It might have happened to any one of us," Grace agreed. "All we need is
+a little practice to swim as well as ever again."
+
+"Oh, do you think so?" asked Amy eagerly, while the color came back into
+her pale cheeks. "If I could only be sure of that!"
+
+Betty was about to reply, but at that minute a voice hailed them from
+the direction of the house and they jumped up to see what was wanted.
+
+"It's mother," said Grace. "And she seems to be waving something at us."
+
+"It's an envelope," cried Mollie. "It may be a letter from mother."
+
+She started running toward the house, with Grace, thinking of Will, at
+her heels, while Betty helped Amy to her feet.
+
+"Are you feeling stronger now?" she asked. "Or would you rather rest a
+little longer?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," Amy assured her, though for a minute she had to
+cling to Betty for support.
+
+They made their way rather slowly after the others. Before they had
+reached the foot of the bluff Mollie came scrambling down again and ran
+toward them wildly.
+
+"What do you think has happened now?" she cried, taking Amy's other arm
+and helping her along.
+
+"Oh, Mollie," cried Amy, standing stock still to gaze at her, "what--"
+
+"The twins haven't been found?" Betty questioned eagerly, but Mollie
+shook her head.
+
+"No such luck," she returned. "But we have found out one thing. Those
+blessed little twins are alive, anyway."
+
+"How do you know?" they queried breathlessly.
+
+By this time they had reached the top of the bluff and were all, Mrs.
+Ford included, hurrying toward the house.
+
+"They received a letter," Mollie explained, sinking down on a step of
+the porch while the others crowded about her eagerly, "from some old
+rascal--oh, if I could only get my hands on him!" she paused to glare
+about her ferociously, but they impatiently hurried her on.
+
+"Yes! But the letter!" Betty urged.
+
+"It was from a man who demanded twenty thousand dollars--" she paused
+again, while the girls gasped and crowded closer, "for the return of the
+twins."
+
+"Then they were kidnapped!" cried Grace.
+
+"Yes. But they ran away first," explained Mollie, almost beside herself
+with anger and excitement. "And this old--brute! found them, and, I
+suppose because they were well dressed, thought he saw a way to make
+some easy money. Oh, my poor darlings! My poor little Paul and Dodo!
+Girls, we've just got to find them, that's all. I can't sit here and do
+nothing a minute longer."
+
+"But the police--" Amy suggested.
+
+"Oh, the police! Of course they are on the job--or think they are,"
+interrupted Mollie scornfully. "But I don't believe they will be able to
+find our babies in a thousand years. And every time I think of them,
+frightened to death! Oh, our precious babies!"
+
+"I wonder how he found out where they lived," broke in Grace, who had
+been following her own train of thought.
+
+"They told him, of course," said Mollie. "Poor little trusting angels,
+of course they would think any grown person was their friend. Oh, if
+they had only fallen in with some respectable person instead of
+that--that--" she could think of nothing bad enough to call the man who
+had stolen the twins.
+
+"Of course," said Mrs. Ford--it was the first time she had spoken--"your
+mother showed the letter to the police."
+
+"Of course," Mollie agreed, two angry spots of color in her cheeks. "And
+equally of course they have promised to do all in their power to
+apprehend the villain. But it makes me wild to just sit here and do
+nothing!"
+
+"But I don't see what there is to do," said Amy.
+
+"Neither do I," cried Mollie, jumping to her feet and beginning to pace
+restlessly up and down the porch. "That's the worst of it. I feel so
+absolutely helpless. And all the time I have no way of knowing what
+horrible thing may be happening--"
+
+"Oh, the man is probably treating them pretty decently," said Betty,
+adding, reasonably: "If he hopes to get all that money from your mother
+he isn't going to take a chance on losing it by harming the twins."
+
+"I know," cried Mollie, stopping in her restless promenade to regard
+Betty. "But how in the world is mother going to raise any such sum of
+money? Twenty thousand dollars--why, we haven't that much ready cash in
+the world!"
+
+"But he doesn't know that," Grace pointed out. "And as long as he keeps
+on hoping--"
+
+"But how long is he going to keep on hoping?" cried Mollie, turning on
+her. "He knows mighty well that if mother had that much money she would
+move heaven and earth to get it together and get the twins back. And the
+very fact that she hasn't--"
+
+"Oh, but that doesn't always follow," Betty broke in eagerly. "There are
+a great many people who, even if they had the money, would try to bring
+the rascal to justice before they submitted to blackmail."
+
+"But not my mother," Mollie insisted.
+
+"But the kidnapper doesn't know that," Grace put in. "And he will
+probably lie mighty low for a few weeks, knowing that the police are
+hunting for him."
+
+"For the next few weeks, yes," admitted Mollie. "But he isn't going to
+wait forever, and when he finds out that mother can't raise the money
+what would be the natural thing for him to do? Get the twins out of the
+way, of course," she said, answering her own question.
+
+"But there is always the chance--yes even the probability--" insisted
+Betty, "that before very long the police will be able to find the fellow
+and recover the twins."
+
+"Yes," Grace added, "that kind of criminal is never very clever, you
+know. They are bound to leave something undone that will incriminate
+them."
+
+Mollie groaned and sank into a chair.
+
+"And in the meantime," she said, "all I have to do is just to sit here
+and wait and act as if nothing had happened. Oh, I can't! I've simply
+got to do something!"
+
+"Well, I'm sure I don't know how a girl can do anything that the police
+can't," sighed Grace, adding wistfully: "Goodness, wouldn't I like a
+chance to be happy again!"
+
+"I guess we all would," said Mollie moodily.
+
+They were silent for a long time after that, each one busy with her own
+unhappy thoughts and no one noticed that the sun had gone under a cloud
+and that the wind was rising.
+
+It was the increasing thunder of the waves on the rocks that finally
+startled them into a realization of the present.
+
+"There's a fearful storm coming up!" cried Grace, springing to her feet.
+"Look at those banks of clouds."
+
+"And I'm getting cold," added Amy, shivering, and then they suddenly
+realized that they still had on their bathing suits.
+
+"I guess we're going crazy--and no wonder," said Grace, as they started
+indoors to change their things.
+
+"Has any one any idea what time it is?" asked Mollie. "I'm sure I
+haven't."
+
+"It must be after twelve, for I'm beginning to feel hungry," Betty
+answered.
+
+"And I'm feeling faint," Amy added. "I shouldn't wonder if a cup of tea
+would go awfully well."
+
+"You poor little thing," said Betty, putting an arm about her. "No
+wonder you feel faint. We should have given you something to strengthen
+you long ago. I don't know what we've been thinking of!"
+
+"It's all my fault," said Mollie contritely, noticing suddenly how white
+Amy's face was and how dark were the circles under her eyes. "I let my
+own affairs make me forget everything else. Why didn't you say
+something, Amy?"
+
+"I didn't think of it myself," Amy answered truthfully, "until Betty
+spoke of being hungry. Girls," she paused outside her door to sniff
+inquiringly, "do I smell something, or am I dreaming?"
+
+"I'll say you smell something," Grace answered, sniffing hungrily in her
+turn. "It's mother getting lunch, of course. I don't know what we ever
+would have done without her."
+
+While the girls were dressing the threatened storm was coming nearer,
+and toward the end they had to put on the light to see to fix their
+hair.
+
+Even had the sun been shining brightly, they would have felt depressed,
+what with Amy's accident and the bad news Mollie had received; but with
+the wind wailing dolefully and black darkness in the middle of the day,
+they felt themselves growing utterly discouraged.
+
+Grace had heard no further news of Will, and the one straw of hope that
+she clutched so desperately was that he had not died, or surely her
+father would have heard. In this case, no news was good news to a
+certain extent.
+
+And as for Betty, brave as she had tried to be since that terrible night
+when she had read Allen's name among the missing, even she felt her
+courage slipping--slipping, and began to wonder if after all, hoping did
+any good.
+
+To-day, as she stood before the mirror, mechanically putting up her hair
+and looking through and past her own reflection, her eyes suddenly lost
+their preoccupied stare and became focused upon herself. For the first
+time in days she was seeing herself without the mask of cheerfulness she
+had so determinedly assumed. And as she looked, her eyes suddenly filled
+with tears--tears almost of self-pity.
+
+For the mirror told her, what she had scarcely realized, just how much
+she had suffered. Her eyes, usually so bright and merry, were dark and
+brooding. Her face looked thin and drawn, and her lips--those lips that
+had always seemed to smile even when her eyes were grave--had a
+pathetic, wistful droop, and there were lines, yes, actually lines,
+about them.
+
+"If Allen should see you," she told herself tremulously, "he probably
+wouldn't know you, Betty."
+
+Yet all the while she knew that if it were possible for Allen to see her
+or for her to see Allen, the face in the mirror would disappear as if by
+magic and the old Betty would return, for joy would have taken its place
+in her heart.
+
+With a little sob she turned from the mirror and switched off the light.
+The noise of the surf beating against the rocks came to her menacingly
+and the wind wailed shrilly around the house.
+
+"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she cried, stretching out her arms in an agony of
+entreaty. "Somewhere you must hear me calling you. Allen, come back to
+me, dear!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE SHADOW LIFTS
+
+
+"I wonder if it is going to rain forever," cried Mollie petulantly,
+beating a restless tattoo on the window pane. "As if we weren't forlorn
+enough without the old weather making things a hundred times worse."
+
+"They say troubles never come singly, and I guess they're right," sighed
+Amy. She was sitting near the window in the brightest spot she could
+find--which was not very bright at that--knitting and trying her best
+not to think of Will. The result was that he was never for a minute out
+of her mind.
+
+"What's the matter, Grace--I mean more than usual?" Betty laid aside her
+book and looked over at Grace questioningly. "I don't believe you've
+said three consecutive words all day long."
+
+"And left to myself I wouldn't say that much," returned Grace moodily,
+adding, as they turned to stare at her: "It seems as if I never open my
+mouth these days but what I say something unpleasant, so I made up my
+mind last night that I wouldn't talk till I had something cheerful to
+talk about."
+
+"Then you're apt to be dumb till doomsday," retorted Mollie, with such a
+depth of pessimism that the girls had to smile at her.
+
+"What an awful thing to happen to a girl," said Betty, with a wry little
+smile.
+
+"I'm glad you didn't say what girl," retorted Grace, and therewith
+subsided into her gloomy meditation again.
+
+Betty took up her book and Amy went on with her knitting while the rain
+came down in torrents and the surf thundered and roared.
+
+Mollie turned from the window and looked at them, and the whole
+situation suddenly appealed to her rather hysterical sense of humor. She
+began to laugh, and the longer she laughed the harder she laughed till
+she sank into a chair and shook with mirth.
+
+The other girls first looked surprised, then alarmed.
+
+Betty threw down her book and went over to her.
+
+"For goodness sake, Mollie, what's the joke?" she asked, as Mollie
+looked up at her with red face and watery eyes.
+
+"If it's as funny as all that I think you might share it with us," added
+Grace.
+
+"Oh, it isn't funny," gasped Mollie, "it's h-horrible."
+
+Then as suddenly as she had begun to laugh, she began to cry with great
+sobs that tore themselves from her and seemed utterly beyond her
+control.
+
+Alarmed, the girls soothed and patted and comforted her till finally the
+storm had passed and she became more quiet.
+
+"You must think I'm a p-perfect idiot," she sputtered, raising swollen
+eyes to them. "I don't know what in the w-world g-got into me. I just
+went all to pieces."
+
+"So we see," said Betty, while she gently wiped Mollie's eyes with a
+clean handkerchief. "But please don't do it again," she added
+whimsically. "I don't believe we could survive another one."
+
+"But it's made me feel better," said Mollie, a minute later, as though
+the discovery surprised her. "It's made me feel lots better," she added.
+
+"I wonder if we couldn't all try it," suggested Amy.
+
+"Yes, how do you get that way," added Grace, with interest. "I'm willing
+to try anything once."
+
+"It--it isn't pleasant while it lasts," said Mollie, adding with a
+suggestion of a smile: "And I doubt if I could give you the recipe."
+
+"I wonder," Amy suggested shyly after a little while, "if perhaps a
+little music wouldn't help out. Won't you play for us, Betty?"
+
+"Oh, Betty, please!" Grace took up the suggestion eagerly. "It would
+take our minds off ourselves."
+
+"Yes, do, Betty. You know you never refuse," urged Mollie, jumping up
+and escorting the Little Captain to the piano.
+
+Betty obediently sat down to the piano, but her fingers wandered over
+the keys uncertainly. She did not want to play. Music, good music,
+always roused in her a feeling of exquisite sadness, a pain that was
+akin to joy, and in her present mood she was afraid to play.
+
+But the girls had asked her to, and if it would make them feel any
+better--
+
+She struck a chord of exquisite harmony, and every fibre in her seemed
+yearningly to respond. She had meant to play something bright and
+cheerful, but almost against her will her fingers wandered into Grieg's
+"To Spring."
+
+The elusive, plaintive melody floated throbbingly out into the room,
+while the girls sat motionless, fascinated. They had never heard Betty
+play just this way before, and instinctively they knew that she was
+showing them her heart.
+
+She played it through to the last whispering note, then dropped her
+head upon her arms and sobbed as though her heart would break.
+
+"You shouldn't have asked me," she said, when they tried to comfort her.
+"I knew I couldn't play without making a f-fool of myself. It was the
+one--Allen loved best--" the last words so low that they had to bend
+close to hear them.
+
+"Poor little Betty!" cried Mollie, stroking her hair gently. "It was
+selfish of us to ask you, but you did play it wonderfully," she added
+with a sudden little burst of enthusiasm. "You had us all hypnotized."
+
+"And then I had to go and spoil everything by making a baby of myself,"
+Betty lamented. "Goodness, I've cried more in the last week than in all
+the rest of my life before."
+
+"Well, you have had plenty of company," said Grace dryly. "Though what
+comfort that is, I never could see."
+
+Betty sat up, dabbed a last tear from her eyes, and looked about her
+with a weak little attempt at a smile.
+
+"Well," she said, "now that Mollie and I have entertained the company, I
+wonder who's next?"
+
+"I'll recite that little ditty entitled, 'The Face On the Barroom
+Floor'," Amy volunteered. "Some kind person wished it upon me when I was
+too young to object."
+
+"Don't you dare," said Grace, alarmed. "If you do I'm going out, rain or
+no rain--"
+
+"And get drowned."
+
+"Well, there are worse things."
+
+"No there aren't," denied Amy, with a shiver. "I know, because I tried
+it."
+
+At that moment came an interruption in the shape of a sharp rapping at
+the kitchen door.
+
+The girls looked at one another questioningly.
+
+"Mercy, I wonder who's calling upon us in this weather?" said Mollie.
+
+"It might be a good idea to look and see," Betty returned dryly, and ran
+to the kitchen, followed closely by the others.
+
+She flung open the door, letting in a gust of wind and a flood of rain
+as she did so, and a tall figure in a rubber coat almost fell into the
+room.
+
+"Why, it's our delivery-boy-mail-carrier!" cried Betty, as the young
+giant recovered himself and pulled off his dripping hat.
+
+"Yes'm," he replied, with a good-natured grin that stretched from ear to
+ear. "The very same, an' at your service."
+
+"But how did you manage to get here?" cried Betty, too astonished even
+to offer the unexpected visitor a seat. "You never could drive through
+that awful mud."
+
+"No'm, I reckon mos' likely I couldn't," he answered amiably, adding
+with a return of the loquacity that was his most marked failing: "I
+remember one year we had a storm near's bad as this, an' Luke Bailey, he
+got kind of short o' pervisions--campin' in the woods he was--an' he
+tried to drive his team into town--"
+
+"But you said you didn't drive out!" Grace interrupted. "And if you
+didn't drive, you must have walked all the way."
+
+"Yes'm, reckon I did. Well, Luke he got jest about as fur--"
+
+"But why did you come?" broke in Mollie, unable to bear the suspense any
+longer.
+
+"I got this here package of letters," he replied, seeming suddenly to
+remember the cause of his errand. "Some o' them came a couple o' days
+ago, but I said to myself I might jest as well wait an' see if the
+weather didn't clear up--"
+
+"And so when it didn't, you walked away up here in all the rain," Betty
+finished for him, real gratitude in her voice. "It was most awfully kind
+of you."
+
+"Oh, that ain't nothin'," he denied, fidgeting uneasily, while Mollie
+hastily sorted the letters. "I ain't never finished tellin' you what
+happened to Luke Bailey--"
+
+He was off again, and the girls were vaguely conscious of his voice
+rambling on and on while they eagerly scanned the handwriting on their
+letters.
+
+Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry and stumbled back against the
+table, holding on to it for support.
+
+"Betty! Honey! What is it?" cried Amy. "You look as white as a ghost."
+
+"A letter," she gasped, holding out an envelope with the familiar red
+diamond in the corner. She was shaking from head to foot. "Girls, oh,
+girls, it's from Allen!" Then she turned and fled from the room.
+
+Luke Bailey's biographer stared after her stupidly while the girls
+gasped and looked wildly at one another for confirmation of what they
+had heard.
+
+"A letter!" she had said. "From Allen!"
+
+Then he was not dead--their dazed brains comprehended that fact. And he
+could not be missing either. After a minute that stupefying fact became
+equally clear.
+
+Then slowly they regained the use of their tongues.
+
+"Did you hear what I heard?" asked Mollie, looking from Grace to Amy and
+back again.
+
+"I think I'm awake," Grace answered, with the same incredulous look in
+her eyes.
+
+"She said," Amy repeated slowly, "that she had received a letter from
+Allen. Then the report that he was missing must have been a mistake."
+
+"It looks that way," said Mollie, two spots of color beginning to burn
+in her face. Then she turned to the boy who was still staring stupidly
+from one to the other of them. Even the story of Luke Bailey had been
+temporarily driven from his mind.
+
+"Miss Nelson," Mollie explained, taking pity on his bewilderment, "has
+received the most wonderful news, and we can't thank you enough for
+bringing it to her. Can't we get you a cup of tea or something?" she
+offered, rather vaguely.
+
+But the boy refused, and seeing that they were all tremendously excited
+about something, he finally took his leave, feeling very much abused
+that his story of Luke and his adventures had not been listened to with
+the attention it deserved.
+
+Once the door was closed behind this angel in disguise, the girls rushed
+after Betty and were met and nearly bowled over by that delirious little
+person herself.
+
+"He's not missing--never was!" she cried, waving the letter wildly in
+the air, beside herself with relief and joy. "He's just as well as ever
+he was, and Grace darling, and Amy, too, he says, he says--"
+
+"Oh, what?" cried Grace, her face growing white while Amy clutched the
+back of a chair.
+
+Betty tried to pull herself together. She turned the pages of the letter
+in search of a particular place. Finding it, she began:
+
+"He says that Will--Oh read it," she cried, thrusting the letter into
+Grace's hands. "There it is--that paragraph. Read it aloud, Grace. Oh, I
+think--I think--I'll die of joy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS
+
+
+Grace's eyes filled with tears of sheer weakness, but she brushed them
+away impatiently. Then she read, brokenly at first, then radiantly as
+the marvelous truth came home to her.
+
+          "'Poor old Will certainly did have a narrow
+          escape,'" she read, "'but thanks to the gods he is
+          out of danger now. I went to see him
+          yesterday--got leave for the first time in
+          weeks--and he was looking mighty chipper. No
+          wonder, with the good looking nurse he had.'"
+
+Amy gave a little involuntary sound and then blushed scarlet when the
+girls looked at her.
+
+"Never mind!" cried the joy incarnate that was Betty, putting an arm
+about her. "Just wait till you hear what he says later on. Go on,
+Gracie."
+
+          "'But do you know what that old boy said when I
+          happened to comment upon the excellent nursing he
+          must have had?'" Grace read on, while Amy tried
+          hard to look unconcerned. "'He reached under his
+          pillow and pulled out three pictures. "Those are
+          my three girls," he said, and I swear there was
+          moisture in his eyes. "You probably won't believe
+          me, old man, but there isn't a girl or woman over
+          here who could make me look twice at her unless
+          she resembles one of those," and he pointed to the
+          photographs I still held.
+
+          "'And when I opened them there was Mrs. Ford's
+          face smiling up at me as sweet as life, and Grace
+          with her best Gibson Girl expression--you can tell
+          her from me that that is some picture of her--And
+          who do you think the third was?'"
+
+Grace paused again and looked over slyly at Amy, who turned away her
+face, only just showing the tip of one furiously blushing ear.
+
+          "'It was Amy Blackford,'" Grace read on, "'And it
+          was one fine picture of her too. Gosh, I didn't
+          know it was as serious as all that, did you,
+          little girl? But then the war does make a fellow
+          feel about ten years older than he really is, and
+          the girls at home suddenly seem the most desirable
+          and necessary things on earth. And Amy did look so
+          sweet and comfy and altogether like home that I
+          couldn't blame the old chap.
+
+          "'Then I pulled out the picture of the most
+          beautiful girl in the world and we talked about
+          home and--other things, you know--until we were
+          ready to weep on each other's shoulders and the
+          handsome nurse put me out.
+
+          "'Do you know what I'm going to do the first
+          minute I reach good old U. S. A. territory, Betty
+          de--'"
+
+But the sentence was never finished, for with a quick movement, Betty
+snatched the letter away and hugged it to her breast while her face
+flamed.
+
+"That's all you get," she cried, "the rest belongs to me. Oh, girls, did
+you ever hear such wonderful news? Allen strong and well and Will
+recovering splendidly, and both of them so sweet and loyal. Oh, I could
+kiss that beautiful red-haired angel who brought all this happiness to
+us. Where is he? Has he gone back again?"
+
+"Yes, he has, and what do we care!" cried Grace wildly, her face
+radiant. "Amy, you little goose, you're not crying are you? Don't you
+know there isn't a thing in the world to cry about? Come on--laugh, you
+sweet, comfy, little thing. Don't you know that Will is getting better
+and keeps our pictures under his pillow? That darling, wonderful,
+adorable boy. Great heavens!" She stopped suddenly and a dismayed
+expression crept over her face. "Excuse me, please," and she was racing
+up the stairs, leaving the girls to look after her, bewildered.
+
+"What in the world," began Betty, when Amy lifted a face, shining
+radiantly through her tears.
+
+"Don't you know?" she said with an understanding born of her wonderful
+happiness. "Grace has gone to tell her mother. You really can't blame
+her for being in a hurry."
+
+A few minutes later Grace called down to Amy.
+
+"Come on up, Honey," she commanded. "Mother wants to speak to you."
+
+After Amy had left the room, Mollie and Betty looked at each other
+questioningly.
+
+"I wonder if Mrs. Ford is going to welcome Amy into the family,"
+chuckled Mollie.
+
+"I hardly think so, since there isn't anything definitely settled yet,"
+said Betty absently. She was thinking of Allen and what he had said in
+the part of his letter she would not let Grace read. Her eyes shone
+mistily and her heart sang. Allen, her Allen, was safe, and, oh, those
+wonderful things he had said!
+
+"It must be nice to be as happy as they are," Mollie said, with a little
+sigh, and with a start Betty came out of her preoccupation.
+
+"Oh, Mollie, dear, I--I forgot," she confessed, putting an arm about her
+chum. "I was so selfishly taken up with my own happiness that I didn't
+think!"
+
+"It isn't your fault," said Mollie, smiling bravely. "You just can't be
+happy enough to suit me. You know that, don't you, Betty?"
+
+"Of course I do, you perfect brick!" said Betty, hugging her fondly.
+"But we can't any of us be really happy until we know you are. But even
+that is coming out all right, I'm sure of it," she finished gayly, her
+old optimism fully restored.
+
+Mollie started to shake her head moodily, thought better of it, and
+smiled instead.
+
+"I won't be a death's head at the feast," she told herself savagely. "I
+suppose I'm awfully wicked, but now that they are all so happy, it makes
+me feel dreadfully lonesome. I'm glad from my very heart for them, of
+course. But, oh, Paul! Oh, little Dodo! If you will only come back to
+Mollie, she will never go away from you again, never, never!"
+
+Dinner that night for the other girls was a joyful occasion. The girls
+dressed up in their prettiest and best, Mrs. Ford and Betty cooked a
+most appetizing supper, and if it had not been for the one dark cloud
+still hanging over them, the evening that followed would have been the
+happiest they had ever spent.
+
+Mollie kept her promise to herself and entered into the gayety with the
+best of them, and no one--except Betty, perhaps--realized how much she
+was suffering.
+
+However, when the lights were out that night and everybody but herself
+was asleep, Mollie's brave barrier broke down and she sobbed miserably
+into her pillow.
+
+"I want to go home!" she cried, heart brokenly. "I can't keep this up
+day after day! I can't! If I don't hear some good news soon, I'll die--I
+know I shall."
+
+Only the sound of the waves pounding angrily on the shore and the
+shrilling of a rapidly rising wind answered her, and after a while she
+sank into a troubled, uneasy sleep.
+
+And how could she know as she lay there, restlessly tossing from side to
+side and muttering incoherently to herself, that the wind and waves were
+actually sending her an answer which, in her wildest moments, she could
+never have imagined?
+
+Toward morning something, she could not tell what, roused Betty and she
+sat up suddenly in bed, every nerve taut, every sense alert.
+
+The wind had increased in fury while they slept, till now it was howling
+fiercely about the house, rattling the windows and whistling shrilly
+through the cracks, which together with the pounding of the waves, made
+an almost deafening uproar.
+
+And the rain! It came down in sheeting torrents and was driven by the
+rushing wind in maddened gusts against the window panes until it seemed
+they must give beneath the strain.
+
+"What a storm!" cried Betty, pressing her hands against her ears to keep
+out the noise of it. "I wonder if that was what wakened me."
+
+Then, becoming fully awake, she suddenly realized that she was very
+uncomfortable, and, looking down, discovered that the bed spread was
+wet.
+
+"Mercy, it's raining in all over us!" she tried aloud, and, springing
+out of bed, ran over to the window and closed it with a bang. When she
+came back she found Grace sitting up in bed and staring at her.
+
+"For goodness sake, what's happening?" asked the latter sleepily: "Is it
+the end of the world?"
+
+"Search me," returned Betty, inelegantly. She had to almost scream to
+make herself heard above the noise of the storm. Furthermore, her feet
+were wet and her nightgown was wet, which did not serve to lift her
+spirits. In fact, she was feeling decidedly grumpy. "The only thing I do
+know," she shouted, "is that I'm nearly drowned."
+
+"Don't you know that getting drowned at night is strictly forbidden?"
+Grace began severely, but was promptly smothered by an avenging pillow.
+"Why don't you get in bed?" she asked, when she had succeeded in
+disentangling herself. Betty was sitting disconsolately on the dry side
+of the bed, which happened to be that occupied by Grace.
+
+"If you want to know, just feel the covers," Betty answered. "Next time
+I'm going to make you sleep on the side near the window. Think I'll go
+in and see if Mollie and Amy are drowned yet," she added, starting for
+the door. "Goodness, but this is a heavy storm!"
+
+However, when she started to close the window in the next room she
+noticed to her surprise that the rain had slackened, had almost stopped.
+But not so the wind. If anything, it had increased in fury.
+
+She was about to turn back and tiptoe out of the room, hoping that she
+had not roused the girls, when her eye was caught and held by a vivid
+flash of red somewhere out to sea.
+
+Startled, she stood stock still, staring out in the direction from which
+that light had come. It seemed weird, eery--that lonesome light sending
+its signal out into the storm-whipped darkness. For that it was a
+signal, she did not for a minute doubt.
+
+Then it came again--green this time--a light that shot up rocketlike
+toward the sky, then, bursting, dived to instant annihilation in the
+turbulant water.
+
+Another followed, and another, and then the truth came home to Betty.
+Somewhere out there In that foaming sea a ship had met with disaster,
+perhaps at this moment was sinking and her crew, were sending out
+desperate appeals for aid.
+
+For a moment she felt almost sick with pity and excitement. Then she
+controlled herself and ran over to wake the girls.
+
+"Mollie! Amy!" she cried, her voice shrill even above the shrieking of
+the wind. "Wake up, wake up! Oh, why don't you wake up?" as the girls
+opened sleep-laden eyes and stared at her stupidly.
+
+"Wh-what's the matter," stammered Mollie, suddenly sensing almost
+hysterical excitement in Betty's voice and realizing that something
+terrible had occurred.
+
+"Is anybody sick?" queried Amy almost fretfully, for she had been
+enjoying the first good sleep she had had in weeks.
+
+"No. But somebody may be if we don't hurry up," cried Betty, wild with
+impatience. "Don't lie there asking foolish questions when people may be
+dying."
+
+"Dying," they echoed, still staring at her stupidly.
+
+"There's a wrecked ship out there," Betty explained, her words stumbling
+over each other as she tried to make the girls understand. "They are
+sending up signals for help, and if we don't get it for them right away
+it may be too late. Oh, girls, for all we know, it may be too late now!"
+
+Mollie and Amy, at last fully awake and almost as excited as Betty
+herself, sprang out of bed and rushed to the window to see for
+themselves the signals the distressed vessel was sending up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+JOY
+
+
+What happened in the next hour the girls never afterward clearly
+remembered. In what seemed a nightmare, they found their clothes, and,
+after turning things wrong side out, getting the left shoe on the right
+foot, and various other mishaps calculated to wreck the most
+well-balanced nervous system, they finally succeeded in getting them on.
+
+"Where shall we go?" Mollie gasped out, as, clad in oilskins, they
+rushed madly down the stairs.
+
+"There's a farmhouse about a mile down the road," explained Grace, "and
+all the farm hands sleep on the premises. We can get them. And there's
+the life-saving station only a little way beyond. They may have seen the
+signals and be on their way already."
+
+"All right--let's go," said Betty grimly, as she flung open the door.
+
+A terrific gust of wind greeted her and sent her staggering back upon
+the other girls.
+
+"It's even worse than I thought," she gasped, regaining her balance. "We
+will have to do some fighting to get there, girls."
+
+"A mile against that wind!" groaned Grace. "Betty, I don't think we can
+ever make it."
+
+"We've got to--or at least make the attempt," cried Betty, pulling her
+coat more tightly about her. "If nobody else will come, I'm going
+alone," she added, and the girls knew her well enough to be sure she
+meant it.
+
+"Come on," cried Mollie, who had never yet been known to ignore a
+challenge. "We'll do our best, anyway, even if we die trying."
+
+"Bravo! Spoken like an Outdoor Girl!" cried Betty, and at the challenge
+in her voice, Grace and Amy instinctively straightened up.
+
+"We're all Outdoor Girls," said Grace stoutly.
+
+"And we'll show you," Amy added, with a ring in her voice, "that we are
+not afraid to go any where that you can go."
+
+"Fine!" cried the Little Captain, her eyes shining. "Come on, then. What
+chance has a pesky old wind against four Outdoor Girls, I'd like to
+know!"
+
+She opened the door again, and this time, being prepared for the
+onslaught of the wind, merely gritted her teeth and ducked her head and
+plunged gamely into it. And without a minute's hesitation, the others,
+who were "also Outdoor Girls," followed her.
+
+The fight with the wind that followed was all they had expected it would
+be--and more. Their clothes were whipped about their legs as if about to
+disengage themselves and fly away from their owners forever. And several
+times they were forced to stop and turn their backs to catch their
+breath and gather strength to go on.
+
+But on they did go until the welcome vision of a gaunt old farmhouse
+rising ghostily from the early morning mist rewarded them and set their
+hearts to beating high with hope.
+
+As they fought their way step by step up to the porch, they tried to
+call out, but found that whatever sound they were able to make was
+drowned in the roar of the wind.
+
+They found an old-fashioned knocker on the big front door, and worked it
+with all their strength. After what seemed to them an age of waiting,
+the door itself opened and a head popped out at them.
+
+"Well, what in time--" the owner of the voice was beginning, when Betty
+pushed impatiently past him, the girls following close behind her.
+
+It took a surprisingly short time--seeing that the girls all insisted
+upon talking at once--to make the farmer understand the situation.
+
+"We're going on to the life-saving station," Betty told him, trembling
+with excitement.
+
+"All right, but my boys'll beat 'em to it," he promised, a glint in his
+grey eyes.
+
+Then the girls were on their way again, pushing desperately against a
+wind that seemed to rise higher and higher with every minute, while in
+the east the greying sky grew light.
+
+"A--clear--day!" Mollie gasped, pushing back the wind-blown hair from
+her face. "At last!"
+
+"Do you hear anything?" Betty shouted back. "It seems to me I--"
+
+They listened, and then, above the wind, it came to them
+unmistakably--the sound of voices, masculine voices.
+
+"The life-savers!" gasped Grace. "We don't have to go any farther.
+Let's--let's--wait for them."
+
+They had not long to wait, for almost before Grace had finished speaking
+half a dozen men carrying life-saving paraphernalia broke through the
+underbrush and came running down the path toward them.
+
+They stopped at sight of the panting girls, but Betty waved them on
+impatiently.
+
+"The wreck!" she cried. "We came for you! Hurry!" and without another
+word the men hurried on, leaving the girls to follow them more slowly.
+
+However, they accomplished the return trip in about half the time it had
+taken them to fight their way against the wind, and as the first bright
+rays of the sun gilded the country side, they found themselves back at
+the house, where Mrs. Ford was anxiously awaiting them.
+
+She had some breakfast prepared for them, which they ate standing, then
+rushed headlong down to the beach. The life-savers were already busily
+at work launching their sturdy boats, and as the girls followed the
+direction they were taking out to sea they suddenly saw the wrecked
+ship.
+
+Driven by the hurricane wind, it had been caught on one of those
+treacherous bars so common along this part of the coast. Part of the
+bottom had been torn away, and if the ship had not been so tightly
+wedged upon the bar it must certainly have sunk hours before. As it was,
+the starboard deck stood high in the air while the port side almost
+touched the water and was constantly swept by mountainous combers.
+
+The girls shivered as they looked.
+
+"If the waves should wash it loose--" Betty began, then checked herself.
+The possibility was too horrible to contemplate.
+
+"Look!" cried Mollie, clutching her arm, "They are filling the first
+boat. Oh, Betty, they'll certainly be swamped! I can't look!" She turned
+away but the next minute her eyes were fixed strainingly upon the wreck
+again.
+
+"They're gone! They're gone!" cried Amy, jumping up and down in her
+excitement as the boat sunk in the hollow between two huge combers and
+was lost to view. "No, they're not! They're up again," as the boat,
+looking pathetically tiny in comparison to the vastness of the ocean,
+rose gallantly on the crest of a big wave and came rushing toward them,
+reeling from side to side. The next moment they were lost to view again.
+
+"Oh, they'll never make it, they'll never make it," moaned Grace. "It
+isn't possible."
+
+But the gallant little boat came on and out fighting its bitter fight
+with the elements, till, rising on one last long comber, it swept
+magnificently in and grounded on the shore.
+
+The girls were already racing eagerly toward it, and a few minutes later
+were welcoming the poor bedraggled survivors back to safety. There were
+nine of them in all, four women, one young girl, three men and a little
+boy. The child was sobbing and clung to his mother's skirts, terrified.
+
+Betty drew Grace aside.
+
+"Some one will have to take them up to the house, let them dry out, and
+give them something to eat," she whispered. "Will you do that, Grace?"
+
+Grace nodded, and Amy, who had overheard the request, begged to go with
+her. Mollie and Betty remained behind to watch the rest of the rescue
+work.
+
+Luckily the ship was a merchant vessel and carried very few passengers,
+so that the life-savers were confident of saving all those on board.
+Also the wind was beginning to abate and the sea was becoming less
+angry--all of which helped them in their work.
+
+The two girls were standing side by side, eagerly watching the progress
+of the second boat, when they were startled by a hail from behind and
+turned to find Grace and Amy flying down toward them.
+
+"Mollie!" Amy gasped, trying to catch her breath while her cheeks flamed
+with excitement, "we just heard something we thought you ought to know.
+You know the woman with the little boy," she hurried on as Mollie was
+about to speak, "well, while she was comforting her own child, she
+happened to speak of two other children on board--"
+
+"Who cry a great deal," Grace put in eagerly. "They are in charge of a
+man who looks like a Spaniard, and they seem to be in mortal terror of
+him--"
+
+"Girls," the word burst through dry lips as Mollie took a step toward
+them, "what are you telling me? Oh, I can't bear to hope if--" she
+grasped Grace's arm and shook it, not realizing how she hurt. "Tell me,"
+she cried, "are they boy and girl--"
+
+"Yes," Grace answered trembling. "I don't know, Mollie, dear, of course,
+but from her description, those two children sounded an awful lot like
+the twins!"
+
+Mollie waited to hear no more, but was off like a whirlwind down the
+beach toward the second boat that was just coming in to shore. And while
+she ran she was praying with all her fervent young heart.
+
+"Oh, Lord, give me back those babies!" she cried sobbingly. "If you only
+will I'll never, never, _never_ ask you for anything again as long as I
+live."
+
+Then she saw them!
+
+A big, vicious looking man with black hair and black bushy eyebrows was
+lifting Dodo--her little Dodo--out of the boat. And while she looked,
+her heart beating wildly, hardly able to believe the evidence of her
+eyes, the man stretched out his hand for the boy, who sat crouched in
+the back of the boat. Then followed something that made Mollie cry out
+in rage.
+
+Because the boy hung back in evident terror, the man struck him across
+the face, and, seizing his hand, jerked him roughly out of the boat.
+
+"Dodo! Paul!" screamed Mollie, racing down toward them, unmindful of wet
+feet and sodden clothing. "Babies, it's Mollie! Your own Mollie who--"
+
+But her voice was drowned in a shriek from the twins as they tore
+themselves loose from the man and flung themselves upon her. She dropped
+to her knees in the sand and strained them to her, laughing, crying,
+sobbing out endearments while they clung to her frantically, burying
+their faces in her neck.
+
+"Don't let wicked man get Dodo!" sobbed the little girl. "He's bad man!
+He hurt Dodo."
+
+With a cry Mollie jumped to her feet, an arm about each of the twins,
+and looked about for the man. The passengers who had also come ashore in
+the boat stood looking on in bewilderment. But the Spaniard had
+disappeared.
+
+"Where did that man go?" cried Mollie frantically. "There he is!" she
+added, as she caught sight of him just approaching the foot of the
+bluff, evidently bent on flight. "Don't let him get away! He's a
+kidnapper!"
+
+Several of the men were already racing off in pursuit, and as the
+Spaniard was a heavy man and not over agile, the foremost of them soon
+overtook him.
+
+He seemed to put up little resistance, evidently realizing that he was
+too heavily out-numbered. He surrendered to the inevitable and contented
+himself with merely glowering.
+
+"Come on," cried Mollie, taking the beloved twins by the hand and
+starting back along the beach while the girls joyfully accompanied her,
+talking and ejaculating all at the same time, no one knowing what the
+other was saying--nor caring. The wonderful fact was enough for them.
+
+When they scrambled up to the top of the bluff they found the men
+awaiting them with the sullen captive in their midst.
+
+"What'll we do with him, Miss?" asked one of them respectfully, touching
+his cap to Mollie.
+
+"Do with him?" cried Mollie, regarding the Spaniard with flashing eyes.
+"There isn't anything bad enough to do to him. But for the present,
+we'll have to be satisfied with locking him up. We have plenty of
+evidence," she added, waving that part of it aside with a motion of her
+hand. "Letters and things, you know. He kidnapped my little brother and
+sister," indicating the twins, who snuggled close against her and
+regarded their former captor with terrified eyes, "and then demanded
+twenty thousand dollars of my mother for their return."
+
+"Blackmail, eh?" growled one of the men, throwing a scornful look at the
+Spaniard. "Well, you'll get paid up this time, old boy. Get on there,
+will you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was many hours later and the dusk was falling softly over the land.
+The passengers of the wrecked ship had long ago started villageward,
+there to entrain for the city, leaving two of their number behind.
+
+These two were seated at the head of a long table in the little house at
+Bluff Point, devouring chicken and rice before an audience of admiring
+and joyful Outdoor Girls. Only Mollie very often could not see them for
+the tears that dimmed her eyes.
+
+Quite suddenly Betty stopped in the very middle of a sentence to stare
+at Mollie.
+
+"Your mother!" she cried. "You forgot to let her know!"
+
+"Oh, no, I didn't," Mollie answered. "I sent a telegram by one of the
+boys who took that dirty Spaniard to the station. And, oh, girls," she
+leaned forward suddenly while the tears overflowed and slowly trickled
+down her face, "if she does as I begged her to, she will be here
+to-morrow. Darling little mother!"
+
+At the love in her voice the girls felt their own eyes grow wet.
+
+"What a difference!" said Betty softly, looking around the table. "A few
+nights ago we were utterly miserable. Now we are wildly happy. We have
+the darling twins back again, and our boys 'over there' are safe.
+Girls," she cried, suddenly springing to her feet and raising her cup on
+high, "let's drink a toast--"
+
+"To what?" they cried, rising with one motion.
+
+"To the time when our boys come home!"
+
+And so, in the midst of their happiness, with the dark clouds rolled
+away and the sun shining through, we will once more wave farewell to our
+Outdoor Girls.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+_This Isn't All!_
+
+Would you like to know what became of the good friends you have made in
+this book?
+
+Would you like to read other stories continuing their adventures and
+experiences, or other books quite as entertaining by the same author?
+
+On the _reverse side_ of the wrapper which comes with this book, you
+will find a wonderful list of stories which you can buy at the same
+store where you got this book.
+
+
+_Don't throw away the Wrapper_
+
+_Use it as a handy catalog of the books you want some day to have. But
+in case you do mislay it, write to the Publishers for a complete
+catalog._
+
+
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of "The Blythe Girls Books"
+
+Every Volume Complete in Itself.
+
+These are the adventures of a group of bright, fun-loving, up-to-date
+girls who have a common bond in their fondness for outdoor life,
+camping, travel and adventure. There is excitement and humor in these
+stories and girls will find in them the kind of pleasant associations
+that they seek to create among their own friends and chums.
+
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AROUND THE CAMPFIRE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON CAPE COD
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT FOAMING FALLS
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ALONG THE COAST
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT SPRING HILL FARM
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT NEW MOON RANCH
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON A HIKE
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON A CANOE TRIP
+          THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT CEDAR RIDGE
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+THE BLYTHE GIRLS BOOKS
+
+By LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+Author of The Outdoor Girls Series
+
+Illustrated by Thelma Gooch
+
+The Blythe Girls, three in number, were left alone in New York City.
+Helen, who went in for art and music, kept the little flat uptown, while
+Margy, just out of business school, obtained a position as secretary and
+Rose, plain-spoken and business like, took what she called a "job" in a
+department store. The experiences of these girls make fascinating
+reading--life in the great metropolis is thrilling and full of strange
+adventures and surprises.
+
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: HELEN, MARGY AND ROSE
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: MARGY'S QUEER INHERITANCE
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: ROSE'S GREAT PROBLEM
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: HELEN'S STRANGE BOARDER
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: THREE ON A VACATION
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: MARGY'S SECRET MISSION
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: ROSE'S ODD DISCOVERY
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HELEN
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: SNOWBOUND IN CAMP
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: MARGY'S MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
+          THE BLYTHE GIRLS: ROSE'S HIDDEN TALENT
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
+
+
+THE LILIAN GARIS BOOKS
+
+Illustrated. Every Volume Complete in Itself.
+
+Among her "fan" letters Lilian Garis receives some flattering
+testimonials of her girl readers' interest in her stories. From a class
+of thirty comes a vote of twenty-five naming her as their favorite
+author. Perhaps it is the element of live mystery that Mrs. Garis always
+builds her stories upon, or perhaps it is because the girls easily can
+translate her own sincere interest in themselves from the stories. At
+any rate her books prosper through the changing conditions of these
+times, giving pleasure, satisfaction, and, incidentally, that tactful
+word or inspiration, so important in literature for young girls. Mrs.
+Garis prefers to call her books "juvenile novels" and in them romance is
+never lacking.
+
+          JUDY JORDAN
+          JUDY JORDAN'S DISCOVERY
+          SALLY FOR SHORT
+          SALLY FOUND OUT
+          A GIRL CALLED TED
+          TED AND TONY, TWO GIRLS OF TODAY
+          CLEO'S MISTY RAINBOW
+          CLEO'S CONQUEST
+          BARBARA HALE
+          BARBARA HALE'S MYSTERY FRIEND
+          NANCY BRANDON
+          NANCY BRANDON'S MYSTERY
+          CONNIE LORING
+          CONNIE LORING'S GYPSY FRIEND
+          JOAN: JUST GIRL
+          JOAN'S GARDEN OF ADVENTURE
+          GLORIA: A GIRL AND HER DAD
+          GLORIA AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
+
+
+CAROLYN WELLS BOOKS
+
+Attractively Bound. Illustrated. Colored Wrappers.
+
+
+THE PATTY BOOKS
+
+Patty is a lovable girl whose frank good nature and beauty lend charm to
+her varied adventures. These stories are packed with excitement and
+interest for girls.
+
+          PATTY FAIRFIELD
+          PATTY AT HOME
+          PATTY IN THE CITY
+          PATTY'S SUMMER DAYS
+          PATTY IN PARIS
+
+
+THE MARJORIE BOOKS
+
+Marjorie is a happy little girl of twelve, up to mischief, but full of
+goodness and sincerity. In her and her friends every girl reader will
+see much of her own love of fun, play and adventure.
+
+          MARJORIE'S VACATION
+          MARJORIE'S BUSY DAYS
+          MARJORIE'S NEW FRIEND
+          MARJORIE IN COMMAND
+          MARJORIE'S MAYTIME
+          MARJORIE AT SEACOTE
+
+
+THE TWO LITTLE WOMEN SERIES
+
+Introducing Dorinda Fayre--a pretty blonde, sweet, serious, timid and a
+little slow, and Dorothy Rose--a sparkling brunette, quick, elf-like,
+high tempered, full of mischief and always getting into scrapes.
+
+          TWO LITTLE WOMEN
+          TWO LITTLE WOMEN AND TREASURE HOUSE
+          TWO LITTLE WOMEN ON A HOLIDAY
+
+
+THE DICK AND DOLLY BOOKS
+
+Dick and Dolly are brother and sister, and their games, their pranks,
+their joys and sorrows, are told in a manner which makes the stories
+"really true" to young readers.
+
+          DICK AND DOLLY
+          DICK AND DOLLY'S ADVENTURES
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
+
+
+THE NANCY DREW MYSTERY STORIES
+
+By CAROLYN KEENE
+
+Illustrated. Every Volume Complete in Itself.
+
+Here is a thrilling series of mystery stories for girls. Nancy Drew,
+ingenious, alert, is the daughter of a famous criminal lawyer and she
+herself is deeply interested in his mystery cases. Her interest involves
+her often in some very dangerous and exciting situations.
+
+
+THE SECRET OF THE OLD CLOCK
+
+Nancy, unaided, seeks to locate a missing will and finds herself in the
+midst of adventure.
+
+
+THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE
+
+Mysterious happenings at an old stone mansion lead to an investigation
+by Nancy.
+
+
+THE BUNGALOW MYSTERY
+
+Nancy has some perilous experiences around a deserted bungalow.
+
+
+THE MYSTERY AT LILAC INN
+
+Quick thinking and quick action were needed for Nancy to extricate
+herself from a dangerous situation.
+
+
+THE SECRET AT SHADOW RANCH
+
+On a vacation in Arizona Nancy uncovers an old mystery and solves it.
+
+
+THE SECRET OF RED GATE FARM
+
+Nancy exposes the doings of a secret society on an isolated farm.
+
+
+THE CLUE IN THE DIARY
+
+A fascinating and exciting story of a search for a clue to a surprising
+mystery.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
+
+
+TED SCOTT FLYING STORIES
+
+By FRANKLIN W. DIXON
+
+Illustrated. Each Volume Complete in Itself.
+
+No subject has so thoroughly caught the imagination of young America as
+aviation. This series has been inspired by recent daring feats of the
+air, and is dedicated to Lindbergh, Byrd, Chamberlin and other heroes of
+the skies.
+
+          OVER THE OCEAN TO PARIS;
+          _or, Ted Scott's Daring Long Distance Flight_.
+
+          RESCUED IN THE CLOUDS;
+          _or, Ted Scott, Hero of the Air_.
+
+          OVER THE ROCKIES WITH THE AIR MAIL;
+          _or, Ted Scott, Lost in the Wilderness_.
+
+          FIRST STOP HONOLULU;
+          _or, Ted Scott Over the Pacific_.
+
+          THE SEARCH FOR THE LOST FLYERS;
+          _or, Ted Scott Over the West Indies_.
+
+          SOUTH OF THE RIO GRANDE;
+          _or, Ted Scott On a Secret Mission_.
+
+          ACROSS THE PACIFIC;
+          _or, Ted Scott's Hop to Australia_.
+
+          THE LONE EAGLE OF THE BORDER;
+          _or, Ted Scott and the Diamond Smugglers_.
+
+          FLYING AGAINST TIME;
+          _or, Breaking the Ocean to Ocean Record_.
+
+          OVER THE JUNGLE TRAILS;
+          _or, Ted Scott and the Missing Explorers_.
+
+          LOST AT THE SOUTH POLE;
+          _or, Ted Scott in Blizzard Land_.
+
+          THROUGH THE AIR TO ALASKA;
+          _or, Ted Scott's Search in Nugget Valley_.
+
+          FLYING TO THE RESCUE;
+          _or, Ted Scott and the Big Dirigible_.
+
+          DANGER TRAILS OF THE SKY;
+          _or, Ted Scott's Great Mountain Climb_.
+
+          FOLLOWING THE SUN SHADOW;
+          _or, Ted Scott and the Great Eclipse_.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+THE REX LEE FLYING STORIES
+
+By THOMSON BURTIS
+
+Illustrated. Every Volume Complete in Itself.
+
+The author of this series of exciting flying stories is an experienced
+aviator. He says, "During my five years in the army I performed nearly
+every sort of flying duty--instructor, test pilot, bombing,
+photographing pilot, etc., in every variety of ship, from tiny scout
+planes to the gigantic three-motored Italian Caproni."
+
+Not only has this author had many experiences as a flyer; a list of his
+activities while knocking around the country includes postal clerk,
+hobo, actor, writer, mutton chop salesman, preacher, roughneck in the
+oil fields, newspaper man, flyer, scenario writer in Hollywood and
+synthetic clown with the Sells Floto Circus. Having lived an active,
+daring life, and possessing a gift for good story telling, he is well
+qualified to write these adventures of a red-blooded dare-devil young
+American who became one of the country's greatest flyers.
+
+          REX LEE; GYPSY FLYER
+          REX LEE; ON THE BORDER PATROL
+          REX LEE; RANGER OF THE SKY
+          REX LEE; SKY TRAILER
+          REX LEE; ACE OF THE AIR MAIL
+          REX LEE; NIGHT FLYER
+          REX LEE'S MYSTERIOUS FLIGHT
+          REX LEE; ROUGH RIDER OF THE AIR
+          REX LEE; AERIAL ACROBAT
+          REX LEE; TRAILING AIR BANDITS
+          REX LEE; FLYING DETECTIVE
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
+
+
+GREAT SPORT STORIES
+
+For Every Sport Season
+
+By HAROLD M. SHERMAN
+
+Here's an author who knows his sports from having played them. Baseball,
+football, basketball, ice hockey, tennis, track--they're all the same to
+Harold M. Sherman. He puts the most thrilling moments of these sports
+into his tales. Mr. Sherman is today's most popular writer of sport
+stories--all of which are crowded with action, suspense and clean,
+vigorous fun.
+
+          The Home Run Series           The Gridiron Series
+
+          Bases Full!                   Goal to Go
+          Hit by Pitcher                Hold That line!
+          Safe!                         Touchdown
+          Hit and Run                   Block That Kick!
+          Double Play                   One Minute to Play
+          Batter Up!                    Fight 'Em, Big Three
+
+
+          The Basketball Series         The Ice Hockey Series
+
+          Mayfield's Fighting Five      Flashing Steel
+          Get 'Em Mayfield              Flying Heels
+          Shoot That Ball!              Slashing Sticks
+
+
+          Other Stories of Sport and Adventure
+
+          The Land of Monsters          Ding Palmer Air Detective
+          Beyond the Dog's Nose
+          Cameron McBain Backwoodsman   Don Rader, Trail Blazer No. 44
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+BUDDY BOOKS FOR BOYS
+
+Illustrated. Individual Colored Wrappers
+
+Tales of Western pioneer days and the California gold fields; tales of
+mystery, humor, adventure; thrilling stories of sports and aviation.
+There is a wide range of subjects in this list of titles--all by
+well-known authors of books for boys.
+
+          HOT DOG PARTNERS               By William Heyliger
+          YOUNG EAGLE OF THE TRAIL       By J. Allan Dunn
+          THE LAND OF MONSTERS           By Harold M. Sherman
+          QUARTERBACK HOTHEAD            By William Heyliger
+          LEFTY LEIGHTON                 By Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+          NUMBER 44                      By Harold M. Sherman
+          BILL DARROW'S VICTORY          By William Heyliger
+          THE STORY OF TERRIBLE TERRY    By Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+          BEYOND THE DOG'S NOSE          By Harold M. Sherman
+          DING PALMER, AIR DETECTIVE     By Harold M. Sherman
+          BEAN-BALL BILL                 By William Heyliger
+          CAMERON MacBAIN, BACKWOODSMAN  By Harold M. Sherman
+          FLYING HEELS                   By Harold M. Sherman
+          FLASHING STEEL                 By Harold M. Sherman
+          BUFFALO BOY                    By J. Allan Dunn
+          THE CLOUD PATROL               By Irving Crump
+          SPIFFY HENSHAW                 By Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+          THE PILOT OF THE CLOUD PATROL  By Irving Crump
+          DON RADER, TRAIL BLAZER        By Harold M. Sherman
+          TUCK SIMMS, FORTY-NINER        By Edward Leonard
+          WIGWAG WEIGAND                 By Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+          HERVEY WILLETTS                By Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+          SKINNY McCORD                  By Percy Keese Fitzhugh
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   Obvious punctuation errors corrected.
+
+   Page 5, "Laugingly" changed to "Laughingly". (Laughingly the Little)
+
+   Page 21, "relucantly" changed to "reluctantly". (reluctantly left
+            his)
+
+   Page 27, "uncerimoniously" changed to "unceremoniously".
+            (unceremoniously shook her)
+
+   Page 31, "lanquid" changed to "languid". (languid and bouncing)
+
+   Page 31, "dispairingly" changed to "despairingly". (despairingly
+            at the)
+
+   Page 32, "aimably" changed to "amiably". (amiably helping herself)
+
+   Page 37, "nickle" changed to "nickel". (nickel to a)
+
+   Page 62, "appetities" changed to "appetites". (and healthy
+            appetites)
+
+   Page 65, "acceping" changed to "accepting". (accepting the
+            inevitable)
+
+   Page 72, "Joie" changed to "Joe". (Joe, my boy)
+
+   Page 165, "Mr." changed to "Mrs." (time Mrs. Ford)
+
+   Page 184, "knealt" changed to "knelt". (knelt down by)
+
+   Page 184, "though" changed to "thought". (we thought maybe)
+
+   Page 185, "dabbbed" changed to "dabbed". (dabbed fiercely at)
+
+   Page 190, "lanquidly" changed to "languidly". (languidly and
+             found)
+
+   Page 198, "waiving" changed to "waving". (be waving something)
+
+   Page 198, "maybe" changed to "may be". (It may be)
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 20324.txt or 20324.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/3/2/20324
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+